A Successful Alternative to Foster Homes

Richard Lopez smiled self-consciously when asked what brought him last year to Concept 7, the Orange County-based residential treatment program for troubled teen-agers.

“Regular kid problems, I guess,” he said, seated on a couch in the office of the Concept 7 group home for boys in Fullerton, a four-bedroom ranch-style house on a quiet residential street.

“My girlfriend got pregnant . . . I was looking for a job, but I couldn’t find one because I wasn’t really looking. I was getting into drugs pretty heavy, just smoking pot, doing a lot of speed, drinking. . . . I was doing some cocaine.”

Lopez, who was wearing blue jeans and a red polo shirt, crossed one leg over the other. Jiggling his foot up and down, he gazed out the window and continued:

“I was living in a foster home at the time, and Social Services said if I wasn’t in school or didn’t get a job they would take me out of the foster home.”

But Lopez, who spent his first 17 years living in a half-dozen different foster homes, just wasn’t interested in school.

“I was too much into my music and how I looked, and the way people thought about me--being too cool to care about school,” he said.

Fought, Ditched Classes

When he was expelled for fighting and ditching classes two months in a row, Lopez said, the Department of Social Services placed him with Concept 7--one of about a half-dozen residential treatment programs in Orange County offering teens a home-like alternative to Juvenile Hall or county shelters.

Lopez graduated from Concept 7 last July after 13 months in the program, which emphasizes integrating troubled teens back into society and into their families, upgrading their academic deficiencies and teaching them independent living skills.

Now 18, Lopez lives with friends in Alta Loma, works in a factory that makes animal nutrition products and has ambitious plans for his future: He wants to attend a trade school to study art or learn masonry. The slim, dark-haired teen-ager also dreams of becoming a model. “That,” he said, flashing a photogenic smile, “would be cool.”

He is not, Lopez acknowledged during a recent return visit to the group home, the same person he was when he first arrived at Concept 7.

“I’m a better person for coming here,” he said. “I’ve changed in the way that I do things--handling responsibilities, doing things on my own, asking questions. It got me ready for the outside world and to learn the things to survive.”

“If I hadn’t come here,” he added, “I’d probably be out doing the same old stuff, being with the wrong people. But I’m glad I came here. That stuff gets boring after a while, when you think about it.”

Typical of Boys in Program

“I’d say Richard is fairly typical of the type of boy who comes into our program,” Ozzie Oswald, supervisor and “father figure” at Concept 7’s Fullerton group home for boys, said in a separate interview.

“When Richard came into our program, he was very immature, with little impulse control. He had a real identity problem. He was almost like a chameleon. One week he’d identify with our ‘heavy-metal’ culture kid, the next week with our Mexican kids. He came in a really pretty sharp kid but had a lot of gaps in his education.

“Richard has just done an extremely good job. He’s more mature, much more stable in his assessment of himself. He’s got a lot more self-confidence and he’s aware of his strengths. He had no trust before. Now he communicates--he’s able to express his feelings.

“He just made up his mind he was going to make changes in his life. He sought some help for making them--just coming to the staff and being honest about what his needs are. You can’t work with kids--and they won’t make any significant changes--unless they’re honest with themselves.”

Since George and Betty Wakeling opened the first Concept 7 group home in Orange County in 1977, more than 1,100 teen-agers through age 17 have gone through the program.

The majority are placed by the Juvenile Probation Department for such offenses as breaking and entering, burglary, car theft, drug abuse or being chronic runaways. Others, who are the victims of child abuse, molestation or abandonment, are placed by the Department of Social Services. A small percentage are placed privately by their own parents.

Chronic Truant Problem

“They’re all labeled as being beyond parental control,” said Concept 7 associate director John Lybarger, a licensed marriage, family and child counselor who has a doctorate degree in psychology. “Most of them have a chronic truant problem and are two to three grades below their grade levels.

“They need a place more structured than their home environment but not as structured as jail. That’s the alternative we provide.”

Concept 7, which is licensed to accommodate 66 residents, has 61 teen-agers living in its four group homes in Orange County, an 18-bed ranch for boys in Apple Valley and an 18-bed ranch for girls and a group home for girls in Hemet.

