Old article I found online

Published: February 19, 2007 12:00 am
Small church makes a big difference for foster childrenBy Amanda McGregor , Staff writerSalem News
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SALEM - First Universalist is a small parish with a huge heart.Though the church has fewer than 50 active members, those members include eight families who provide foster care and/or have adopted children. For them, church is more than a place of worship - it has become a support group where parents share joys and tribulations and foster and adopted children are the norm, not the exception."It's very normalizing and that's incredibly important to them," said Jan Costa, who has been a foster mother for eight years and recently adopted a 2-year-old son."It's a gift," Kathleen Riley said of the church community. She and her husband, Steve Duguay, adopted their daughter Dora, 7, one year ago. "And Dora is our gift," Steve said.A service scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 25, will honor the unique community at the First Universalist Society of Salem. Families will share their experiences of adoption and foster care, and one girl plans to show her adoption scrapbook."People always have a very interesting reaction to our story," Joseph Buchanan of Salem said. "They say, 'You did what?'"Joseph and Agnes Buchanan, along with their son Ryan, 14, traveled to Kazakhstan for a month last spring to adopt Tanya, now 11."When you tell your story, some people just kind of melt," Agnes said. "They say, 'That's something I've been dreaming of doing.'"They hope the service will open other people's hearts, too.Ready for anythingLast Sunday, four toddlers roamed a nursery strewn with books and toys in the red brick, 1808 church off Bridge Street. Two of the babies were foster children; Anthony, nearly 3, was adopted by Jan Costa; and the fourth child's biological parents are members of the church."Foster children have a story they come with to the new family," said the Rev. Bill Robinson, interim minister at First Universalist. He and his wife are also adoptive parents."Some of the stories we hear are hard to believe - that things like this happen to such nice little kids," Robinson said. "So it's a different kind of an experience as a parent. I see (parishioners) talking to each other about their situations and I have conversations with them as well."
The families at First Universalist say they help each other through the paper trails, the foster care certification process, or just caring for children from various backgrounds."It is a bit of a Zen way of being," foster parent Joyce Prior of Beverly said, "because you don't know (what child will come into your life).""I keep clothing in my house for every age: zero to 5 years old," Christine DiSaia said."And if there's no baby in the crib, you just use it for storage," Costa said.The children (most of whom can't be named in the newspaper, for privacy reasons) said they don't necessarily talk about their histories with each other in Sunday school, but they find comfort in being together."When I first walked in and there were other foster kids here, it practically blew me away," Costa said. "I could bring my kids to a church where they were normal.""There is so much support to be found here," Prior said. She and her wife, Donna Blume, have provided foster care for nearly six years. "For me, it's spiritual in the sense of how we all make families in different ways. In a tiny little church, it's really quite remarkable."So many storiesDora, 7, had four families before she found her permanent home in Salem with Riley and Duguay. Tanya, 11, lived in an orphanage in Kazakhstan when the Buchanans found her nearly two years ago through an exchange program they read about in The Salem News. Another family at the church adopted two girls from Guatemala.Costa, a nurse who has three grown children, became a foster parent after her husband died of cancer. Over the years, around 100 children have come into her Salem home. Last year, baby Anthony arrived - and he never left."I just said, 'I can't let this one go,'" Costa said. "It will be a real pleasure to watch this child grow."Blume and Prior have been foster mothers to a teenage daughter for the last year and a half and Blume enjoys helping out at the church nursery."She's very interested in the story of each child, because she can relate," Prior said.Christine and Gene DiSaia of Lynn are foster parents to a 21-month-old boy and regularly provide short-term foster care. They take hot line cases from the state Department of Social Services, which means they can receive calls anytime, day or night, to take children into their home.
"People are just kind of used to it now," said Christine DiSaia, an attorney certified to practice in child welfare cases. "They'll say, 'Oh, Christine is showing up with three children today.'"Need for homesOn the North Shore and Cape Ann alone, there are roughly 375 foster children right now. In the same area, there are only 140 families who provide foster care, according to Carla King, who is the foster parent recruiter for the area office of the Department of Social Services."There's a huge need for foster homes," she said.King said her office now has a group of three sisters for whom they can't find a home. And she said adolescent and teenage foster children often have to be placed in a group home, which is a level of service they don't need. But there is no other choice when there aren't families to take them.The members of First Universalist in Salem invited King to attend the Feb. 25 service, where she plans to talk with people interested in foster care and adoption."I love working with foster families," said King, who has worked for DSS for more than a decade. "They are just the most amazing people - so generous and selfless. I love doing for them, because they do so much for others."For more information on foster care and adoption, call Carla King at the Department of Social Services at 978-825-3862.If you goWhat: "Growing Families Through Foster Care and Adoption," a special serviceWhere: First Universalist Society of Salem, 211 Bridge St.When: Sunday, Feb. 25, 10:45 a.m.