CORE | Coalition for Residential Education

Judge James Milliken

Judge James Milliken is an impressive force. The widely respected presiding Judge of the San Diego Juvenile Court and the innovator behind San Pasqual Academy, Judge Milliken is a man who has a clear vision of how best to care for abused and neglected children. Long frustrated by the instability of the foster care system and the profusion of psychological scars that it imposes on the more than half million kids in its care, Milliken decided to do something about it. After some research into residential education, he rallied support from both the public and private sectors in San Diego County and bought a property.

Two-years ago the San Pasqual Academy was born. A unique boarding school for 250 foster youth, San Pasqual not only offers the county an alternative to a flawed foster care system, but also offers its students a safe and beautiful environment in which to live, learn and grow into happy, productive adults.

Last month I sat down with the judge in San Diego to talk about residential education and his vision for foster children. As I walked into his office that morning, I noticed two things: his trademark bowtie and his office walls adorned with photos of some of recent history’s most influential reformers. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Presidents John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman and Franklin Delano Roosevelt seemed fitting company for a man who makes things happen. I initiated the conversation by asking him about his long-standing concern for children in foster care and his decision to start the school. He unleashed an arsenal of wisdom. It is best to let him speak for himself.

Judge Milliken: Well, we have 7,500 kids under the jurisdiction of the San Diego courts because of abuse and neglect and we get 2,500 new kids a year. We are for that reason, constantly trying to solve the problem of foster care. The real method of minimizing the number of kids in foster care is to get as many parents cleaned up so that they can take their kids back as soon as possible. Foster care is not a friendly institution for kids. We’re trying to minimize the number of kids there, but historically we have been guilty of some mismanagement and have had a relatively large number of kids in foster care long term, or foster care as the only permanent solution we’ve been able to come up with.

Kids who are left in foster care long term have psychological problems. We, as humans, are intended to be nurtured in a safe nest during the time we are developing. Virtually all of our cognitive and physical growth takes place ex-utero, unlike most other animals. If a child who is developing is constantly stressed and placed with strangers, they are distracted monumentally from the task of normal growth development.

We have a habit of moving kids frequently in the foster care system, we take them inexplicably- as far as the child is concerned- from the caregivers, and put them in a shelter for 30 days and then we put them in a short term foster home until we find a long term foster family, then we move them because we lost that foster family or they have to move or we have to change the kids placement for god knows what, and we move the kid so much. If we keep a kid for three years, we end up moving him or her five or six times. The kids end up having attachment disorders. They stop bonding, as a defense of having bonds broken. They become very self-centered, untrusting, and unable to relate to others- introverted people. They have a constellation of psychological problems that we call sociopathic in other settings.

My view was that we needed a high-quality boarding school, where the kids could live in small groups with houseparents; where the kids wouldn’t be placed, but instead they would have to apply and be accepted and decide to go. They would be told that unless you do something that puts you in Juvenile Hall, you get to stay at San Pasqual for as long as you want to. So what you inferentially say to these kids is that it’s safe to form relationships here. From my point of view, that’s the best therapy for the psychological problems that we have imposed on these kids during the time we’ve had them in care, sanctimoniously protecting them from child abuse.

What most judges and social workers who deal with foster care don’t understand is that foster care is developmentally damaging in and of itself. The modality we use to alleviate child abuse is itself harmful, so we have to either get kids out of foster care at the front end of the case, or give them alternative placements that ameliorate the damage, and so we hit on the idea after talking with Heidi and reading Richard McKenzie’s books, to start a high-quality boarding school for foster kids.

So this school became available, it had been operated by the Seventh Day Adventists, and the county acquired the property with a bond, the Board of Supervisors voted to buy it, and we raised the money in the community to refurbish it, and we started the program two years ago with about 50 kids and we now have 115-120, including the siblings that are living there and going to the junior high school. As far as I’m concerned, it has been a dream come true.

Julie Selvaggi (CORE staff): I wonder what you think has to happen for more of these schools to open.

Judge Milliken: Well, as a judge, my opinion is that the real solution to the foster care problem is to focus the courts’ energy on the parent’s compliance with the reunification plan rather than trying to fix foster care, because there are many things about foster care that we can’t fix. But if we have managed a case properly, and we still end up having to leave some kids in foster care, then I think we have an obligation to those kids to have quality programming. Quality programming means a menu of placements alternatives that includes boarding schools, in addition to foster care and group homes. That means we need a whole lot more boarding schools nationally, and other innovative placements. We have to understand that we need a range of opportunities.

For kids that don’t want to be in foster care, why not give them the opportunity to go to a school that they apply to and volunteer to attend? To not have funding, Title IV-E, for that kind of placement, in my opinion, is a huge mistake from a policy point of view. We need waivers for title 4E or we need to amend title 4E to allow the judge to make the decision about what is the best placement for the kid and allow the money to follow the kid. I personally think that this is not THE solution, it is part of a solution.

I think that the system at large is basically in denial about the very well-known and obvious problems associated with kids being foster care. The only thing an adolescent in foster care learns at the end of the day, is that he can’t trust anybody. Every time he forms a relationship with somebody, he loses it. We have to have decent alternatives. San Pasqual or boarding schools for the kids who are high functioning and can take responsibility for themselves in a relatively open setting and can succeed in school is, in my opinion, a must.

JS: So San Pasqual isn’t the type of place recommended for those foster kids who aren’t high-functioning.

JM: Well, the kids live in a relatively open setting. They have to be able to live in a family setting, maintain their apartment, help with food preparation for the meals not served in the cafeteria, help clean, take care of their laundry etc and also get to school, do their homework, and pass their classes. We try to keep the number of students with special education needs down to a slow roar, but that is difficult because there is a much higher incidence of learning problems and psychological problems in the foster population than in the population at large. There are some kids in satisfactory foster homes. They’ve been there a long time and they like it there, so I don’t want to pull a kid like that unless that kid feels like he wants to go. And it has been a challenge; I have to tell you that.

We’re constantly working on investigating kids’ academic backgrounds to make sure that we offer San Pasqual to every kid that qualifies age-wise and otherwise to go so that we maximize that opportunity and the use of the facility. It has been enormously successful for the kids that are there, as our graduation rates attest. Nationwide, only half of the kids in foster care graduate from high school, but at san Pasqual, its 100%. So we’re doing the job, but it has been a challenge.

JS: Wow, that’s so great, you’ve been enormously enlightening. Let me just ask one more question- What is your vision for the kids at San Pasqual?

JM: My vision for the kids is that they get to emancipation with the same constellations of skills that I would expect my own kids to have. That they are self-sufficient, that they are responsible, they can get and maintain a job, get things done, that they can pass a college entrance exam. Mainly that they are ready for the responsibility of taking care of themselves. Our goal as parents is to make sure our kids are independent and functional, and that is our goal for the kids who are aging out of foster care, and the kids attending San Pasqual.

Our hour-long conversation came to an end; the judge had a case to hear. I had asked only three sentences, but walked away with a wealth of insight and knowledge. As I was exiting the court, back through the lobby, I passed some of the kids waiting to go before Judge Milliken. I wondered if any of them would end up at San Pasqual. It struck me how lucky those kids are to have someone like Judge Milliken fighting for them.

September 2004