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Fall 2024

INSIDE THE FALL 2024 ISSUE:

  • The gift of Kinship Care
  • Perfecting the experience for students
  • Insights from Frances King, Second Home Regional Coordinator
  • Welcome our newest team member, Melissa Frantz
  • Good luck, Rick Stoller!

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Second Home is a program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO)

503-221-1054 x277 | secondhome@emoregon.org | emo-secondhome.org

HONORING THOSE WHO PROVIDE CARE TO KIN

National Kinship Care Month is recognized in September as a time to celebrate Kinship Caregivers. Kinship care is the selfless protection and nurturing of young people by relatives, godparents, stepparents, extended family members, members of a young person’s Tribe or clan, or even non-related family friends. It means you provide support and a home atmosphere for someone in need that you already have a relationship with.

 

At Second Home, we honor the philosophy of Kinship Care for the high school students we support that are in need of stable housing. We have seen this circumstance of the opportunity to live with a relative or friend work well many times over the 14-year span we have been advocating for young people.

 

Often, there is an extended family member, a teacher or a family friend that already knows the student in need of a stable place to call home. This becomes a good match for a host home situation; you can provide the necessity of household to a young person you already know and understand, and the youth can feel comfortable and safe in this home environment, so they can focus on continuing their education.

 

Second Home can come alongside an already established living arrangement and provide the resources for the student and host home provider to develop a housing agreement that meets the needs of both parties and sets them up for success. Additionally, there are many other resources and community services that Second Home can offer to help the student reach their goals and succeed. For example, students participating in the Second Home program are eligible to apply for a Youth Experiencing Homelessness Tuition and Fee Waiver through the state of Oregon. This waiver allows certain Oregon undergraduate colleges and universities to waive tuition and fees for eligible students that apply. For more information about this opportunity, see the link below or email Second Home at secondhome@emoregon.org. We would be glad to provide more information and answer any questions you have.

Oregon Tuition Fee Waiver FAQ

Could you be a kinship caregiver? Do you know someone that is already providing Kinship Care in their home? If so, contact the Second Home staff for information, support and possible resources at secondhome@emoregon.org.

PERFECTING THE YOUTH EXPERIENCE

Second Home is continuously building upon our program to provide a safe and positive experience for our students.


Our team is incredibly thankful for the counselors and McKinney-Vento Liaisons that we partner with at each school district in our efforts to recognize and reach out to students experiencing homelessness. Our entire staff strives to be a valuable resource to our professional partners in the high school community.


Our team recently published a Second Home Student Handbook for youth participating in the program. This handbook reassures each student they will have a Second Home representative to advocate and assist them with each step of their experience. Follow-up interviews are completed with students so we can continue to develop and improve our process to be as supportive as possible. Additionally, our team continues to expand and define aftercare services, to ensure all student participants receive support and resources as they move on from the Second Home program and into the next phase of their life journey.


Having consistent and equitable protocols does not deter us from recognizing each student as an individual. Planning for every unique situation and the student’s specific personal needs is at the forefront of each student plan.



At Second Home, youth engagement and support are at the core of what we do. We aim to offer a rooted community where students can grow educationally, vocationally, socially, and emotionally and become their best self.


Feel free to email us at Second Home if you would like more information or a copy of our Student Handbook.

Email Second Home

A REGIONAL COORDINATOR'S PERSPECTIVE

~By Frances King, Second Home Regional Coordinator for Washington County

As I approach my second-year anniversary of working at Second Home as a Regional Coordinator, one of the most interesting things about work is that my colleagues come from such vastly different professional backgrounds, and yet we have come together to serve students in our community.


Our Second Home team comes from backgrounds in teaching, ministry, shelters, academia, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, food banks, adoption nonprofits, international humanitarian aid, school districts, lived experience, marketing, major corporations and that’s just off the top of my head. Currently, we have five Regional Coordinators on our staff: Amy, Claire, Frances (me), Keenan and Melissa. Each individual Regional Coordinator is responsible for connecting regularly with the school districts, churches, mediation professionals, and nonprofit partners in our region. We all regularly seek out new partnerships, check-in with students and host home providers, and make sure that each host home connection is set up for success.


Regional Coordinators wear many hats as we navigate different settings moving from traditional professional meetings, presenting to community groups, administrative duties, to mopping up a teenager’s tears in a counselor’s office. Often, all in the space of a single afternoon! We have all done extensive training in trauma informed care, we hold a mental Rolodex of individuals and organizations that support our work, and we can each give a presentation with detailed figures about youth homelessness in our specific region at the drop of a hat. But what I admire most about my colleagues is their steadfast desire to serve youth and make them feel seen. We work hard to find unique solutions that hopefully provide each student the sense of belonging and community that is an intrinsic need of all human beings. Second Home may not be the right solution for each student we encounter, but I have seen repeatedly that Regional Coordinators (along with our entire team) find creative solutions for students’ individual needs to have a place to call home, and we strive to meet that need in the most professional but personal way we can.

