Bev Cochran, administrator of United Methodist Children's Home of the North Georgia Conference has been a member of GAHSC for over 30 years.  He is truly a prophet and visionary for child welfare in the State.  The following article written for his publication is pertinent for all providers of child welfare services:

Signposts.Summer 2011.Volume 43.Number III

From the Administrator's Desk - "Predicting the future of our agency"

I am playing the role of a prophet who is merely trying to look into the future and suggest what is likely to happen. If my wife, Jane, were still living she would tell me if I was going to be a prophet I will need a crystal ball, and of course she would add that crystal balls are notoriously unreliable.

Playing a prophet in this present time and at least in the near future is an uncomfortable place to be. At any rate, I will share with you some prophecies about what is likely to happen to agencies of the private sector including church programs.

1. The need for services will increase in our society. This may seem to be a rather strange
prophesy, considering the fact that the number of children referred by the state for group care
has been steadily declining. The former director of DHR had said that there will not be a
long-term future for group care. This had come to the point that many agencies had closed
during the past several years.

But certain other things are happening which suggest that the private and Church sector will
make moves to provide family preservation services in an effort to keep families together and
to help strengthen them.

Another service that is dwindling in the private sector is foster family care. Our agencies are
receiving fewer children in our foster families because the state of Georgia has decided to
become the primary player by placing great numbers of children in their own foster homes.
It’s too early to tell how this will play out in the future. In the mean time we are recruiting
foster families to take large sibling groups, teenagers, and medically fragile children as this is
apparently where some help is needed. In all probability, we will continue our emphasis on
foster family care as it is likely that many new children who need this service will enter
the system.

2. There will be greater emphasis on working with families. We began providing family
preservation services in 1977, with parent teaching classes, financial aid and some family
counseling. We have also provided short-term housing to families for many years. The need
for these and other services will continue to increase because mental illness and drug
addiction is on the rise, physical and emotional abuse is all over the place and because of the
very rat race of our society and the gradual abandonment of settled, simple, agreed-upon
values causes family life to progressively break down.

Therefore, I predict that our Church agency is headed down the road to expanding its family
preservation services. Further, as this movement is already underway, we are transforming
some of our buildings into apartments to service the family housing program. This program
houses an entire family in one of our facilities and works with them every day. This helps
them to change quicker and leave sooner and become stronger families.

3. Our type of agencies will become more professional, in a good sense of this word. I do not
mean cold or objective, lacking in natural warmth, any more than I mean given to long words,
for that is a phony professionalism. But I do mean training staff for their jobs, having some
solid knowledge to act on and having acquired somewhere some self-discipline in it. For us
this movement is underway.

4. On one hand there will be greater appreciation between some of the private sector and
government agencies to meet the needs of all children and their families. While on the other
hand many private agencies may see themselves going their own way within their budget
constraints and providing smaller service programs their own way without state interference
and/or perceived harassment, other than the necessary licensing regulations for some of their
services. It is too early to predict which path our agency may take.

Note – On one hand, there is no reason for the Church and private sector and the state to see
themselves sometimes as showing little respect for the other, or on the other hand talking
about being in partnership when only one (the state) has the power. Heaven knows, we are in
a field where there is much more to do than either can possibly manage alone.

5. Summary: 1871 – 2010, from Orphanage →Children’s Home →Family Service
Agency. Having served since 1871, the thing we know is that we are certainly not a fly-by-
night helping agency. This is to say that I may not know what services we will be providing
75 years out to families who hurt, but we know we will be relevant by providing services that
people will need at the appropriate times.

Thank you for all you do to help us to help others and we look forward to future opportunities that our Lord presents to all of us. God Bless!


Beverly O. Cochran, Jr.
Administrator