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Group home blessing for kids in transition

Everyday Blessings provides a safe haven for kids waiting to be adopted or placed in foster homes.

By KAREN DAVISON
Published October 21, 2005

THONOTOSASSA - The building isn't fancy and the decor isn't fine, but the foster children who take shelter at a place called Everyday Blessings can feel safe surrounded by concrete blocks and caregivers.

This nonprofit agency recruits, educates and supervises foster and adoptive parents and places children in foster and adoptive homes. It also keeps up to 30 children in residence at any given time.

Most are siblings who would otherwise live in separate foster homes. Most often they're 8 years old and younger.

The building has seven little "apartments," each made up of two bedrooms and a bathroom. Four or five children sleep in each bedroom in bunk beds; one of seven live-in caregivers has the room next door.

"I'm more like an aunt babysitting," said Carol Evens, a social worker and one of seven caregivers.

She said the arrangement allows children to have consistent parenting. "That's what really turns the child around," she said.

Weekdays, the children attend onsite day care or go to public school and return to Everyday Blessings for afterschool care. Evens gets them ready for their 5:15 p.m. supper, after which she and the children carry out the same routine as parents and children everywhere: homework, baths, Dragon Tales, bedtime.

Weekends, they play in the park, shop at Wal-Mart, go to the beach or visit her sister. They have a standing date at IHOP.

"I'm amazed at how many 17-year-old foster kids have never ordered in a restaurant," she said. On her outings, people sometimes tell her she has her hands full. She much prefers what someone told her recently: "Your heart is full."

Evens has been at Everyday Blessings for 2 1/2 years and plans to leave at the end of this year. She hopes to adopt a little girl who's almost 3; Evens has been mom to her since the child was a month old. When she leaves, Evens will open her home to foster children.

Sister Claire LeBoeuf, Everyday Blessings' founder and executive director emeritus, said the turnover rate for caregivers is "not that big." However, it's "not that easy to find people who have a missionary spirit and who love children and put children's interest first."

For surrogate parenting, the caregivers receive room and board, one weekday night and every seventh weekend off, and a stipend. A petty cash allowance pays for weekend activities, but Evens sometimes adds her own money.

The nonprofit agency receives 80 percent of its funding from the state through contracts with Hillsborough Kids Inc. The rest comes from community support.

Recent building improvements put a crimp in the budget: $39,000 for a new septic system and $28,000 to replace the air conditioning system and make electrical upgrades. The well also needs improvements, she said.

As far as "goods for the children, they have everything," Sister LeBoeuf said, adding that the agency can always use diapers, baby wipes and socks and underwear for ages 3 and older.

"Friends of Everyday Blessings," a volunteer group that meets monthly, helps to fill in the gaps with new shoes or a summer party.

How long the children live at Everyday Blessings varies, said Sister LeBoeuf, who is a Catholic nun. A child could stay just overnight or, like one group of five siblings, 2 1/2 years. Once they arrive, they stay - no more moving from home to home - until a decision is made whether to return them to their birth parents, place them with relatives or move to terminate parental rights.

Add to this that 99 percent of children in foster care have been neglected, abused or abandoned, said Sister LeBoeuf, and the process could take years.

During a recent week, the numbers of children at Everyday Blessings were in the double digits: 10 one day, 11 the next. Sister LeBoeuf's seven social workers worked to find foster homes in a system that is already saturated.

"The children come daily, daily, daily," Sister LeBoeuf said. "There is a tremendous need for foster parents."

Part of the blame for that lies with delays in the children's eligibility for adoption. Everyday Blessings currently oversees about 165 children placed with 71 families acting as foster parents while waiting to adopt. Sister LeBoeuf said "many, many" of the children have been in the homes for at least a year, some, for three years.

The federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires that within 12 months of a child entering foster care, authorities must decide whether to terminate parental rights in the case, or return the child to the parents.

"That is not happening in Florida," Sister LeBoeuf said.

Bradley and Faith Lange decided to take a chance.

"We were so fortunate with our girls," said Faith Lange, who sits on the board of directors of Everyday Blessings. "We had the easiest time."

Nine months after the Langes began the process, which includes background checks, home inspections and lots of paperwork, "we got the girls to come into our care," she said.

Mercedes was 2 1/2 years old; her sister Elexis, 1 1/2.

Mercedes would put her baby doll into a closet and say "baby cry." Elexis constantly held on to Faith Lange. They had been in 11 foster homes.

A year later, the adoption was final. The girls, now 8 and 7, thrive in their home at the edge of New Tampa.

Faith Lange tells her two daughters, "You didn't come from my tummy. You came from my heart. I waited a long time for you."

- For more information, call Everyday Blessings at 982-9226.

Supporters of Everyday Blessings will hold a charity car show at 9 a.m. Saturday at Valrico Recreation Center, 707 S Miller Road. Check out new and vintage cars, hot rods and motorcycles. Cost for the event is $15. It concludes with a trip to a Thonotosassa adoption agency, where Everyday Blessings workers try to place children in permanent homes. To learn more, go to www.everybless.org or call 376-5215.

[Last modified October 20, 2005, 10:29:05]