Buckner ‘Homemakers’ Throw Protective Arm Around Family Following drug rehabilitation, program helps mom reunify with children A late-season cold front has thrown a wet snow over Levelland, covering the West Texas town with a slushy blanket that sticks to the bicycles and toys in Kim’s yard. Her small, three-bedroom mobile home has a cap of snow on top, and the steps leading to the entry door are barely navigable from the coating of ice on them. But inside the warm home, Kim’s five children are wrestling, watching television, eating snacks and playing games, all at the same time, it seems. Her children – Robert, 14; Daniela, 11; Vincent, 6; and 3-year-old twins Gabriela and Isabella all pile on the couch beside their mother while she recalls her story. Above the noise and activity, Kim smiles and says her life is “normal.” A year ago, life was anything but normal for the single mother in her 30s. She admits that her problems with drug abuse had made her life and the lives of her children chaotic. “There was a lot of drug abuse and it’s been off and on for years,” she explains. “My drug abuse started when I was 12.” Kim already had been investigated by Child Protective Services several times for her drug use and she knew that with her personal and home life on a downward turn, the investigations could lead to losing her family. “I already had CPS cases, a lot of them. The first time CPS was called on me, I was pregnant with my first one.” She points to a day in March 2003 when she grew “tired of it and knew I wasn’t taking care of the kids right. My house was upside down, the kids weren’t being fed and I said, ‘I can’t get any higher than I’ve been.’ I called my therapist and told her something needed to happen. CPS picked the kids up that day and I started rehab.” Her call to authorities started a 90-day stay in a drug rehabilitation program during which she was allowed few outside contacts “I didn’t know much about where the kids were. They had been placed with my great aunt after being in a shelter for a couple of months.” Another child, her oldest, was placed at Buckner Children’s Home in Lubbock for specialized school needs and behavioral therapy. Kim credits her faith in God for helping her through her rehabilitation and absence from her family. “I prayed a lot. I told God that He knows what’s best, and if it wasn’t right to get the kids back, do what’s best for the kids. I did it for them, and I did it for myself.” But after the 90-day rehabilitation period, she returned home needing oversight and help for the rehabilitation and reunification of her family. What she got was Karen Thompson of the Buckner Protective Homemakers program. She also found a friend in Thompson. Protective Homemakers, a program of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, is the answer for many families in need of help, especially when Buckner Children and Family Services of Lubbock put its brand on it. It provides services to families involved with Child Protective Services. Its goal is to prevent individual or family breakdown, encourage maximum independent parental functioning, prevent removal of children from the home, and promote family reunification. “I came in, taking it as a courtesy case from the town where Kim was living,” says Thompson. “I made sure Kim stayed on task and if she needed anything, I tried to get it for her.” The program approaches reunification and strengthening families by focusing on daily living skills such as budgeting money and finding resources to help families. The strength of the Homemakers program, Thompson notes, is that it allows caseworkers to “do what you can do to help your families. If they need furniture, clothing or food, you find resources for those. You help them budget. If Kim needed to go somewhere, she didn’t have a car, so I provided transportation, like taking her to the store. The girls didn’t have beds, so we got bunk beds from a family and now her girls have beds.” But it’s not the help Thompson brought Kim that has made the greatest impact on the family’s rebuilding. “It’s the positive support. She’s always pushed me up, made me feel good about myself. Christmas was a good (example). If it wasn’t for her and Buckner, we wouldn’t have had much. “She’s more of a friend than a caseworker,” Kim emphasizes, pointing out that Thompson’s last visit had occurred days before. “My case is closed and she’s still here.” And “here” – home – is “different than before,” she says. “We have a routine, we wake up, we go to school, we get home, and we clean. The kids hate that. It’s peaceful, and we’re all in bed by 10. I never slept before. We’re like normal people.” Home also has its challenges, she says. “I work, and I have had a job for nine months, the same job. My income is $600 a month and rent is $400 a month. We pay all the bills, but I’m dead broke.” Since she entered rehabilitation last spring, Thompson says Kim has shown “consistency in wanting to do better for her kids, working herself to death to make things better for them. She has her faith in God and that is awesome. That’s why I feel like I can help her make it.” Daniela has noticed the changes in her home, too. “My mom has been taking care of us and so has Ms. Karen.” Buckner continues its commitment to help Kim have time for her family by continuing care for her oldest son, 16, who is receiving “individual therapy and group therapy. He’s got a lot of issues and is in an on-campus school, which is good because he can’t do public school.” Looking to her future without the careful oversight of Thompson and the Protective Homemakers program, Kim says: “My future is going to be day-by-day. I have dreams. I want to own a house. I want a house so bad. I want a house that my (future) grandkids can come to at Christmas.” Until then, she says, looking at Robert, who has an arm around his mother’s neck as they sit on the couch, she will enjoy the newfound happiness of her reunited family. “How many 14-year-olds do you see that put their arms around their mom?” she asks.