New youth shelter program manager comes full circle

CEDAR RAPIDS — Shelby Holsapple says working with teens is her “calling,” so she didn’t mind that her new position brought her back to where her social work career began.

Holsapple started at Foundation 2 in July as the program manager for the Emergency Youth Shelter, which provides temporary shelter and support services to youth 11-17 years of age. However, she wasn’t a newcomer to the agency. She started out in her first job after college as the overnight youth specialist.

Holsapple, 31, worked in various other departments within Foundation 2 over the last eight years as a full- or part-time employee. She then left the agency for about three years and started working as an investigator for a criminal defense law firm. She followed that up working with adults for the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services as a community treatment coordinator.

Holsapple, who grew up in Oregon, started out majoring in education. But while she was attending Montana State University in Bozeman, she realized that while she wanted to work with young people, she didn’t necessarily want to be a teacher. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in human services.

Social work is a broad field that would allow her to connect with youth, advocate for them and help them learn to advocate for themselves.

“I feel like I can still make a difference with the youth … Get to them early before they get into adult troubles,” she said.

Holsapple can relate to the kids because she was in foster care by age 3 and wasn’t adopted until she was 7. She was removed from her biological parents when their parental rights were terminated because of drug abuse.

She was fortunate to be in one foster home with good people and she and her brother, who was 8 years old, were adopted by one family and they stayed in Oregon.

She doesn’t usually share her personal story with the kids at the shelter because she doesn’t want it to be about her. But Holsapple said she would share it if the situation warranted it.

Working at the shelter is good fit for her because as the manager she can work on the business side and plan for the future, but she also gets to interact with the kids and find out what they need during their stay.

The shelter, which is the only one in Linn County, provides a safe and stable environment for young people who don’t have that at the moment. It is a temporary situation until they reconnect with their family or a foster home is found.

“Many of the kids who are at the shelter are here through no fault of their own,” Holsapple pointed out. “Some have experienced trauma, their parents are in jail/prison or drug treatment, cases of abuse and neglect.”

They also serve youth who are runaways, homeless or “couch surfing,” and kids who have been referred from the agency’s mobile crisis unit, school districts, juvenile court system or those under a law enforcement hold.

The 17-bed shelter is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the youth are provided with food, basic needs — hygiene and some clothing — along with life skills classes, group counseling and they also have recreation activities, Holsapple said.

Most of the youth still attend their schools and if they aren’t enrolled in a school, there is an in-shelter school program taught by certified teachers.

Holsapple said the youth can usually stay up to 21 days. Some stay longer if they are involved with juvenile court or on a law enforcement hold and waiting for a bed to open up in a residential treatment or a foster home. The case managers will come up with a personalized care plan for each child.

Census numbers for the shelter were down during the pandemic and they had some staffing shortages, like many agencies, but now the numbers are increasing, Holsapple said. They have averaged about 10-12 kids a month.

From September 2021 through August this year, the shelter provided a temporary home for 107 youth.

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