Wolverine Human Services Helps Children to Be Victors

Wolverine Human Services has been serving youth and their families since 1987,offering foster care and adoption services and treatment for youth suffering from abuse, neglect, or substance abuse. Initially established in Detroit by Robert E. Wollack as a group home to assist 14 boys, the organization has grown and expanded its services and programs and now has campuses and office locations in Bloomfield Hills, Flint, Saginaw, Vassar and Taylor, to name a few.

The mission at Wolverine Human Services (WHS) is to offer appropriate settings and effective services to children under 18, their families, and their communities. "We have through the years developed a full continuum of care where we have foster care and adoption, we have non-secure residential programs, and then a maximum-security treatment program; so we have the full continuum of services in child welfare," says CEO Judith Fischer Wollack. While larger welfare agencies also serve adults and developmentally disabled individuals, WHS does not. "We only focus on children and their families, so we're the largest child welfare agency in Michigan," she adds. "We have served a child from every county in the state of Michigan."

In 2019, there were 3,000 children in need of adoption in Michigan and 1,400 more in need of foster care. WHS seeks to ensure children are placed in a stable and secure family environment and will help to facilitate the process of becoming a licensed foster care or adoptive parent. Through two additional foster care programs, Independent Living and Young Adult Voluntary Foster Care, youth who are aging out of the state's foster care system find guidance and security with a volunteer family who will assist them on their journey to young adulthood.

When children suffer from abuse, neglect, or participate in risky, delinquent behavior, WHS's treatment programs help them to overcome social and economic barriers, explore their inner strengths, and contribute to their own healing using cognitive behavioral therapy which helps to modify hurtful thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. At WHS, the average stay for a young person in the non-secured residential treatment is five to seven months; the average length of stay at the fully-secured treatment facility is 11 months. Fischer Wollack says, "The goal is for them to return to something permanent, either back to their home or foster care, or if they're aging out, do they go to independent living? (Basically,) finding someplace for them to live."

Fischer Wollack says the training staff receive, along with the skills and new insights youth in treatment learn, areall valuable knowledge that travels with that person back to their own home and family. "We're very much a part of the community," she adds.

Fischer Wollack says that prior to the pandemic, the organization served about 550 children each day. With school and classes being done virtually from home this past year, she explains there have been fewer interventions by protective agencies who investigate incidences of abuse or neglect. Currently, she says WHS serves fewer than 400 children each day.

It is work that Fischer Wollack finds extremely satisfying. "To me, being a social worker and doing what we do is just significant, it's everyday living, and you're touching people all the time. We are blessed everyday to serve the children and their families in Michigan, and provide treatment, and care, and support, and security to bring people to the next level," she says. "We all do things every day, we have to go to work, we have to take care of our families, but we every once in a while get to do something that feeds our soul, that really makes us feel good."

To find out more about Wolverine Human Services, go to http://www.wolverinehs.org. Fischer Wollack suggests, "Look at the website, see if there's anything that will feed your soul.