Photo gallery raises awareness for foster children

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

In the hallways of the Brooks Institute, Cota Street Gallery, photographs of children playing on the beach, families holding hands, a boy playing guitar and children with toothy grins are on display.
The families and children portrayed in the photos could be of any kid in any state, and they could likely hang in any photography gallery in the country.
But the 60 pictures on display are all of children under the jurisdiction of Santa Barbara County Department of Child Welfare Services. All have dealt with some form of neglect or abuse and none of them have a permanent home. Yet.


The photos make up the inaugural Santa Barbara County Heart Gallery, which is aimed at dispelling harmful stereotypes that surround foster children and families that provide foster care, and help educate the public about the need for foster homes.
“People think that they’re damaged goods, or somehow think that they’re not whole,” said Anne Rodriguez, a foster care family recruiter for Child Welfare Services, who spearheaded the effort to create the Heart Gallery. “They’re just kids.”
As galleries go, this one is unique since its goal isn’t to sell a pricey piece of art, or generate funds for an organization. It’s sole purpose is to raise awareness of a public issue that’s quickly growing into an epidemic, Rodriguez said.
She said 900 children are currently under the jurisdiction of Child Welfare Services, which is more than double what it was five years ago.
Rodriguez said the increase is due to a number of factors, one of which is the growing use of methamphetamines by parents.
“We have a methamphetamine problem here in this community,” she said. “There needs to be a shift in consciousness. People need to step up to the plate and realize that these are our children and there a are problems here in Santa Barbara.”
Causes aside, the number of children in need of stable homes is increasing and Rodriguez said the stigma surrounding them needs to end.
Rodriguez said the negative stereotypes surrounding foster children run so deep that when parents find out Rodriguez’s kids are foster children, they’re sometimes not allowed to play together.
She said when one foster child or a parent of a foster child commits a crime, it often makes the nightly news and puts a huge dent in the recruitment efforts.
At the moment, Rodriguez said there are no available homes in the city of Santa Barbara that will accept teenage male or female foster kids, a teenager with a child or a group of siblings.
As a result, she said the trauma of being separated from parents is compounded when siblings are split up, which regularly occurs.
She said one of her favorite pictures in the gallery shows four siblings running along the beach holding hands. She said this group of kids was nearly split up until a family came forward at the last second and took them in.
Brooks instructor and gallery director Russ McConnell also said this photo embodied what the gallery is all about.
McConnell took many of the featured photos and organized a handful of other Brooks graduates to participate. He called the partnership between Brooks and Child Welfare Services a “perfect match.”
“I think it’s a great thing for Brooks,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had anything that has had a worthy cause like this to help people.”
A sign next to each set of photographs has information about Child Welfare Services and providing a foster home.
One sign says: “The Heart Gallery is based on the simple truth that a photograph is worth a thousand words.”
A statement from one of the foster children that participated says, “I wanted to show people that foster children are beautiful, talented, intelligent and worthy of love and respect,” while another said, “I should not feel shame because I was a foster child or because my parents gave me away for adoption. I am beautiful and whole, just like you.”
Rodriguez said she isn’t sure if the Heart Gallery will be an annual event due to the complications in receiving permission to photograph the children. She said she had to get a court order issued by several different judges for each child to participate.
But she hopes the current gallery, which will make an appearance in Lompoc and Santa Maria in months to come, will motivate people to open their homes to a foster child, many of whom have never left Santa Barbara County.
And if one can’t take a foster child in, Rodriguez said opportunities to provide mentoring and other services are always available.
Through mentoring, she said the children get an opportunity to see how other people live. She said some foster children have never used shampoo and conditioner and have never sat down at a dinner table to eat with a family.
“A lot of these kids, their life experience is so small,” Rodriguez said. “Just letting them know that there are infinite possibilities to evolve -- a lot of our kids don’t realize that.”
An opening reception for the Heart Gallery will be held Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. at 27 E. Cota St.
For more information about becoming a foster parent or mentoring, contact Rodriguez at 696-8959, or e-mail her at A.Rodriguez@SBCSocialServ.org.