The passing of the Family First Prevention Services Act last year in February will dramatically change the social-service environment, not only for Arkansas but nationwide, said Mark Howard, executive director for Ouachita Children’s Center in Hot Springs.
“It is a drastic change in how youth services are delivered nationwide,” Howard said. “The funding is moving from shelters and residential facilities to prevention, which is a great change, but is also a drastic change for organizations like ours and for emergency shelters here.”
According to www.ncsl.org (the National Conference of State Legislatures), the legislation seeks to change the way Title IV-E funds can be spent by states.
“Title IV-E funds previously could be used only to help with the costs of foster-care maintenance for eligible children; administrative expenses to manage the program; training for staff, foster parents and certain private-agency staff; adoption assistance; and kinship guardianship assistance,” the website states.
“Now states, territories and tribes with an approved plan have the option to use these funds for prevention services that would allow ‘candidates for foster care’ to stay with their parents or relatives.”
Ouachita Children’s Center, or OCC, is a nonprofit child-advocacy organization that provides services for youth, families and victims of domestic violence. Howard said that so far this year, the OCC has served more than 300 children.
He said the center serves three distinct populations of children, including those who are in custody and are assigned by the Department of Children and Family Services.
“We have kids who are in the juvenile-justice service,” Howard said. “We act as a diversion to the detention center because we know, for youth, there is a pipeline to prison.
“Our goal is to work with the local juvenile court to make sure we try as many diversion methods as possible so they don’t end up in juvenile detention.”
Howard said the center also has a runaway homeless program for kids ages 18 and younger.
“So how do we reinvent ourselves, and how do we stay relevant?” Howard asked. “How do we survive as an organization, with all those changes?”
Howard has been the executive director for OCC for a year and a half, and he said the biggest challenge he’s faced has been following the changing dynamics of social service.
“We are trying to figure out what our next step is and how we can continue to serve and be a service to the community,” Howard said. “We want to continue to be a provider of those services so we can benefit our community.
“For me, the more people we serve, the better off our community will be.”
Howard is originally from Pawnee, Oklahoma, but grew up in Jenks, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa. He earned a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership and a Master of Business Administration degree from Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. He and his wife live in Hot Springs Village, having moved to Arkansas to be closer to their parents.
“It seemed like a good place to land, to live in the Village and work in Hot Springs,” Howard said.
Before coming to OCC, Howard served as president and CEO of the Presbyterian Home for Children in Talladega, Alabama.
“I was in the ‘for-profit world’ and decided I was tired of that,” Howard said. “I had a bit of a midlife crisis and went into nonprofit work instead.
“It was a lot less money, but a lot more personal reward.”
In the past six months, Howard and the OCC have established new programs, including a day shelter for homeless youth ages 24 and younger, and a domestic-violence shelter in Hot Springs.
Livvey Rurup is in charge of the Ouachita Youth Center, at 115 Crescent Ave. in Hot Springs. The center opened in December, but she started working for the OCC in early October.
“It gives them a place to do their laundry, shower and have a place to socialize, receive mail and use our computers,” Rurup said. “We help them become more self-reliant and eventually get into housing.
“We go about trying to build a relationship.”
Howard said the center also has a street outreach program as part of the youth drop-in center. He said the center staff goes into the community to search for homeless youth and “build relationships with them.”
“Everything they receive from us is free,” Rurup said. “It gives them a chance to get out of the rain, hang out on the coach, watch a movie or play games.
“The majority of the places they go, they are not welcome. You can see that it makes a huge difference to them.”
She said the center also provides lockers for the youth to keep their personal belongings in because “it is sometimes hard for them to keep up with their stuff.”
“We are so happy to have this space, but we outgrew it the minute we got into it,” Rurup said, “but these people are going to exist, whether you are there or not.
“We are happy to be able to help this many.”
Howard said since the youth center has opened, there have been about four or five family reunifications.
“[Mark] is really growth-minded, and he is really open to trying new things, which is what the community needs,” Rurup said. “He has absolutely changed what we could do to help our youth. He is part of a leadership class that brings in volunteers, and he has a general commitment to the idea.
“This is something that didn’t exist before Mr. Howard.”
Nicole Johnson is in charge of the Ouachita Family Center, at 202 S. Third St. in Hot Springs, and she said there was such a need for a domestic violence center in the area that after being open for about an hour, the center already had a guest.
She said since that person has walked in, she has completed the goals she set out to accomplish and has transitioned to her own apartment.
“She actually stopped in to see me today,” Johnson said. “It makes me feel good, not for me, but I do it for them.
“I’m not doing it for credit or personal gain. We are helping change the lives of others for the better — it is the best feeling in the world.”
Johnson said the center is always in need of donations, mostly hygiene products, such as toothpaste, deodorant, and shampoo and conditioner.
“We definitely do not turn away donations,” she said. “Whatever we don’t use, we can split it among the other three centers.”
Johnson said since the center opened, it has had 26 guests come through.
“It is a continuum of care,” Howard said. “Originally, our mission was to help homeless children, and we have expanded that to homeless youth and homeless families, and we have some crossover with that. … It allows us to work with the family unit. There was a tremendous need for a domestic-violence shelter here.
“Going from a strictly children’s service to a wider gambit of social services has been part of my journey for a while.”
Rurup said every person who comes in is different, especially with young adults.
“Some are supposed to be in school, so they are worried the cops will be called,” she said. “Others are former foster kids who don’t have people around to care for them and don’t want to go back to that. … I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want to. We want this to be an ongoing relationship, not a temporary quick fix.
“The majority of the people who have come through have gotten a job or gone back to school and things like that. It has been really great so far.”
For more information on OCC, visit occnet.org.
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.