A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : He’s Fulfilling His Dream to Help Others

In 1985, Joaquin Shelton finally decided it was time to charge ahead with his dream.

Maxing out his credit cards, he took $5,000, joined with two friends and founded Human Services Network (HSN), a North Hollywood-based, nonprofit group that provides 24-hour residential care for abused, neglected and abandoned adolescent boys.

“Money was so tight at the beginning,” he said. “I had to keep my other job at a large social service agency for three years to pay the bills while I worked here as volunteer director.”

Today, Shelton has only one job but remains on call 24 hours a day. His time, he said, is spent writing new training programs, talking to kids, reviewing weekly client status reports, keeping his census full and raising development money to start a private school.

After spending 14 years in the field working as everything from resident manager, home parent, child-care worker, social worker and program director, Shelton felt qualified to take the plunge and form his own nonprofit agency.

“I also got tired of the infighting that goes on at larger agencies,” he said. “I wanted more latitude, so I could be more responsive on the line level to the input we get from kids.”

HSN has grown from one community home to three sites in Shadow Hills, North Hills and Granada Hills. Each of the facilities houses six boys at a time, with 75% of the teen-agers coming from Los Angeles County’s Department of Children Services. The remaining 25% come from county Probation Department referrals.

The organization has 12 full-time and five part-time staff members.

One of the first things Shelton did was start an “emancipation program” for teen-agers 16 through 18 who have no family to return to and who must live independently at age 18 when the Department of Children Services stops supporting them.

“DCS regulations meant we were taking kids who were badly damaged emotionally, have histories of physical and/or sexual abuse and, in some cases, institutionalization, have no living skills and expect them to make their way on their own,” Shelton said. “It wasn’t working. Many of them were ending up in jail or back on the streets abusing drugs and alcohol.”

All of Shelton’s clients have backgrounds that include some kind of abuse.

“It ranges from simple neglect to grotesque stuff,” Shelton said. “I have boys who suffered sexual abuse starting at 6 months of age and were so badly damaged they can’t hold a bowel movement. I also have kids who have scar tissue on their backs from cuts and burns, and kids who were locked in closets for weeks at a time.”

Mimi Korn, senior social worker for HSN, oversees the emancipation program. Some of the organization’s clients have learning disabilities. Most had so little parenting, she said, that much of the staff’s time is spent modeling appropriate parent-child relationships.

“This lack of parenting manifests itself in depression, unrealistic expectations and trust issues,” she said.

Teen-agers in the emancipation program usually come from single parent homes where the mother may have substance abuse or emotional problems and the father is absent or in jail.

Boys in the program are required to finish school or get a General Education Diploma. HSN helps the boys get jobs, teaching them how to complete job applications, make resumes and go on interview. They must also open bank accounts and are taught how to balance their checkbooks.

“We make them deposit at least 80% of the money they earn, so they’ll have some kind of nest egg to get started,” she said.

Pre-teens also get group and individual therapy, do household chores and participate in structured recreational activities.

For more information on Human Services Network, call (818) 769-5686.

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