Meet Our Team

WELCOME OUR NEWEST SECOND HOME TEAM MEMBER: MELISSA FRANTZ

We are thrilled to introduce Melissa Frantz as a new member of our Second Home staff. Melissa joins our team as the Regional Coordinator focused on supporting students in the East Multnomah and Clackamas County School districts.

 

Melissa grew up in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, attended college in Chicago, and has considered North Portland her home for the last 23 years.


Melissa is joining Second Home after many years working in schools and supporting community organizations. She has a background in supporting kinship housing, and she and her partner have shared their home with many diverse kinds of people over the years. She has four children and does not understand why they don’t yet love things like gardening or sewing or tiling the bathroom or watching "Golden Girl" reruns as much as she does! 

 

Melissa brings to our team her professional background, her personal experience and her passion for providing a host-home environment in her own home: “I have watched so many high school students who are driven and resilient and are faced with the uncertainty of where they might stay or when their next meal might be coming. And I believe that so many of us have the capacity to share and create community, but we don’t think we have the tools or the right kind of help to offer. I love that Second Home scaffolds their support for both the student and the home providers and that they prioritize facilitation through mediation. This kind of support allows for productive problem solving, models direct communication and builds trust — key skills I wish for all of us.”

Read Melissa's philosophy and insights about opening her home to those who need a safe place to call home:



“Being a Home Provider is a short-term commitment to helping a student realize long term goals.” ~Melissa Frantz

Many people consider hosting a stranger to be radical hospitality that requires a life-changing commitment. But what if we viewed hosting as a decision to live our lives just a little bit bigger? What if it is a choice to adjust our expectations of shared space, of what is “ours,” instead of what we think we are owed, what do have to offer? What if hosting expands our capacity to be more connected to our shared humanity? We live in a time where sharing resources may seem like a revolutionary act. I want to believe that it is less revolutionary and more of a quiet way of finding connection to ourselves and to our communities.

 

The purpose of Second Home is to connect home providers to students who need additional stability to finish high school.

In this capacity, home providers are given the opportunity and tools for connection, growth, and expanded capacity for community.

 

My family and I have always shared our space with the expectation that if we have the capacity (couch, spare room, extra beds), then people are welcome. Hosting could mean sharing our space for just a few nights or for many months. This was a hilarious and occasionally unsettling concept to my partner when we met decades ago. He is a kind and open-hearted person, but he was very unfamiliar with the kind of hospitality that required sharing space. I was very unfamiliar with a life that didn’t make room for it. He grew up only needing to worry about himself. I grew up in a community that was rooted in faith-based mandates of sharing and communalism. He grew up viewing conflict as a failure of relationship. I was not afraid of a little conflict within relationships. But we both believed in the inherent dignity of people, and we took our responsibility to translate that belief into action in a practical way.

 

We have done this work imperfectly, making mistakes, repairing, and relying on our communities for support. We know that caring for each other requires some skills that we do not have!

And in asking for help from our neighbors, friends and even strangers, we have been invited into trusting relationships that we would have no access to otherwise. Looking after people’s physical needs through providing a room or a meal has taught us to create healthy boundaries, to make space for conflict, and to hold curiosity and love at the center of our own relationship. It has expanded our family’s understanding of community care and has tutored our own children about the value of shared space and mutual respect.  

 

Second Home embraces the philosophy that we all need each other.

So many of us do not consider sharing our space because we worry that it will disrupt our routines or be too complicated. What if we viewed sharing our resources as a way of connecting to ourselves and community instead? Our students need a safe place to land while they make their way to their next goal. Home providers need the care of their community and the connection to making small, good changes in themselves and others. 


 ~Melissa Frantz, Second Home Regional Coordinator for East Multnomah and Clackamas Counties

RETIRING: RICK STOLLER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Rick Stoller will be retiring from his role as Assistant Director of Second Home on Nov. 1, after eight years on the Second Home team and even more years as an EMO employee and major contributor. We are thrilled for Rick, and he very much earned his retirement. His experience, wisdom and his insightful guidance will be sorely missed.


Rick joined the EMO team in 1998 as the HIV Services Program Manager and was later promoted to Associate Director, overseeing the Community Ministry programs. Rick left EMO in 2003 to serve as executive director for other local nonprofits. However, at EMO we never say "good-bye," but rather "see you in another iteration." Rick returned to EMO in 2016 joining the Second Home team. He has demonstrated care and perspective for how to empower those we are working with so that they can live up to their full potential—both employees and youth. He has provided a firm foundation for Second Home, and we are so grateful for his contributions.


We wish Rick all the best on his next adventures!

SUPPORT SECOND HOME WITH FRED MEYER COMMUNITY REWARDS

Second Home is a recipient of the Fred Meyer Community Rewards program! Designating Second Home as your chosen program costs nothing for you and allows us to receive a portion of Fred Meyer Community Rewards funds each time you shop at Fred Meyer with your Rewards card! Please note that within the Fred Meyer Rewards site, our organization is listed as “Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon – Second Home.”

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