By Tabitha Ervin
FWIS Editorial Director

Regenia and Edward Jones recently retired from being foster parents over the last 19 years and have moved into a new venture which includes respite care. Regenia has worked in the social service field most of her career which made this transition very easy.

Respite care has always been an important need for families but the pandemic has made it more necessary. She saw the opportunity in 2018 as one of her colleagues from Crossroads had a discussion about her getting into respite care. At that time it wasn’t feasible for her to do it but she and her husband started their organization (Hands on Services) in 2018 and opened their facility (Hands on Haven) in 2022 after being contacted by the state to see if they were still interested in opening a respite home.

Ervin: Congrats on everything you are doing! Tell me all about the services and set up of your respite care programs.

Jones: We were originally operating as a social service agency providing habilitation, skilled training for youth, family support and day respite. It has been a journey to open the respite home but we did it!

Hands on Services is our parent company which is a husband and wife team who work hands-on with the child and family we are serving. We work to be role models as well as coaching and providing hands-on experiences for every family and every youth.

We had our grand opening in December 2022 and opened doors Jan 2, 2023.

Hands on Haven is the facility based respite home.

We are a mental health agency working very closely with families who are caring for youth with mental health disorders. Some of the disorders we see with young people are depression, mood disorders, anxiety, ADHD, autism spectrum and PTSD. We also serve other families who are in need of respite services for various other reasons.

Ervin: Tell us what is respite?

Jones: We define respite as a short term break for caregivers to be able to emotionally recharge.

We operate under the Division of Mental Health and Addictions (DMHA) which has several programs including the child mental health wrap-around (CMHW) which is the program we service. Under the CMHW we provide habilitation services, family support and respite. The child does have to have a diagnosis in order to receive services under this program and for them to cover the fees.

We also provide fee based services for all others in need of respite care and we are working with local agencies in Fort Wayne to eventually be able to provide a sliding scale for the fees.

Respite is for anyone but the DMHA program people must have a diagnosis.

Ervin: What are some of the program details?

Jones: We are open Thursday-Sunday and our goal is to be open everyday but right now we don’t have the business or capacity yet.

The 3 services available are: emergency respite, hourly respite and routine daily respite. The hourly respite is scheduled per the family plan. For daily respite the youth stay overnight. Emergency respite is when the caregiver has an emergency (hospitalization, mental health crisis for the adult, homelessness, etc).

What we offer:

It is very important that we have a safe and nice place as respite is not a punishment, but an opportunity for youth to build relationships and work on social skills and coping skills.

We provide arts and crafts and community activities thanks to the local YMCA.

I am grateful that the YMCA is supporting us by allowing us to take young people to the Y and exposing them to activities there including swimming and exercise. We recently had a young lady that was able to swim at the Y for the first time and we really appreciate being able to give her this opportunity.

We can house 11 youth comfortably in the home and have separate rooms for boys and girls.

We also have a computer room, a coping loft and we teach mindfulness skills -centering and self regulation. Since business has picked up over the summer it's allowing us to work in real time with youth. The last several weeks we’ve been able to have almost a full house and see how the things we’ve put into place play out.

The youth are enjoying the respite home and the ability to just be a kid. We wanted it to be a home-like setting and feel very comfortable, different from a hospital or a residential respite.

Our staff are highly skilled respite providers. There are criteria that we have to meet by the state to ensure that everyone we hire meets those standards which are: 2 years working with children with serious emotional disorders, background checks and fingerprints along with CPR certification and I require them to have a passion and love for children.

We have received several letters and comments from parents that they appreciate the services. We have also seen some non traditional families reach out for support.

Respite is for EVERYONE. We have all types of families who need support for respite care.

We accept ages 6-17 youth.

Safety is our top priority and the staff to youth ratio is 4:1.

Our main goal is to connect families to community resources and natural supports for long term connections in our community.

Ervin: Can you explain how what you offer is different?

Jones: What sets us apart from other respite homes is that we are a husband and wife team. It has been a blessing for youth to be able to see how we operate together, speaks volumes for some of our youth.

Our respite home was the first “home-like” respite and another just opened this month in Fort Wayne and we also have 2 emergency respite options for families here in Fort Wayne.

I also recently started a Respite Alliance and there are 2 other providers both in Marion County. One opened in 2020 and the other this year. We 3 have been serving 92 counties but there is no way we can effectively serve all the counties in the state. We are looking to support others who want to do respite in the state of Indiana.

Earlier this year we were gifted a new vehicle by the state to help with transportation for respite families in surrounding counties.

With my experience in foster care, with child services and the division of mental health services; we offer comprehensive services to various families in need.

Ervin: How can people connect or contact you?

Jones: Our contact info: www.hosoindy.com and people can make a request online for an assessment of the child. Our phone number is: 260-258-9922.

Right now we accept self pay or the CMH program pays as well but children have to be diagnosed, the referral info is on my website to request assessment of child.

We are also working with local Fort Wayne agencies to provide a sliding scale fee- coming soon!

In the future, when we complete all licensing, we will be open daily.

Our focus is to educate families that there are services out there to help them.

Ervin: Thank you for your time today!

In part 2 of this conversation, we will meet with and talk to some families who are enjoying and taking advantage of these services.