No Home to Call One's Own

Stacia was 7 when I first met her. Her big brown eyes twinkled, her broad smile took over her sweet, beautiful face and we quickly became friends. I saw her weekly in the beginning, trying to bring some caring and stability into her already chaotic and troubled life. She lived with a family out in the country, a family she was soon to leave. They couldn't take her behavior anymore. They would confine her to her room for days at a time. It seemed so cruel. She was so little.

This wouldn't be the first family that said goodbye to Stacia. At age 6 it was her 29th home, the 29th family she thought would be hers. She had been in foster care since she was 18 months old. She was a third generation foster child. Her parents, like theirs before them, lived on the streets, their lives devastated by alcohol, drugs and homelessness. Her father was dead by the time he was 30, found cold and alone on the streets. Her mother lived from hand to mouth, shelter-to- shelter and child to child. Stacia first went to live with tribal members, distant relations but blood relatives. She was sexually molested by the time she was three, by then already a veteran of multiple homes. People made promises they couldn't keep. She became more wary, less able to connect and so much more defended.

Her charm was what brought her through those early years. She was precocious and ever so friendly. It was soon apparent that her friendliness included making herself available for sexual favors. It was one way she knew to get attention and affection. It was one of the ways she got into trouble. She just didn't know how it was really supposed to be. Unfortunately there was no lack of adults who didn't know how it was supposed to be either.

They didn't tell Stacia she was moving until I arrived to pick her up. It had taken weeks to find another home, another station on the way. Foster care is not what it's cracked up to be. Oh, there are some really good homes but they are few and far between. Way too many that I've known have been lacking in warmth, good parenting and caring. They often feel like warehousing for children. That's how this next home was. The house was dilapidated, the caregiver distant and detached. Stacia was afraid but went with that big infectious smile of hers. After three or four weeks it was time to move again. She was too demanding, too needy, too damaged, too wild…just too much for this one single woman to manage along with four other kids.

The next several homes were no better though all tried. Stacia couldn't be trusted around other kids. She had learned too many negative behaviors. She needed constant supervision. She stole, she lied, she was sexually precocious. She was a survivor, but of what it wasn't clear. I was with her over this period, seeing her two or three times a week. I became the steady person in her life. Finally, the last foster home booted her and there were simply no others to be found who could take a child with her history. There were county-wide meetings and searches but no home, no bed for Stacia. She was finally sent to a residential treatment facility for troubled children. It was a psychiatric hospital with only a few beds and she seemed lucky to get one. It seemed there might be some hope that treatment would help her.

Stacia spent 18 months at the child treatment center. She flourished in the structure and consistency of the program and finally the time came for her to leave. The search was on for a family that could give her the healthy structure and predictability she needed. Weeks went by turning into months and no home could be found. Throughout this time I saw her every week and grew to love her.

I had never met a child like Stacia before. I had never seen the heartache of a child that didn't have a home, that didn't have a family and that had no idea what 'normal' was. I had never seen such a little person who had survived so much hardship. With no home appearing and the situation becoming more desperate, I decided to become licensed as a foster parent. I felt I had no choice. I could not abandon her.

Licensing took several months of classes and home inspections. We were all excited. I was sure we could provide a stable home for Stacia. She came for visits and things went well. Finally it was move in day and she arrived with her black plastic garbage bags filled with her clothes. She had her own room. She went to a local alternative school that allowed her to learn the way she could. She had a continuing therapist and we had lots of support.

Stacia was a member of my family for two years. It was the hardest and saddest two years of my life. She was not used to belonging to a family. The demands of a healthy family were unfamiliar to her and she would become enraged, breaking things, screaming to talk to her case worker to complain about some perceived wrong, calling us every foul name in the book, commanding every spare moment of the day. At school she needed a one-on-one helper with her at all times. We broke. We cried. We called uncle and I was consumed by a sense of failure.

Children that have not had early secure attachments in those critical first years of life are irreparably damaged. They are unable to form solid attachment. They are unable to trust others. Many children in the foster care system bounce from family to family throughout their lives. Some of these children would flourish in a well run group home situation, a place where the expectations of relationship with a family are not present but where they can learn that life is predictable and that they are safe and cared for throughout their childhood.

I still hear from Stacia. She calls once in awhile to tell me of her escapades. She had a baby when she was fifteen. Last year I heard she gave him up for adoption. He was eighteen months old.

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