Published: June 28, 2008 07:01 pm      

Fostering Families: Transitional homes invaluable to children in need

Maureen Walls wants to be the old lady in the shoe. But while the Mother Goose character doesn’t know what to do with all her children, Walls knows exactly what she would do given the chance.

The single mother of one has seen her family grow to include four more. And this isn’t the first time. Two sets of sisters, foster children through Regional Youth Services, currently live under her roof and she has housed eight other girls since 2002.

“I found my purpose,” Walls said. “So many people die without ever finding theirs — I found mine. People say, ‘you do so much for them,’ and I say, ‘No, they do so much for me.’”

In Indiana, more than 10,000 children were removed from their homes in 2007. More than half were placed in foster care, one-quarter were placed with a family member, and the rest either went to group homes or some other form of residential care.

Every day Walls scans the real estate section of the newspaper looking for land, because with more property and a bigger house she could offer a home to more than the four girls that live with her now. Walls wants to take in as many children as she can.

Serious about the hardships her foster daughters face and spirited in her approach to parenting, Walls knows it takes a mix of fun and a solid foundation to help get foster children back on their feet.

She explains this as she sits on the couch in her Jeffersonville living room. Two girls sit quietly on the floor watching morning cartoons. One little girl sits on the floor next to them carefully wrapping her baby doll in a blanket, and the fourth little girl giggles as Walls braids her hair.

She calls all her girls her family, and her friends. They do nearly everything together, the pack of them moving around town from the YMCA to the library to the Dollar Store. Walls takes them shopping — all four get an allowance and love getting the receipts — and she takes them to visit the library, museums, and even the circus. She stresses education, making sure they are learning something no matter where they are or what they are doing. And she makes sure they say please and thank you.

“Since they’ve been through a lot, I try to let them be kids, and then I get to be a kid, too.”

But the first thing she does is take them to church — “to let them know they’ve got a higher power to lean on.”

She keeps in touch with her foster daughters even after they leave her home if she can — making phone calls, visiting and occasionally picking them up when they need a ride. Walls only has one rule when fostering a new child — she only takes girls.

“I just do better with girls,” Walls said, laughing as she tried to get one of the girls to sit still for her turn to get her hair braided. “You know they say ‘girls rule.’”

“And boys drool,” the little girls said giggling.

Walls is a single mother, and people often ask her how she is able to handle the kids and also work full-time. She says one thing — support. They say it takes a village, and Walls has built a team of people to help her provide stability to the foster children she cares for who seem to lack it so much.

One friend with a beauty shop cuts the girls’ hair, a day care center allows her to drop off new charges at a moments notice, and Regional Youth Services, the foster care agency she is licensed through, offers a multitude of classes, therapists, and advice whenever Walls asks.

Her daughter, Aungelique, still lives at home and is able to help. And a handful of organizations, friends, and church members rally around Walls to help her in her mission.



IN THEIR COURT

In Clark County, 55 percent of children removed from their home went into foster care, and in Floyd County, 67 percent of children were placed in foster care. Though the number of children cycling through the courts due to suspected or substantiated abuse or neglect are substantially different — Judge Vicki Carmichael in Clark County Superior Court No. 1 saw 265 cases in 2007, while Judge Terrance Cody in Floyd County Circuit Court saw 60 cases in 2007.

And it’s never easy to make the decision to pull a child out of a home and away from parents.

“To send someone to many, many years of jail is easier than taking a child away from their parents,” Carmichael said. “A lot of it has to do with the economy — when people aren’t working they can’t take care of themselves let alone their kids.

“The ones that really bother me are drug abuse, when babies are born with drugs already in their system. And cases where there are things we can do, but there aren’t a lot of resources — it’s tough, it all comes down to money.”



HOW IT GOES

CHINS, or Children in Need of Services, cases are first brought to Carmichael or Cody before any child is removed from their home. Due to a neighbor’s phone call or a visit from the police, the Department of Child Services brings parents to the courts on an emergency order to determine if the children are unsafe and need to be placed somewhere else.

Wednesday morning Judge Cody heard three CHINS cases, two were new and the third was ongoing. One mother wanted to get her son out of the custody of his father’s girlfriend — the father had recently left the country. As her case proceeds, she wanted to make sure her son would live with her sister.

Relative placement is preferable to foster care in the eyes of the DCS. But the rigors of determining if that relative is suitable and even finding a relative at all, often prevent that from occurring. In Clark County, 27 percent of children removed from their homes went into a relative’s care, and in Floyd County, only 8 percent of those children went to a relative.

“There has to be a relative that is willing to step up, go through background checks, have their home environment checked, and be a part of the child and family team, and in some situations parents have burned a lot of bridges in their family ties,” said Penny Pfau, the Floyd County Department of Child Services supervisor. “Sometimes when a child needs immediate care we don’t have the luxury of spending time to find a suitable relative.”

And in those situations, the Department of Child Services and independent foster care agencies like Regional Youth Services depend on foster parents to be ready to step in whenever they’re needed. Longtime foster parents are particularly valuable because they have completed their training, and they have a track record of committed care to children who are especially vulnerable.

“We ask a great deal of these foster parents — we ask them to love and cherish and nurture these kids like their own, but then be willing to give them up,” Pfau said.



REUNITING FAMILIES

Reuniting kids with their parents is the ultimate goal for the Department of Child Services and for agencies like Regional Youth Services. Parental rights can be terminated in extreme cases, or if a child has spent more than 15 of the most recent 22 months in foster care.

But caseworkers and judges want foster care to be a temporary, and short, moment in a child’s life. Permanency is the buzz word, and caseworkers advocate the fact that all children need stability, instead of bouncing from home to home every few months.

And that’s where foster parents like Maureen Walls step in. Walls is always prepared to accept a child in need of a home, but she is also prepared to let one return to their own home as well. She teaches her girls the Rod Stewart song “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” and tells them to sing it to their parents when the girls see them.

“I do realize they’re not my kids,” Walls said. “They have a mom and dad — I call it staying in my own lane — I’m just a helper.”

But, she said, it’s still hard when they go.



To become a foster parent

• Prospective foster parents must go through a series of checks, and complete a specific amount of pre-service and in-service training.

• Background check

• Department of Child Services and Child Protective Agency check

• Home environment check (the home needs to meet a set of criteria including, heat, air, adequate lighting, food, cleanliness, and each child must have their own bed, dresser and closet for storing)

• Fingerprint check

A specific set of requirements and more information for people interested in foster parenting can be found at the Indiana Department of Child Services Web site, www.in.gov/dcs.



Agencies

• Clark County Department of Child Services

1200 Madison St., Clarksville, IN 47129-7725

812-288-5444

Director: Patrick Brown

• Floyd County Department of Child Services

1421 E. Elm St., New Albany, IN 47150

812-949-4055

Director: John Barksdale



Regional Youth Services

E-mail: info@regionalys.com

Web site: www.regionalyouthservices.com

• Jeffersonville

224 E. Court Ave, Jeffersonville, IN 47130

1-800-838-3008

(812) 282-8479

(812) 282-8636 fax

• Madison

304 Jefferson St., Madison, IN 47250

1-888-465-2996

(812) 273-2932

(812) 273-2972 fax

• Evansville

501 John St., Suite 9, Evansville, IN 47713

1-800-797-5616

(812) 422-4741

(812) 422-4802 fax