James Castro
Executive Director St. P.J.’s Children’s Home
By Charles Arriaga, Incite Blogger
In 1869 the Sisters of the Incarnate Word opened the Santa Rosa Infirmary now known as Christus Santa Rosa in Downtown San Antonio. As the sick pasted on, often children were left behind to fend for themselves. The sisters started caring for those children left behind and soon took over the third floor. In 1874 the St. Joseph orphanage for girls was opened and in 1890 the St. John’s orphanage for boys was opened. After a fire in 1912 at the boys orphanage, the San Antonio Archdiocese stepped in and donated land across from Mission Conception to house a new orphan center. In 1913 both orphanages were relocated to its current location on Mission Road.
Executive Director James Castro says their history has played a vital role in shaping San Antonio. Castro born and raised in Los Angeles, California wanted to be a Veterinian when he grew up. His mother a housewife and his father in Public Relations described his childhood as good as any other middle class family. His best subject in school was History and his worst Spanish and excelled in Sports. A junior in high school, he got his first job as a grocery store bagger at Ralph’s. He graduated Glendale H.S. in 1980. After graduation he spent a year at the University of Reno then moved to Santa Barbara where he found a job as a janitor at the Santa Anita Race Track. At this point in his life he was not serious about furthering his education he was somewhat lost, just working day to day trying to make ends meet. In his mid-twenties he had what he called a “Mid-life” crisis. He recalls seeing his friend, a construction worker, go back to school, go on to graduate from USC. Then graduated from Harvard Law School. He had epiphany about his life. Having a Catholic upbringing he asked himself “How can I make a difference”. This led him to wanting a career path towards counseling. He started looking for a Catholic College or University to attend. He found The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. In 1994 he graduated with a Bachelors of Science and entered the Marriage and Family Therapy program at St. Mary’s University and earned his Masters in 1996. After graduating from St. Mary’s, he was hired on with the Center for Health Care Services. He started as a Clinician and worked his way up to Director of Operations for Children. He came to St. P.J.’s Children Home in 2008 as the Executive Director.
When asked, “What projects he has been involved with that he thinks has helped San Antonio”, he quickly replied “I helped launch the Children’s Division at the Center for Health Care Services”. The children’s Division helps indentify children with mental health issues. “By indentifying them it can help parents make their life easier and avoid a child just working the system”, Castro said. Another project Castro is proud of is the creation of the Children Crisis Intervention Training program. The program trains individuals, such as caseworkers and police officers, how to work with children with mental issues. He feels if these individuals have the proper training to deal with children with mental issues, it can alleviate many of the problems that come along with handling a child with this disease.
I ask him how does a child get placed here? He said they have a short and long term program. The short program is used for as temporary shelter of 90 days or less for a child in the process of being placed with a foster home or foster parent and in return for a child that is returning from a foster home or foster parent that did not work out all of which Child Protective Services (CPS) handles. The long-term program children are separated into groups by age; Birth to 20 months, 20 months to 4 years, 5 to 11, 12 to 17 and finally the Transitional Living Facilities. The majority of the children come into the home between 1 to 3 grade levels behind and the home starts working with them to get them caught up. I then asked the question, what happens to a child who now becomes of age without ever being placed in a permanent foster home? He says thats why they have the Transitional Living Program. As soon as the home recognizes a child is mature enough to make sound choices for themselves, they start working with them. Teaching them how to find a job, budgeting their money, finding a place to live, how to go grocery shopping and how to prepare meals. And no they are not kick out into the streets at the age of 18. By that time they would have successfully gone through the program many of them already lining up a job through the internship program the home has created with local businesses. For some reason if they have not found a job, grant money allows the center to help, the now adult, with up to 6 months of living expenses.
Before ending our interview Mr. Castro shared some facts and studies that I will share with you. Children who have been abused and or neglected make up a large sub-population of the following groups: Adults in jail, Homeless, Drug and Alcohol abusers, High School dropouts, and Teen-age pregnancy. He also shared 1 out of every 3 children are abused witch breaks down to 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6.5 boys. He saisd “We reduce child abuse and neglect and we reduce many of the problems we have today.”
