Yet for twenty years, in this modest house, Sylvia and Gary have been foster parents for very young children placed there by child welfare authorities. Today, there are four infants under Sylvia’s care, all under the age of one. These happen to be “drug babies” - temporarily, or permanently taken from their parents due to their drug abuse or neglect.
At the front door, Sylvia greets Kristen like an old friend. Kristen has brought her a present - a pound of coffee in a brightly colored bag with a ribbon. It’s a casual exchange, but somehow it seems to heighten the human bond between them.
On this morning, Kristen and Sylvia have allowed an observer to get a glimpse of their extraordinary world - a world that flies under the radar because it occurs within the confines of an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood. For children unlucky enough to be detoured from their developmental path, the tender mercies that Sylvia and Kristin provide constitute an extraordinary second chance.
Part of the family
In a playroom just off the kitchen, three of Sylvia’s foster children are in their high chairs finishing breakfast. A fourth is still asleep in another room. At first glance, none of the three give a hint of being anything but normal. Don’t all babies squirm in their high chairs, toss their food on the floor or cry when they want to be picked up? What a visitor can’t discern are the more subtle signs of cognitive, social or motor skill impairment. This is where the keen senses and experience of the foster mom and Kristin come in to play.
While the children aren’t related by blood to Sylvia, they are considered family. “When a child comes into my home, they are my child. I know that I have boundaries and restrictions...but in my heart, they are my child and I treat them that way until they leave my home,” she says.
Abounding with energy
Maybe it’s because it’s the beginning of another week. Maybe it is that she is really well rested, but Kristin has energy to burn. With several home visits lined up back to back on this Monday, she’ll need every ounce.
For Kristin, this job is a labor of love. “I get paid to play,” she jokes. But that tongue-in-cheek statement isn’t convincing. Every item on her early intervention menu is geared towards a therapeutic or educational end. When she holds one of the infants, she does it in a way that strengthens the child’s back muscles; when she interacts using a toy, she is gauging how well the child responds; when she talks to a child, she is skillfully encouraging communication, assessing strengths, diagnosing weaknesses.
As Kristin works with the children, she and Sylvia multi-task, maintaining a non-stop conversation about how each child is doing, uncovering subtle yet important clues to their progress. Mostly, she is helping to redirect the trajectory of the child’s future - taking it out of reverse and catalyzing forward motion in hope of a positive outcome.
“The IFSP says 45-minute home visits, but you go with the flow,” said Kristen. “Birth to three, we just do home visits or we go to daycare, which is considered a home visit.” The emphasis, says Kristen, is on serving children in their natural environments. The program has moved away from bundling kids up and taking them to centers for therapy. It is much more effective, and easier on the children, to go to where the children are living, if possible.
Kristin’s team is one of three Early Intervention geographic groups that work in Multnomah County. All these visits require a one person on my team of nine...today I have five home visits,” she says. “Our northeast area serves just about to St. Helens and all the way up Burnside to 148th.”
It’s just the beginning
Since 1988, Sylvia and Gary have had about 150 children in their care. Picture frames filled with photos of children line the walls in the playroom. “I haven’t had as many (children) as some people who have been doing this for 20 years, because when they come, they stay until either they are returned to parents or they are adopted,” she says. “When I take a child in, I’m committed.”
Though singularly focused on her job as an early childhood educator, Kristin has an cogent grasp of the big picture. She sees these children all along the continuum of life - moving in an affirmative way from their early challenges but also needing help at other stages of life. “We need our Alpha High Schools, we need it all. We just don’t know where these kids will grow up,” she says with hope, but also with a bit of resignation about the harsh realities of starting life with lethal narcotics in your body.
Sylvia adds: “This is the beginning. It’s not their fault that they’re in the situations that they are in. It’s very sad. You can get very agitated at the parents who didn’t make wise choices when they were pregnant. “
“It’s a totally preventable disability,” Kristin says. “ You try not to make judgments, you just come in and roll with the punches.”
After a half hour of work with the infants, Sylvia disappears for a moment and returns with yet another infant in her arms. This little boy is tiny, four months old with a full head of rich black hair. “This little guy spent 47 days in the hospital on morphine due to having so much trouble with drug withdrawal,” said Sylvia. “He is just now waking up. He spent most of his time basically just surviving and being very agitated and screaming.”
Kristin and Sylvia talk about his progress and sound hopeful about his newfound ability to make eye contact. But they also predict that when he is evaluated for early intervention this boy will be added to her caseload.
Small, defenseless, just coming out of withdrawal...another little one fighting a battle that didn’t have to be...but one that he may overcome with the help of big-hearted foster moms like Sylvia and dedicated specialists like MESD’s Kristin Erickson White.
|