In the beginning, however, was the Wakeling home.

The Canadian-born couple, who have been active in rehabilitative youth work since 1966, started taking troubled teens into their own home, a rented seven-bedroom house in Garden Grove, in 1968. At the time, Wakeling was chairman of Orange County’s Teen Challenge, which primarily worked with drug-dependent young people.

House Youths

The Wakelings continued taking young people into their home over the next eight years as they moved first to Santa Ana and then to Laguna Beach.

“We always had kids living with us,” said Wakeling, who in 1969 co-founded and directed Melodyland Hotline Center, a 24-hour crisis counseling telephone center in Anaheim. “The most we ever had in our home was 15, but mostly 12 was the norm.”

The young people they took in, he said, were street kids, kids with drug problems, delinquent kids, kids who had had nervous breakdowns and kids whose parents didn’t want them.

“There were a lot of self-esteem problems,” he said. “Some just needed a change to get their life together. They just needed a break at the time.”

Wakeling estimates that 40 to 50 young people passed through their home between 1968 and 1976, some staying for several years.

“It was pretty exciting, actually--the different kinds of kids and seeing their lives change and seeing them grow up and have kids and become useful citizens,” he said. “It was the fulfillment of our dream, really.”

Several Success Stories

Indeed, Wakeling boasts of a number of success stories among those one-time troubled young people who shared his family’s home. One is now branch manager of a large insurance company, two are ministers, one is an assistant director of a group home, several are missionaries and, he added with a grin, “one of them married my daughter.”

“I wish we could have, but we didn’t help them all,” said Wakeling. “We feel we gave them an opportunity to come to a place that is safe and where people care about them. It sure isn’t an easy job taking care of other people’s children.

“My wife, Betty, cooked for them and cared for them. It was extremely hard but very rewarding to her. She was the key to all that, really. A dad is important, but without a mom--with that many kids--boy, she’s got to be there. Betty didn’t have her degree then and most of the counseling was done around the dinner table.”

Licensed Counselor

Betty Wakeling, who is now a licensed marriage, family and child counselor with a master’s degree in psychology, serves as treatment director for Concept 7. She recalls those early days fondly.

“The whole experience was positive,” she said. “I never had one day of regret for having done that. I went into it in a frame of mind that I could hardly wait. It was a delight the whole time. We always had enough space so that if you needed to move away from the rest you could move away. We always managed to find some kind of house that would facilitate that.”

Although the Wakelings, who have three children of their own, enjoyed working with the teen-agers who came to live with them, Wakeling acknowledged that after several years, “it was wearing us out.”

In 1976 they decided to do it on a professional basis, and in early 1977 they opened their first Concept 7 group home in Fullerton.

Based on Seven Concepts

Concept 7 takes its name from seven concepts that, executive director Wakeling said, “we practice in our own home and carry them through in the program here.” The seven concepts are:

- Realization that teen-agers can achieve and succeed.

- Respect for other people, property and self.

- Response in an appropriate manner to people who genuinely care.

- Renewal of interest in socially acceptable values and capabilities.

- Relationships re-established with “meaningful” people.

- Release from delinquent behavior patterns.

- Reunification of child with family members.”

Threaded through Concept 7 is, as Lybarger points out, “a strong Christian emphasis in terms of our values and ethics.

“I tell people that at Concept 7 most of our staff members are “born-again” Christians, and we don’t force our Christianity onto you, but this is the type of life style we role-model for our residents. We encourage a freedom of choice for all of our residents in terms of their own personal beliefs.”

Donations Important

The nonprofit Concept 7 receives about 65% of its funding through the state, but it must rely heavily on private donations. Financial support is generated by three thrift stores and three major fund-raising events, including an annual dinner-auction that this year was held at the Disneyland Hotel.

Concept 7’s treatment services are monitored by county probation officers and social workers and each group home is provided with a caseworker who must have at least a master’s degree in social work, counseling or psychology and who develops and coordinates the treatment plan for each resident. State-approved child-care workers are assigned to residents, providing 24-hour care and supervision.

A highly structured program, Concept 7 requires its young residents to keep their rooms clean, do chores around the house, attend school in the mornings and either work part time or participate in ROP (Regional Occupational Program) vocational training in the afternoons.

