Families needed to provide homes for children in need of protection

Families needed to provide homes for children in need of protection

By D.R. Bahlman
Berkshire Eagle Staff

PITTSFIELD -- Wrongheaded notions tend to die hard, but Ray Burke is
sure of his aim as he draws a bead on one of the most persistent: It
pays to take in foster kids.

"If you were to ask a group of foster families about that, you'd hear
some pretty impassioned responses," said Burke, who has been area
director of the state Department of Social Services since 1989. " Try
supporting a teenager on 15, 16 bucks a day."

While Burke and other officials of the state's child protective
agencies readily declare that the financial rewards for providing
foster care are virtually nil, they hope to reinforce the ranks of
foster families by spreading the word that foster care pays off in
other ways.

"These are kids who my kids are going to be adults with," said
Christine St. Peter of Pittsfield. " Being a foster parent really
brings back a sense of community. It's not that hard -- you throw
another potato in the pot."

St. Peter and her husband, Barry, have been foster parents for about
five years. Their house on Edward Avenue has sometimes been occupied
by as many as 10 children, including Christine St. Peter's biological
son and daughter, at one time.

In 2001, the couple adopted one of their foster children, a boy who
was then 5, and they plan to adopt another foster child, an 8-year-old
boy, soon.

"I wish I could clone her," Patricia Polumbo, family resource
supervisor in the Pittsfield DSS office, said of St. Peter.

Faced with a shortage of foster families and an increase in the number
of children needing foster care, state officials have launched a
campaign to increase the number of foster families.

Indeed, in order to sharpen their marketing skills, they have enlisted
the aid of a large furniture retailer in the Boston area.
Representatives of Jordan's Furniture have been consulting with DSS
officials for several months, said Burke. The results of the
collaboration, a full-blown advertising campaign, is scheduled for
launch this spring.

In Berkshire County, Polumbo said, 280 children ranging in age from
under one year to 17 are in foster care. The county has 140 foster
homes to provide care, but only about 80 of those are "licensed,"
which means that at least one resident adult has taken an eight-week
training course and passed extensive background checks. The remainder,
said Polumbo, are "kinship" foster care providers -- grandparents or
aunts and uncles -- who take children in when their parents can't care
for them.

Kids at risk

Domestic violence, substance abuse and mental health problems -- and
sometimes a combination -- are the three leading reasons why children
enter foster care, said Burke.

"When kids are at serious risk, we remove them from the home," he
said. "Our goal is to stabilize the parents and get those kids back
home."

That work can be time-consuming. Months sometimes pass before a family
can be permanently reunited; initial foster-home placements last up to
90 days. Some placements begin with a "hot line" call for a family to
accommodate a child just for a night or two, until more permanent
lodgings can be found.

"What we're struggling with is keeping kids as close to their homes as
possible," said Burke. " There's a visitation program in which parents
can see their kids -- supervised -- but it can be a real hardship if
the parents are from Pittsfield and the kids are in North Adams and
Sheffield."

Burke estimates that about 30 more Berkshire County foster families
are needed to meet the demand.

Look at the 2000 Census," he said. "This wave of kids, preadolescents
ages 6 to 13, are going to test all of our systems, and there's a wave
of adolescents on the horizon. Couple that with young adults, some of
whom have substance abuse problems and violence issues. Look at the
ages of those who are arrested, many are in their early 20s and a lot
of them have kids and those kids are involved in our system."

Since January 2004, said Burke, DSS has filed more than 40 "care and
protection" petitions in Berkshire Juvenile Court on behalf of infants
and toddlers.

Homes needed for teens

When Burke came to the county in 1989, he said, there were about 100
licensed foster families.

"We've had some of our tried and true foster families 'retire,'" he
said. Recently, a foster family that "always took in teens" decided to
retire.

"Then we had a foster mom who was really good with teenage boys," he
said. "She remarried and moved on. If I could get six or eight
families willing to take in teens that would be an enormous help, and
six to eight to take infants and toddlers. It's really troubling not
to be able to place infants and toddlers locally."

Burke said that DSS has had some success recruiting foster families
from the ranks of parents whose children have grown and left the
house. Some such people are willing -- and particularly able because
of their experience -- to work with younger parents and their infants
and toddlers, said Burke.

In Berkshire County, Polumbo estimated, 58 children (21 percent) of
the 280 in foster care are between the ages of "zero" and 2.
Twenty-six percent (some 72 children) are between the ages of 3 and 5.

About 114 children (41 percent) of those in foster care in Berkshire
County are between the ages of 6 and 11. The 12 to 17 age group
accounts for about 12 percent (33 children) of those in DSS custody,
said Polumbo.

'It's a challenge'

Bringing a child into a foster home for the first time is a "weird"
experience, said Christine St. Peter, but the awkwardness wears off
after the child finds the rhythm of the household and learns "where
the drinking glasses are and where they're going to sleep.

" It's a challenge, but there's a lot of support available, mainly
from other foster parents," said St. Peter, who recently established a
support group with the help of the Massachusetts Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children. "After a week, it feels like
they've been there forever."

St. Peter, a native of Staten Island, N.Y., who works as emergency
services director for the Berkshire County chapter of the American Red
Cross, decided to become a foster parent after witnessing a four-hour
delay before foster homes could be found for an infant and a toddler
whose mother had been found "passed out" from drinking.

"I just felt I needed to do something," she said.

Foster children bring a wide range of experience to their temporary
homes, much of it unhappy, or worse, violent and traumatic.

"With some kids, no matter how bad it is at home, they don't want to
go" into foster care, said St. Peter.

She recalls taking in two girls ages 5 and 6. The children were angry,
frightened -- and frightening.

"They were talking about cutting my eyes out," St. Peter said. " I
finally said, 'Look, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. The
hard way is you go to bed right now in your clothes without a snack.
The easy way is we get you a nightgown, a hot bath and snack and then
we watch videos until bedtime."

St. Peter said that the older girl tried to stare her down.

"Finally [the girl] said, 'I take a size 6.'"

Nightmares

Another of the family's young charges was a 6-year-old boy who had a
horrifying recurring nightmare that featured a masklike face with
worms protruding from it. After nine months of art therapy and play
therapy, the boy was asked to draw his nightmare again.

"It was the same horrible mask, but with a smile," St. Peter said. "We
got his nightmare to smile."

Foster families almost always have some positive effect on a child,
even if the child's stay in the house is brief, said St. Peter.

"Kids always take something away, even if it's just seeing a family
eating and talking at the dinner table," she said.

Additional information about foster parenting is available by
contacting Lori Kays at DSS. Her telephone number is (413) 236-1815;
e-mail is .
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Storie...052363,00.html


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