“I love you” 9 year-old Timothy said as a plate of sliced apples and cheese was placed in front of him. He had his nose buried in a book and didn’t even look up.
His foster mom, Debbie, walked out of the room and burst into tears.
It had been a long couple of months of adjusting and learning since she and her husband Mark opened their home and lives to the boy; there were times when Debbie wasn’t sure Timothy would ever get close to them and trust them. And then it happened when she least expected it.
The goal for every child who comes to Hephzibah Home is to start the healing process and prepare him or her for a return to family life—sometimes helping a child reach that level of healing means finding a caring, safe environment outside of their birth family.
May is Foster Care Awareness month: On any given day in Illinois, there are more than 16,000 children in foster care and in 2019, Hephzibah placed 117 children into qualified foster homes. Hephzibah’s foster parents are specially trained to provide the love, constancy and support needed to help neglected and abused children heal and learn to trust again.
We offer our foster families a wide range of support, including training sessions, support groups, and in-home consultations for foster parents facing the extreme challenges of parenting children who have been traumatized by neglect or abuse.
After raising their own children, Debbie and Mark, a retired couple, decided to help children in the community by becoming foster parents. They had lived in Oak Park for 30 years so they were very familiar with Hephzibah and knew exactly where to start their fostering journey.
In March 2016, Debbie and Mark completed the foster approval process, which included a series of classes, interviews, and assessments. Two months later, they were sitting at their kitchen table when the phone rang. A 9 year-old boy was ready to leave Hephzibah Home and transition into their care.
Debbie shared, “Because the goal of foster care is to reunite children with a biological relative, we did weekly 1-hour visits with his mother, his father, and, occasionally, his grandmother.”
“We would also write letters to Timothy’s parents and talk to them on the phone,” Debbie remembered.
As the months went by, Timothy’s parents worked hard on their reunification criteria, and Timothy was attaching and bonding with Debbie and Mark.
“You know these babies are not yours, but you give them just as much love as if they were,” Mark said. “Not that we want to adopt, we already raised a family. But we want to help, and we want Timothy to see us as loving, stable adults in their lives.”
For Timothy’s tenth birthday, Debbie and Mark took him to the Brookfield Zoo. “We’re grateful that we can do that,” says Mrs. Howard, “but we’re grateful for what he’s given us too.”
Timothy’s biological mother worked very hard to resolve the challenges that brought Timothy to the notice of child welfare services. Eventually, she was able to get Timothy back into her care and now provides a loving, stable home for him.
Right now, because of COVID—19 and shelter-in-place regulations, we have nearly 7 children who are “stuck” in Hephzibah Home; they are ready to transition into foster care but can’t, even though we have foster parents and families ready and waiting for them.
The exhaustion of waiting to transition is taking its toll on these young children and we’ve had to improvise to help them stay positive while waiting for their foster home placements: Facetime visits, Zoom calls, letters, notes of encouragement and care packages back and forth. These creative, interactive activities are helping the children connect to their new foster families and will make for an easier transition once the crisis has passed.
We always aim to teach our children that there are people who are looking forward to caring from them and making them a part of a family again. If you are interested in contributing to our foster and intact families right now, we have several children who need chromebooks to complete school assignments over the summer. For more information about donating chromebooks, please contact Marissa Grott at mgrott@hephzibahhome.org
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