All in the family

In the first instalment of a two-part feature on foster care, reporter JANELLE DE SOUZA talks to parents on the reasons they welcomed children who lacked parental care into their homes.

Former foster parent Kevin Liverpool was instrumental in establishing September as TT’s Adoption and Foster Care Month, last year. He and his wife, and by extension their four-year-old son, signed up to be a foster family in 2016 out of concern for children without parental care. They were matched with a one-year-old boy who lived in a group home since birth.

Before being assigned a child however, he and his wife went through assessment and training by the Children’s Authority.

“It was very rigorous and meticulous,” Liverpool recollected for Sunday Newsday. “It’s one of the things I always speak about when I speak about the Children’s Authority: that level of care they go through to ensure they get the right people. So, while the process may seem long, at the end of it I’m confident, as a member of the public, that it’s a process that will ensure that the best persons are selected.”

Before fostering, Liverpool said he did a lot of research on children in group-homes or institutions. One of the things that stood out to him was that there were developmental delays, especially in younger children. This was proven when the one-year-old joined the family. He said he compared the foster child to his son when he was one and saw the differences.

For example, he said, initially the boy did not initiate hugs. Also, the first time they carried the boy to the Queen’s Park Savannah he cried. Liverpool said he believed the boy felt overwhelmed by the open space and they had to take him back every day for ten days before he would touch the grass.

In addition, Liverpool said he once volunteered at a children’s home and, although the staff was doing their best with some “going above and beyond the call,” it was still heart-breaking to see the disposition of the children. “At the end of the day, no matter how good an institution is, it could never replace a family environment, no matter how ‘family’ they try to make it.”

However, his wife became pregnant with their now two-year-old daughter. He said his wife had a difficult first pregnancy, and babies naturally took up more of people’s time and attention, so they stopped fostering as they did not want to be unfair to the baby boy.

He admitted that after six months they were all attached to the boy, but he kept it at the back of his mind that the situation was temporary. “I didn’t realise I was so attached because I kept telling myself, ‘This is a service. It is meant to transition the child to a more stable, ideally their own, family.’ Fortunately, when we were transitioning him to the new family, about a week before the move, he started to call me daddy. So I didn’t have to deal with that for too long.”

He said while foster care could be heart-breaking, the experience was also life-changing. “It gave us as a family, including my son, a good feeling that we were doing something positive in someone else’s life.”

While fostering the boy however, Liverpool realised that a lot of people did not know about foster care and he often had to explain the importance. That was one of the reasons why, even though he stopped fostering, he returned to the Children’s Authority to initiate a campaign to encourage more people to foster children, which led to the Adoption and Foster Care Month.

“I am motivated by wanting a society that I could trust. Because I cannot predict the future. Tomorrow my children could be in a (children’s) home. Who knows what could happen? And I want to know that I live in a TT that is a caring and compassionate society that values family. Should that situation happen to my children, I would want to know there are caring adults in society that would step up to the plate, that they would be in a safe home as well.”

He said the experience built his son’s sense of empathy, and an understanding that the world did not revolve around him or any one person. “He learned there were others less fortunate, and we must appreciate what we have, and use what we have to reach out to those in need.”

He said when their daughter is older and more independent, they intend to foster again.

One woman, who has been a foster parent for the past 12 years, also encouraged those who can to become foster parents. “There are a lot of children out there who really need care and attention. If you have the capacity to do it, why not? You’re making a difference with a child.”

She told Sunday Newsday she learned about the foster care system through a radio programme and her daughter, who was a teenager at the time and is now qualified in Early Childhood Care and Education, pestered her to sign up to foster children.

She said for years she had been unofficially fostering children at her Laventille home for people in the area, so she agreed to do it for the State. “At our home we are like a walk-in care centre because everybody drops their children there. That’s how we grow up, we accustomed taking care of people’s children.”

Not long after being accepted as a foster parent, a two-year-old boy was placed with her and has been with her and her family ever since. She said initially the Adoption Board of TT, who handled adoptions from 1930 to 2015, tried to get the boy adopted. However, because he has special needs, it never happened, and he remained in her care.

At 13, she said he loves to sing and participates in ballroom dancing. The Children’s Authority is also looking into getting him speech and physical therapy in the near future.

Since then she has officially fostered two other children – a baby for one month and young boy for two weeks. Asked how she dealt with the emotional and financial challenges of caring for her own family, other people’s children, as well as foster children she said, “You pace yourself and with God’s grace.”

However, she added that there were eight people in her household where only three are her family, but she is also supported by “everybody in the yard” and people in the neighbourhood.

“Once you decide to do it, how are you going to stop? When you become attached to the children and they become attached to you. When you understand their needs as opposed to what you would want, their needs are more important.”