Gala celebrates Aviva's 40 years of helping foster children, families in Tucson

Supporters of a local nonprofit will celebrate a red-letter anniversary with a first-ever fête:

The Ruby Anniversary Gala to benefit Aviva Children’s Services will be Oct. 6 at the J.W. Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa. 

“We wanted to celebrate 40 years of service to the community” said Bob Heslinga, executive director of Aviva. “Our mission has been the same for 40 years: We provide enhanced services to improve quality of life for kids who have been victimized by abuse, neglect or poverty —and many times they are in foster care.”

Heslinga said Aviva facilitates that mission in three ways: It helps families reunify through supportive services; it supports children while they are in foster care or under “kinship” care with extended family members; and it assists families to remain reunified once they are intact again.

“Statistics show that 25 percent or more of the families who are reunified will be back under court supervision within six months to a year,” said Heslinga. “Once families are reunified, they need lots of support since the issues that initially caused them to neglect their children often haven’t changed. Hopefully they can learn different ways of coping so the kids are not victimized; we try to help with that.”

Parents can find ongoing support through Aviva’s Parent Peer Support program, including a support group and one-on-one mentoring, in which parents who have successfully come through the dependency process share about their experience.

Aviva also brings 20 years of experience in supervising visits for the Arizona Department of Child Safety. Through its Family Court Visitation Services, it provides supervised visits, supervised exchanges and supervised video calls for families undergoing difficult divorces or separations.

Aviva also collaborates directly with Court Appointed Special Advocates of Pima County.

“Many of the families in dependency are baffled during this process; they don’t understand how the law and the courts work,: Heslinga said. “They feel victimized and frightened and their children’s case managers are carrying significant loads. Our purpose is to be a go-between — we are a mediator who can help them link up with services that will assist them in their journey through dependency. We work closely with Pima County Juvenile Court, DCS and court services to accomplish that.”

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Other Aviva niche services include a donation closet that provides gently-used clothing and other items for children in foster and kinship care.

“For the past four decades, Aviva has provided dignity to children and families involved with DCS by supplying basic necessities such as underwear, socks and other clothing, hygiene items, cleaning supplies, vouchers for uniforms and school supplies, and even grocery and food cards,“ said Monica Durand, development and community relations manager for Aviva .

Case managers also have access to “The Book,” which provides more than $10,000 in gift cards and vouchers annually to fill needs not met by in-kind donations .

Another program, Bags for Kids, provides handmade cloth duffel bags so that children in foster care can transport their clothing. About 6,000 bags — all made by volunteers — are given out each year. Volunteers known as the Aviva Divas also sew quilts, blankets, make-up bags, doll clothes and other items for the children. Their hand-made quilts, table runners, placemats and gift items are sold at various events throughout the year to raise funds for Aviva’s holiday program, which provides gifts for more than 2,500 children involved with DCS each year.

The Life Books program provides unique gifts for children who are about to age out of foster care and for children who are being adopted.

A Life Book is an age-appropriate story of the child’s life that seeks to make sense of events that led to placement outside the home. Staff and case managers research extensively to gather information, photos and letters from people in the child’s life in an effort to help the child focus on positive experiences that occurred in the midst of traumatic events.

“If they don’t have accurate information, children can develop strange fantasies and attachment disorders that get in the way of successful adoptions or moving forward,” Heslinga said. “I have had case managers tell me that kids say, ‘My mom is a princess and I have to watch out the front window for her carriage,’ or ‘My dad is an astronaut,’ so the child is constantly looking at the sky. We try to portray the events in a nonjudgmental way so the children know how they were taken care of and understand how people tried to make things better for them. The books are truthful and very powerful.”

Heslinga hopes the gala will help raise $50,000 for Aviva’s diverse programs and establish seed money to move forward.

“There is a good analogy to be found in driving your car: The rearview mirror is small, but it is important to know what we have passed and what might be coming up from behind. The windshield gives you a much larger view of what lies ahead. This is a celebration of that pivot point where we look back in gratitude and look forward in anticipation and joy to establish new programs,” Heslinga said.