PSU Magazine Fall 1999

10 years or more. Each Friend has no more than eight children. The Friend's work is aimed at breaking the cycle of abuse in the families of young girls and boys severely at risk. The Friends' PSU connection starts with Duncan Campbell, who once attended the University and currently serves on the Graduate School of Social Work Advisory Board. Eileen Brennan, associate dean of the PSU Graduate School of Social Work, serves on the board of directors for Friends of the Children along with alumnus Bill Young MSW '92. In addition, John Wolfe MSW '90 is program manager of Friends of the Children. And Angel Williams '97 began working as a Friend shortly after earning a bachelor's degree in child and family studies. D uncan Campbell is the founder and president of The Campbell Group, a highly successful Portland– based timber investment company. He started Friends of the Children after years of advocating for children's issues, a passion that stretches back to his youth growing up in northeast Portland. A graduate of Jefferson High School, Campbell was a neglected child of two alcoholic parents. friend and mentor to Jeremy since the fall of 1994. "I was one of those kids," Campbell says of the at-risk children in his program. "I wouldn't want anyone to experience the kind of childhood I had." Brennan serves on the program committee for Friends of the Children, which ties in strongly with research she has done on building resilience in children at risk. Friends of the Children, which focuses on relation– ships between mentors and individual children, has the potential to strengthen schools and neighborhoods, Brennan notes. "It can permeate the community," she says. "These children can go out and be a more positive force." Wolfe, in his second year with Friends of the Children, agrees, stress– ing that the program is "as progressive a concept as you can get." After spending several years working with at-risk children at Christie School, Maclaren School for Boys, and Edgefield Children's Center, Wolfe was attracted to the idea of reaching kids before they got into serious trouble. "You can really take a child's life and mold them if you get them early," he says. Many youth programs attempt to take children out of their environ– ment, fix them and then send them back, an idea Wolfe and others in the field are convinced doesn't work. "We come to them on their own turf, on their own terms," Wolfe says. "We generate the opportunities from within, a much more humane way of working with children." R eaching children early was a concept that also appealed to Williams, who heard about Friends of the Children while doing her practicum at PSU. Eight-year-old Lisa, living with her mother and five siblings in an impov– erished household, is an example of how far Williams' children have come in her two years with the program. When Williams met Lisa two years ago she was struck by the amount of household chores the child was performing. "I'd go to pick her up and she'd be cooking macaroni and cheese or hot dogs. She'd be washing the dishes, ironing or washing clothes. I just felt this was too much for a little girl to deal with, but she was trying to help out her mom, who loves her children very much. Mom was pregnant with the fifth child and trying to do the best that she could." Lisa was struggling in school, doing poorly in reading and math when Williams first met her. She soon learned that Lisa had an old pair of eye-glasses, which caused vision prob– lems. One of Williams' first activities with Lisa was to help her get a new pair of glasses. "The problem wasn't that she couldn't learn," Williams says. "The problem was she couldn't see." L isa's second-grade teacher reported at the end of last spring that the child was "doing amazingly well," according to Williams. Since their initial meeting, Williams has focused on allowing Lisa to "just be a kid." When the two get together each week, they may bake cookies, paint faces or color in a color– ing book. Lisa has some slippers with dog heads on them that she wears so she doesn't scratch the hardwood floors of Williams' home. "I'll pick her up at school and she'll say she wants to put on her doggies and slide on my hardwood floors," Williams says. "Just the simplest things make her happy-painting her nails, hanging out. I just love being with her, seeing her be a kid and watching her grow personally-in school and socially." W hen Williams graduated from PSU she knew she wanted to work with children but wasn't sure in what capacity until she became a Friend. "I wanted to have an impact on children's lives. I feel this program allows me to do that. It's a job and I have to be professional. It's also very personal. It's an intimate job where I'm helping to shape a child's life." D John Furey, a Portland freelance writer, is M"iting a book about Friends of the Children. FALL 1999 PSU MAGAZINE 17