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Team Plummer honors Lauren Frey and her trailblazing legacy

March 29, 2021

 

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This month, we honor our long-time friend and colleague, Lauren Frey. Lauren served as Plummer’s first Director of Permanency Practice Leadership before moving on to the next chapter of her life earlier this year. In a career spanning over four decades, Lauren has devoted her life’s work to advancing permanency for youth in foster care – ensuring each has a family unconditionally committed to nurture, protect and guide them to successful adulthood.

Family has always been important to Lauren – from annual meetups with her many siblings, to the yearly summer camp she organized at her home for her nieces and nephews who lived out of state. As a single young professional, four foster youth joined her family as older teens, three of them by adoption. After marrying her husband John who shared similar values, they also committed to be extended family for other young people.

Lauren’s early career included groundbreaking work with Project IMPACT, one of the first organizations to focus on permanency for older youth. She continued this work with Casey Family Services, where she served as Project Director for Permanency Services. Throughout her career, Lauren met, worked, and shared ideas with the women who would later become members of her own consulting team. Lauren and her team were initially hired by Plummer on a contract basis to help transform our model from one that focused on preparing youth to navigate life on their own, to one that prioritized finding a family for every young person, regardless of age, behavior or circumstance. Lauren had such a strong impact on the organization that she and her team were brought on as Plummer’s Permanency Practice Leadership division in 2016.

Practice Leadership works with other private and public child welfare workers and agencies to provide training and consultation on best permanency practices, drawing from the experience of the Plummer Permanency Model. Thanks to Lauren’s trailblazing work, the Practice Leadership team is transforming child welfare practice by helping organizations to prioritize finding and nurturing family relationships for young people throughout the United States.

https://plummeryouthpromise.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/PPL-picture.jpeg 1009 1009 competenow /wp-content/uploads/2023/04/logo-1-1.png competenow2021-03-29 16:53:472023-04-29 07:10:35Team Plummer honors Lauren Frey and her trailblazing legacy

To My Child’s Foster Mom

March 18, 2021

 

Dear Foster Mother,

I’ve heard that my daughter, Keisha, is going to be placed with you next week. My caseworker said it would be ok to be in touch with you before then to say a few things. First of all, it’s really hard to know that my baby girl is going to be taken care of by another mother. I want you to know that I love Keisha very much. Even though she’s not with me now, she is always on my mind and I worry about her a lot. 

I want Keisha to do well with you and your family. Things got a little crazy here this past year and Keisha missed a lot of school. So, please make sure gets to school every day and does her homework. She is really smart, and I want her to stay in school and graduate high school and maybe even go to college. I want her to have a lot of the things I missed out on growing up. 

Keisha can be really quiet but there is a lot going on with her. She hides her feelings until she feels really safe with someone. So, please take some time to get to know her. Even if she says she doesn’t care about something she really does. Once she gets to trust you I hope she will be able to talk with you about things she worries about. 

Please, please help her understand that I love her and that I am working hard to get her back. I’ve been sober for three months now and I have been working as a waitress for the past six weeks. I’m still living with my mother (her Nana) but hope I can get an apartment for Keisha, her little brothers, and me. Please do everything you can to help her spend time with her brothers who are living together in another foster home. She has been an amazing big sister and probably had to spend too much time taking care of them. I know she worries about them a lot. 

Finally, I hope you understand how much I miss my kids. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life and I only hope I get a chance to make up for them with my kids. I want to see Keisha and spend time with her as soon as possible. My social worker said I could have regular phone calls with Keisha. I hope we can find a regular time for us to talk really soon. 

Maybe sometime you could call me and fill me in on what’s going on with her? That would be great. I hope we can get to know each other a little bit. I think I’ll feel better about this whole thing if I can see the person who is taking care of my baby girl. I hear that you have kids too and I pray that as another mother you can understand how much I love Keisha and how much I want things to be ok for her. 

Please give my love to Keisha! 

 

by Diane Kindler, MSW, LICSW

*This is a fictional letter based on real people and relationships.

 

https://plummeryouthpromise.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Mom-and-Daughter.jpg 788 940 competenow /wp-content/uploads/2023/04/logo-1-1.png competenow2021-03-18 16:37:542023-04-29 07:10:35To My Child’s Foster Mom

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