New safeguards for Naperville child-care group

By Gary Gibula, Special to the Tribune

A Naperville organization that finds foster homes for children victimized by abuse or neglect has restructured and installed new financial safeguards after a key official was accused of mishandling funds.

Our Children's Homestead has a new chief executive officer since predecessor and co-founder Robert G. Geniesse fled the country in October just days before being charged with diverting more than $200,000 from the agency's $9 million annual budget.

Other staff changes and safeguards were made in recent months.

"It was a turbulent time for the agency, but we have moved on," said CEO Kurt Friedenauer. "We've been focusing on our mission, which is to provide foster care for some of the more difficult kids in the child welfare system."

With 60 staff members and about 75 volunteers, Our Children's Homestead currently is helping about 186 children with an average age of 15.

"All of the kids we serve are defined as having special needs, whether that's health care, behavioral or mental health issues," said Kirstin Samp, vice president of development and marketing. "We look at a child's problems and try to determine what's needed to get them to the next step for them to succeed."

That could include being reunited with parents or given a fresh start in a new living situation. Samp said the process for placing a child with foster parents includes a background check, home study, home visits and pre- and post-placement counseling.

"A good foster parent is someone who is patient and who's open to taking in a teenager who might be more difficult," she said. "It's someone who is a team player and who understands there also is a therapist or a mentor who will be working with the child."

In addition to its mentor program, the agency also provides other programs that allow youths to choose their therapeutic activity, such as sports or horseback riding, dance, karate or guitar lessons. These services are donated by some two dozen community businesses.

"So many of our kids have broken through the boundaries," Samp said. "From a clinical standpoint, we'll then see improvement and stability in their homes because it teaches them responsibility and to be disciplined."

Our Children's Homestead owns eight residential homes in Crest Hill, but the agency gradually is transitioning away from home ownership and also no longer makes adoptions to foreign countries.

Geniesse allegedly used the nonprofit's funds to create a film production company and fled to Germany before a DuPage County grand jury indicted him on 10 felony counts, including theft of more than $100,000. Representatives of the FBI and the Illinois attorney general's office said he was arrested in February in Frankfort and is in custody awaiting extradition to the U.S.

"The importance is, we're dealing with the lives of children," Friedenauer said. "You can't place a dollar value on the life of a child."

Our Children's Homestead takes a multifaceted approach to help troubled youth gain the skills to be successful in life, he said.

"In some ways, we've been a well-kept secret," Friedenauer said. "The leadership and board are committed to looking at ways to do an even better job and to get out the message about who we are, what we do and why our mission is so vitally important."