Go upstream

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"My dad was like, ‘what are you doing - you don’t have capacity for this.' ‘You have a child, you have a business, you have a farm
- where are you going to put this in your life?"

One late winter day, we met up with Quinn outside of a coffee shop in her hometown of Sequim, WA. We talked about all the things. Quinn is a 6th generation Clallam County resident, and as her dad so rightly pointed out when she first started volunteering with Olympic Angels 2.5 years ago, she has a very full life. 
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Quinn is an Endodontist (the person you go see if you need a root canal or other specialized dental consult.) She's also a talker. Quinn has a gift for helping her clients feel at ease by talking while she works. She calls it monologuing - it's hard to talk back when you are in a dental chair.

November 2019 she had a patient in her chair from Port Townsend and began monologuing to this patient about teen homelessness. Her stepdaughter who was at the high school had told her that kids were couch surfing or sleeping in their cars or were otherwise unhoused in Sequim. "I was like 'what?! That's crazy- maybe I should do something. What is happening to the young population is fundamentally changing the way Sequim looks, and I don't like how it looks."

It was a different Sequim that she grew up in and she didn't like where it was headed. 

“And you can see that by three real quick generations what can happen…with teen moms, and then their kids become teen moms…it becomes this succession. And that’s a lot of people that fundamentally changes how an area feels. 

It’s amazing how much happens that people locally aren’t aware of happening here. Children become adults and it becomes this massive societal issue. It’s already happening - we know the system isn’t going to work to keep that from happening… In the next 15 years when the system doesn’t change, the number of kids in foster care becomes three times what it was originally - what are you going to do with all of those people?"

That was a change that she felt was really perceptible.

“And what do you do? I was thinking I can’t really volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club - I have a job that makes it so I can’t get there before 5 pm." 

Meanwhile, the patient can’t respond to any of this and she continued.

“It’s so frustrating not knowing where to go…”

All of this while not having any idea that her patient was deeply involved in launching Olympic Angels. The patient gets tipped up, and says “I have someone you need to meet - I think I have the thing for you.”

Quinn was deeply suspicious, because, as she said, everyone thinks they have a solution for you… but the patient invited her over to her house to meet Olympic Angels founder, Morgan Hanna, and learn more.

What Quinn was sensing about her town, was in fact a very real and documented thing.

• Children in Clallam County are experiencing higher and more extreme rates of neglect and abuse when compared to other communities in WA. 
  
• When children enter the foster system in Clallam County, they enter the care system at much higher rates proportionate to the population at large. 
  
• And Clallam has been identified as one of the top four locales across the state with the Highest Baseline Rates of Child Maltreatment. This is all within an area that is low in services and foster homes and high in poverty. 
  

Clallam County has a much higher rate of calls to Child Protective Services (CPS) that are screened in when compared with other counties in the state.

For the data nerds among you, the filing rates per 1,000 calls to CPS from Clallam County is 7.83% compared to 1.66% of calls in King County (Seattle). Said simply, this means that, even when accounting for other factors, when calls are made to CPS about suspected abuse and neglect, the State decides to put a child in foster care at almost 5 times the rate in Clallam County vs Seattle. 

Here is the message Quinn heard that day: 

If you troubled by the homeless encampments, go upstream. Start with foster care.
If you are fretting about the number of kids dropping out of high school, go upstream. Start with foster care.
If you want to influence teen pregnancy rates. Let's start with the kids in foster care.

The data is in and it is clear. 

• 1 in 5 former foster youth will be homeless after the age of 18
• 50% of youth in foster care won’t graduate from high school
• 71% of former foster youth will become pregnant by the age of 21

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“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in."  
​- Desmond Tutu

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Since that day in her patient's kitchen, Quinn has been instrumental in bringing Olympic Angels to Clallam County. She has given her influence, her TIME, her treasure, and her talents to make this real for her town.  She not only talks the talk, she walks the walk.

For two years now, she has been in a dedicated Love Box group, supporting siblings as they journey through care. They give them what all children need to thrive, healthy adults who love to spend time with them, ask them about their schoolwork, and remind them that foster care does not define them. 

But Quinn and her Love Box cannot do it alone. They need YOU. 

CALLING ALL CLALLAM FOLKS - here are ways you can help:

• Spread the word to local businesses, foster families, networks that are deeply in the know about Clallam County.
•  We need board members from Clallam who can represent the people of Sequim and Port Angeles.
•  Apply for the Case Manager position! 

We are calling the people for who this matters the most in Clallam. We need you to rise. We want you to make the connections and you to drive the process so that this authentic and useful for communities in Clallam County.