Ex-foster kids ease stress for those now in system

By Rhonda Bodfield  |  Arizona Daily Star  |  Link to article
May 27, 2008

Lupe Tovar can't stop the tears from welling when she's asked if she ever felt loved as a child.

She and six siblings were taken from their drug-addicted mother in the Phoenix area when Lupe was 5. She has only hazy memories — of broken windows, cop cars and too many kids living in too few rooms.

From that time on, she lived with 13 foster families, not counting short-term placements of less than six months.

When Tovar was in junior high, it dawned on her that she wasn't going to be getting a family to call her own. And she was right. She never did.

She felt her loneliest in high school, when she was moved to Colorado for what was supposed to be four months. She stayed 18 months.

"That's when I felt that I truly was just a job for people," she said "And I realized then that whatever I wanted to accomplish, I had to do it on my own."

She tells stories of kids taunting her, asking how food tastes in an orphanage. She recalls being sent to day care for a holiday so her foster family could celebrate without her.

Along the way, she lost her native language, Spanish, because none of the families she lived with spoke it. She lost her Barbie doll collection, one of the few treasures of her childhood. Although she had long lost connections with her other siblings, her later separation from her two-years-younger sister left her feeling untethered and alone for years.

Tovar, now 25, was one of the forgotten children in a system that was intended to be a temporary solution.

Nearly 10,000 children are in foster care in Arizona, where the average wait is two years. More than 40 percent of them will live in at least three homes. Across the nation, 26,000 foster youths "age out" of the system the way Tovar did without ever finding a home.

Now a Tucson resident, Tovar was one of 11 former foster youths honored last week in Washington, D.C., with a national leadership award.

Tovar is a program coordinator for In My Shoes, a non-profit foster advocacy group. She helps match foster teens with community mentors who were once themselves in foster care.

She also is a national face of foster-care youths. On the Web site for the Pew Charitable Trusts' campaign called Kids Are Waiting, she's the one on the main page wearing a sign that says, "I am waiting to be wanted."

She's been to Washington eight times, most recently testifying to a House Ways and Means subcommittee about ways to improve the system.

As part of National Foster Care Month, advocates are trying to boost the visibility of the foster program. In a small kiosk at Park Place mall, posters provide a glimpse into the lives of foster youths.

One 24-year-old woman writes that she was separated from her brother for nine years, and by the time they were reunited, they were like strangers. Another laments the indignity that belongings are commonly moved around in trash bags.

Without support, foster youths face significant problems. Two recent studies show they too often struggle to finish school, may not get the care they need for physical and mental health problems, too often face poverty, and in some cases become homeless or even incarcerated.

Hugo Torres, 31, now shares his experiences with foster youths, particularly teenage boys, to steer them away from the path that he took. He was removed from his home at age 12 and then spent his adolescence in six homes. He became increasingly secluded, "always that boy who wanted to be by myself."

Ultimately, when he aged out, he was alone.

"I had no doors to knock on; I had no support," he recalled. He started selling drugs and ultimately went to jail. After he got out, a friend got him a job in construction, where he found a particular talent in painting and now owns a painting business.

Tovar and Torres both can recall some positive experiences. Torres remembers that one foster mother introduced him to her friends as her son — and not as the more frequent "that foster boy I told you about."

Tovar remembers that when she was in sixth grade, her foster family helped her make pins and posters so she could win a seat on the student council. One caseworker took her for ice cream. Another refused to let the sad, silent girl scare her off. Instead, she became the first caseworker in Tovar's memory to really try to find out why she was hurting.

Tovar got her sister back after that — as well as information about going to college.

She said there are things that could be done to make the system work better.

There could be a stronger focus on giving relatives assistance so kids can stay within the family unit when possible.

If siblings must be separated, visitations should be a priority to help them retain that bond.

Caseworkers should be less overloaded.

And if she had a magic wand, Tovar said, she'd strip away the stigma for kids in care and have the community see them as children who can be successful and are worthy of help.

The state tries to keep siblings together, tries to give family members preference and tries to help every child find permanence, said Roxann Miller, a home recruitment specialist for the state Department of Economic Security.

One of the missing pieces, though, is having enough homes, particularly ones that will take siblings and teens.

Miller isn't able to give a specific number of homes that the state needs. The new model is not just to place kids but to try to keep them in their own communities, so they can stay in their schools and worship at the same churches and have some familiar surroundings. Ideally, the placement family will share a similar culture and value system, so the adjustment will be less traumatic.

"What we're looking for is to have choices for the children to minimize, to the degree we can, the disruption they're going through," Miller said.

Families don't have to be rich or own their own homes, two common misconceptions Miller often hears.

Instead, the general requirements are that applicants be at least 21 years of age, own or rent a home and be able to pay their bills. Children don't need their own rooms, but they must at least have their own beds and dressers, she said. And the state does provide assistance with medical, dental, day-care and food needs.

Tovar and Torres have made a brother-sister pact with each other, creating the family they missed out on. The first step: making sure they talk at least once a week. Otherwise, they're feeling their way.

Said Torres: "We're still learning how to do it."

STILL WORK TO DO 

• Children in out-of-home care must see their case managers at least once a month. Only about 75 percent of children are getting those visits because of high workloads.

• There were 2,186 children waiting for adoption at the end of the reporting period.