Exploring the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Model
Summary
The Wendy’s Wonderful Kids (WWK) program through the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption offers a unique and highly successful approach to finding permanency connections for children and young people in and from the child welfare system. In a November session for Service Providers, three WWK recruiters, Nikki Holland-Green, Kerry Milligan, and Cynthia White shared their experiences as child focused recruiters, offering many examples and providing guidance on how to engage older youth for considering the possibility of adoption.
Key Takeaways
Developing a relationship with the young person is key. You have to let the young person know they are worthy of permanency.
Connect with the young person through their interests. Do things that they want to do, like taking them to watch airplanes or going for a test drive in their favourite car or going for picnics. Important conversations happen during activities.
Service providers serve as important role models. You can draw connections between what they experience with you, and how this can be experienced in other relationships.
Patience is needed to “unpack the no” when young people refuse the idea of permanency. These are not one-time conversations. Sometimes it can take weeks, months, or even years before the young person might be willing to crack the door open just a little to consider permanency.
It’s important to think creatively, to think outside of the box, and be willing to take risks. WWK recruiters often will observe the young person in their special places or at their favourite activities and identify people that are connected to those places or activities. This helps discover who is in the young person’s network. You can plant seeds with people in the network to get them thinking about permanency for the young person.
Other tools include doing file reviews, using genograms, and going on road trips to visit significant places from the past. There may be connections from the past who can be re-explored. WWK recruiters often will review history and memories with the young person (and support them through the hard revelations as well).
WWK recruiters frequently do not use the word “adoption” with the young people they are working with. It is a term which can produce difficult feelings for many. Instead, permanency is framed as having lifelong, stable relationships; having people to love and care for you; having a wider circle.
As the service provider, you have to be observant and highly attuned to the young person. You have to figure out the right time to bring up certain discussions and look for moments when you can draw lines between your interactions with the young person and the notion of permanency.
Take time to build trust and develop your relationship: Follow the pace and the cues of the young person, allow for ambivalence, meet the young person where they’re at, and always convey your belief in their worth.
Ideas and Activities for Your Practice
Watch Rhianna’s Story, one of the featured videos with the Dave Thomas Foundation, WWK program. Rhianna's Story (Canada) | Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. This is an example of how permanency can be achieved for an older youth.
Find out as much as you can about the young person’s interests, passions, and activities. See if you might be able to spend your scheduled visit with them doing something they love to do.
Find out who the young person feels connected to (or thinks about) in relation to their interests. For example, if they enjoy animals, what pet owners do they know (past and present)? Have they ever volunteered for an animal rescue? Who do they share videos and pictures with of their pet?
Consider a walk or a drive to a place which has some significance to the young person – for example, a home or neighbourhood where they used to live.
Arrange for your own child (or a significant other) to call you during your visit with the young person, as a way to model your own commitment to the people in your life AND to remind the young person that everyone needs people to love and help them, no matter their age.