When Loving Care Crumbles

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IN HER ROLE as the supervising attorney in the unit of the County Public Defenders Office that represents foster children, Anna España sees “the most egregious cases” of neglect and physical and sexual abuse of children.

“As the child’s attorney, we always want to resolve matters in a way that’s fair to the parents,” España says. “But at the same time, we need to protect the child.”

If a parent admits abusing a child, a social worker devises a plan to eventually reunite the family. The plan might require the parent to attend anger-management sessions, parenting classes, drug or alcohol rehabilitation—whatever is required to ensure the safe return of the child.

“Sometimes parents don’t do what they need to do to get their kids back,” says España. “At the end of the day, if the parents fail to make the necessary changes in their lives, then we need to find permanency for the child.”

In those cases, the most-favored option is adoption. The next-best solution is guardianship. And the least-favored option? Long-term foster care in a series of homes. “That’s the saddest outcome for the kids,” she says. “Those are the ones who are raised by the system.”

Once they become wards of the court, many abused and neglected children desperately need someone to speak on their behalf. Enter Voices for Children. The nonprofit group, established in 1980, recruits and trains volunteers to work as court appointed special advocates, or CASAs.

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who can become a foster parent?

FOSTER PARENTS must be 18 or older and have the ability to support themselves. They can live in either a house or an apartment, as long as the premises meet basic fire, safety and sanitary standards. Foster parents can be married or single, straight or gay. They must submit fingerprints for a criminal background check, get a health screening and tuberculosis test, complete first-aid and CPR training and attend a series of foster parent classes. Working parents must arrange for appropriate childcare.

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CASA volunteers are sworn in as officers of the court. Their job is twofold: forming a stable friendship while getting to know an individual foster child, and advising the court regarding the best interests of that child.

Voices for Children director Sharon Lawrence sees her agency as a protector of vulnerable foster youth and as a watchdog. In her 10 years with the organization, she has seen “the best and the worst of humanity.

“You see children who have been severely hurt by their parents—the people who should love them the most,” she says. “On the other hand, you see people stepping up to help these kids, to work on their behalf. That’s extraordinary.”

Genevieve Knych-Rohan has been a CASA for three years. She has taken on the roles of advocate for and friend to four siblings—one girl and three boys—all teens. She goes shopping with them, talks with them, goes to their basketball and football games. More importantly, she speaks on their behalf in the courtroom and the schoolroom.

Knych-Rohan sees her role as CASA to her “kids” as a permanent relationship, possibly the first they’ve ever experienced. “I’m going to remain a part of their lives,” she says. “I’m going to go to their weddings.”

Conception Cuevas was 7 when she entered the foster-care system. Her sisters were 2 and 3. She credits her CASA with reuniting her with her sisters and helping her chart a course for life beyond foster care.

“Without the help from our CASA, I don’t know where my sisters and I would be,” she says. “At 18, when I exited the system, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I wouldn’t have known how to manage my life.”

Now 23, Cuevas works full-time at Cox Communications and is pursuing a degree in criminal justice administration at San Diego State University. She lives in a modest but comfortable house with her two sisters, along with their two dogs. “The three of us are learning how to be a family,” she says. “Finally.”

JUDGE HUGUENOR, who has been on the bench in San Diego County for more than 20 years, says she’s seen an overall improvement in planning an educational course for foster children as well as an increased effort to provide transitional housing for teens preparing to leave foster care.

“There are children who don’t get adopted or placed with a guardian,” she says. “It’s a real challenge to provide them with the same things a family provides for a child in a stable home.”

Who among us was fully prepared to take on the world at 18?

“Most of us give our kids emotional and financial support long after their 18th birthday,” Huguenor says. “We do the best we can for our own children. Foster kids deserve no less.”

In April 1998, San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox and others organized a conference focusing on issues related to foster care. Among the speakers were six former foster children.

“It really bothered me that there were three kids on that panel who had been in 20 or more different placements,” Cox says. “I remember thinking, ‘My God, what are we doing to these kids?’ ”

One of the issues raised at the conference was the lack of transitional housing and living-skills training for older children. To ease the often formidable transition from foster care to independence, Cox spearheaded plans to provide transitional housing for foster youth. One such facility, San Pasqual Academy, is the nation’s first residential-education campus for foster children. The academy, which opened in October 2001, houses 135 foster teens and their younger siblings (12 and older). The idyllic, 238-acre campus in the San Pasqual Valley near Escondido, was purchased by the county in 1999. The wide-ranging curriculum at San Pasqual includes résumé writing, interviewing skills, computer literacy and entrepreneurship.

The first graduating class, in 2002, consisted of just three students. “It was a fairly small celebration,” says Gia Alarie, program manager at San Pasqual. In June of this year, there were 27 grads, 24 of whom are going on to college.

Alarie is quick to point out that San Pasqual isn’t meant for everyone in the foster-care system. “The kids need to be able to function and live in an open setting,” she says. Foster youths with mental-health problems, or youths who have demonstrated aggressive behavior, for example, cannot be admitted to the academy.

HOW MUCH DAMAGE can love undo? Though the system is overburdened, bedeviled by a chronic shortage of foster parents and frequently unable to deliver the very services it was created to provide, there are tireless, loving families out there who dedicate themselves to their foster children. Consider Patty Boles, head of the North County Foster Parents Association (NCFPA), founder of the Straight from the Heart Foster and Adoptive Parent Resource Center—and proud foster mother, many times over.

“When you take in a foster child, it’s as if you gave birth,” says Boles. “People might wonder, ‘Can I love someone else’s child as much as I love my own?’ ” Without hesitation, she answers, “You bet.”

Boles was a founding member of the NCFPA. “We were just a bunch of moms,” she says, laughing. Today, more than 100 families are members of the organization, which recruits new foster parents, answers their questions and walks them through the complex application process. The Straight from the Heart thrift store benefits foster families. Many donations to the shop—diapers, school supplies, toys—go directly to foster children.

After more than 20 years as an advocate for foster parents, Boles remains committed. In August, she and her husband finalized their ninth adoption (eight of which were from foster care). Shyanna, their new 2-year-old daughter, was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Her birth mother “drank every day of her pregnancy,” Boles says. The result? Many of Shyanna’s bones are fused together. Her hips are dislocated. Her head is inordinately small. Already, at this budding stage of her life, she is on a trying regimen of physical therapy.

Two years old.

“She’s beautiful,” says Boles. “And she can do some amazing things.”

Shyanna’s biological mother hasn’t shown any interest in her child, Boles says. There have been no phone calls to check on her well-being. No contact whatsoever.

LIKE SO MANY former foster children, Conception Cuevas has searing memories of growing up in an emotional maelstrom. “My father was murdered, and my mother just didn’t know how to handle it all,” she says. “She was young, just 27, and she was faced with raising three girls all on her own. She couldn’t handle it.”

Cuevas was in 12 different placements while in the foster-care system—sometimes with relatives who physically abused her, sometimes with strangers who neglected her. There were wrenching transitions.

“I remember once a social worker was waiting for me in the school office. She said she was there to pick me up and take me to another foster home. I sort of panicked, you know? I told her I needed to pack my things. She just smiled and said, ‘Everything is in the trunk.’ And that was it. There was no time to say goodbye to my friends. I was off to a new home.”

One of those placements suddenly surfaces from her memory in mid-conversation.

“There was only one home where the people actually cared about me,” Cuevas recalls. “They told me they loved me, and looking back, I think they meant it. But it was too late. I was 13, and I didn’t trust anybody anymore.”

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