Weekends include structured activities such as trips to the beach, baseball games, concerts and amusement parks. If the residents reach a certain level of behavior and responsibility, Wakeling noted, “they’re allowed more freedom, but they have to earn it. “They can go for a walk by themselves, go on a date or go home on a pass--if they have a home to go to.”

“We try to consistently set clear limits and implement consequences accordingly,” explained Lybarger. “It’s important that the kids know what’s expected of them and to know what will happen when they choose to behave a certain way.

“At home, half the time if they don’t go to school they don’t get in trouble for it, or once in a while their parents may beat them for it. In our program, if they don’t go to school or do their chores, they consistently receive the same consequences such as making up school work or doing extra chores.

“A major focus we have is on confronting the teen-ager with the necessity of assuming personal responsibility for himself.”

Lybarger noted that “overall in the child-care industry, if you have a 60% success rate, that is considered the best you could hope for.” Success, he explained, means that the child not only graduates from the program and leaves it positively but doesn’t wind up in Juvenile Hall or another treatment program.

Facility Not Locked

Lybarger said Concept 7 averages a 45-48% success rate. Because Concept 7 is an open placement--it is not a locked facility--there is nothing to stop a resident from leaving and, in fact, about 25% run away. About another 25% do not successfully complete the program and end up back in Juvenile Hall, according to Lybarger.

Observed Oswald: “Realistically, you don’t take a kid who’s had 15 years of being kicked around and full of problems and turn him around in a six- to nine-month program, but I see some growth in every kid who comes through here in one way or the other.

“I’d say every kid who comes in here, we leave them with something. If we can leave them with some foundation they can take with them I think that’s a very big step.”

As a staff member of Concept 7, Oswald said, “you’re here because you love kids. When you spend nine months to a year with these kids you get to know them. They’re like sponges when it comes to love. You get to know them and you build a relationship with them. They’re almost like your own kids for a while. I give them the same amount of dedication and commitment I’d give to my own kids.

“There’s a lot of kids out there that need help, there really is.”

Kids like Richard Lopez?

Oswald smiled. “Richard, we love,” he said. “I mean we love all of these kids, but Richard is obviously special. He’s a special kid and he’s special to us.”

In his interview, Lopez recalled that he set goals for himself when he first arrived at Concept 7. “My first goal was to get into school and then look for a job and save money,” he said.

During his 13 months in Concept 7 he saved at least 60% of the money he earned working part time in the Concept 7 thrift store warehouse in Fullerton, in a part-time sales job last Christmas and as a box boy.

That’s not to say all was smooth going for Lopez.

About eight months into the program, Lopez said, he and another boy went “AWOL” from the group home after they were kicked out of school for the day for giving their teacher a “hard time.”

After a while back at the group home, Lopez said, “we just took off. We jumped over the back fence and went to the mall and scored some drugs there.”

They spent most of the day walking and hitchhiking, first to Disneyland and then to Knott’s Berry Farm where they unsuccessfully tried climbing the fences into the amusement parks. But by 11:30 that night they were back at the group home.

“We got cold,” Lopez explained, adding with a grin: “It was fun while it lasted, I guess.”

The two AWOL youths were placed on 24-hour room restriction, which, as Lopez explained, “means you stay in your room and don’t do nothing--no cigarette breaks, and you have to ask to use the bathroom.” They also were put on 30 days’ site restriction.

Caught Bringing in Drugs

Lopez also said he was caught several times for bringing drugs into the house. (Drug counseling is available and Oswald said those who bring drugs into the group home rarely go undetected. “It’s almost as if the kids want you to catch them. They want to know you love them and care for them. I’d say we’ve had four to five incidents in two years involving drugs, ranging from sniffing gasoline to pot or alcohol.”

When asked if he still takes drugs, Lopez said he would be lying if he said he hasn’t had any drugs since leaving Concept 7.

“I can’t say I’ve been an angel,” he said. “I just experiment like anyone else. But this time I do know my limit. I’m not going to just get crazy like I was before.”

He is, Lopez maintains, a “stronger person” as a result of Concept 7.

“I’m not ready to handle everything that life deals out,” he said, “but I’m willing to give it a try.”