Need for Understanding : Recruiters Comb Area to Boost Ranks of Latino Foster Parents

During a warm December in 1985, a burst of bullets abruptly ended the lives of a young Latino couple in front of their three children.

The children were swiftly removed and spared gazing at the bloody aftermath of the shoot-out with police, who raided the family’s South-Central Los Angeles apartment looking for drugs. But the children--ages 3, 6 and 8--spent the next seven hours sharing their initial shock inside the austere walls of the downtown office of the county Department of Children’s Services.

At nearby telephones, social workers frantically searched for a foster home where Spanish was spoken that would care for all three children.

On Edge of Despair

“Finally, after begging, praying and almost on the edge of despair, we found someone to take the children,” said Virginia Nations, who was working as a social worker for the department. “It was imperative that we place the children with a Spanish-speaking foster home so that the trauma could at least be minimized and they could begin to work through some of their grief.”

Although lodging for the children was eventually found, Nations said she realized that, while there is always a need for foster homes, the need for homes where Spanish is spoken is especially acute.

She is now one of three recruiters in the county who comb churches, neighborhood centers and virtually any other gathering place looking for people who will open their homes to foster children. And Nations is hitting especially hard in heavily Latino pockets such as the Southeast area and Long Beach because more than one-third of the children taken into protective custody are Latino--yet only 600 out of 3,700 licensed foster homes belong to Latino families.

“It is a crisis we’re experiencing and facing. We want to see the Latin community come forth and develop leadership skills as volunteers and be a voice for our children,” Nations said.

Another reason why there is a push for Latino foster homes, Nations said, is that most Latino children have an additional obstacle to overcome: a language barrier.

“These children come into the system and most of the time foster parents cannot communicate with the child. Kids wind up completely lost in the situation. It increases the trauma instead of minimizing it,” Nations said.

Parents Can’t Fill Role

Out of 25,000 children placed in protective custody each year in the county, about 8,000 are Latinos. Some have been abused or neglected by their parents, but sometimes they need a temporary home because their parents are in jail, or ill or otherwise unable to care for the children.

As the number of Latinos has grown in Los Angles County in the last 10 years, so have the number of Spanish-speaking children needing foster care.

“The kids come here damaged already,” said Nations, noting that many of the children come from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. “Many have not ever been to school. Often the parents do not have legal status. The adjustment process is just tremendous.”

Even different customs can be a barrier for some children.

Nations cited one case where a black foster mother was concerned that a young Latino did not want to eat in her home. A county worker finally spoke to the child in Spanish.

“The child was used to a certain diet and ate with a tortilla,” said Nations. “He was too embarrassed to say he didn’t eat with a fork. . . . It’s little things like that make it or break it for a kid.”

Although the county has had a Latino recruiter for several years, it wasn’t until late 1985 that the department transferred Nations from social work to recruit Latinos, said Sally McCoy, director of foster home recruitment and licensing. A third recruiter was hired last fall.

“Now we have to be really aggressive,” McCoy said. “We have to play catch-up with all the years we had a hard time getting Hispanic families.”

Bridging Cultural Gap

McCoy said one of the difficulties the recruiters have had to overcome in signing up Latinos is that many do not understand what foster care means, since it does not exist in their culture.

“There is not a concept of foster parent per se. We have to explain that it is not adoptive. It is only temporary custody of a child,” said McCoy, noting that the objective of the foster care program is to eventually reunite parents with their children.

The road to recruitment has had other obstacles as well.

Although recruiters were emphasizing the program to Latinos, many of the materials, including an information pamphlet, had not been translated into Spanish. And, until recently, there were fewer than 100 Spanish-speaking social workers to deal with the heavy caseload of Latino children, Nations said.

“The system was not set up. There were enormous obstacles we had to overcome. But the bottom line is that recently the department has shown a commitment . . . toward improving services to the Hispanic community,” Nations said.

Nations has received help from a group she formed last year called Las Madrinas, the godmothers.

The small group of volunteer Latinas from several Southeast and South Bay cities make pitches in churches, post bulletins and assist with clerical duties. Many of the madrinas want to be foster mothers but do not meet all of the requirements. Some may not have enough space in their homes; others may not have an adequate income.

“I always feel there’s a way to use people’s talents,” Nations said.

Housed in Institution

Ana Vengoechea, a volunteer from Long Beach, said she has visited MacLaren Hall in El Monte, where children are kept temporarily until appropriate foster homes are found.

“I saw a little Latino boy who was very timid. He would not speak, even though he is not deaf or mute,” said Vengoechea. “I want to help in any way I can.”

First on the group’s agenda is the translation of materials into Spanish. But the group also wants to begin to push for change in the way children are assigned to homes.

“The county has this program where they say they want Latino foster parents to take care of Latino children,” but then those families are not always asked to take in Latino children, said volunteer Fanny Almaguer of Maywood, noting that black children are often taken to Latino homes, while Latino children are placed in non-Latino homes.

Almaguer cited an incident at a Christmas party for foster children, where she met a black foster mother who was taking care of a black child, an Anglo child and a Latino child who didn’t speak English.

Gets by With Dictionary

“I asked her how she communicates with the Latino child. She told me with a dictionary,” Almaguer said.

McCoy said the department’s “preference is to place a Hispanic child with a Hispanic family that can relate to him.” But many times the department has to place children where there is room, and often they must act quickly in an emergency situation. Moreover, she said, the department tries to consider the skill of the foster parents and the age group they work best with.

County officials and volunteers do agree on one thing: As much as possible should be done to place children in homes instead of institutions like MacLaren Hall, which frequently has 300 children.

“I saw the children at the hall. It was very clean and the staff was friendly. But it’s still an institution. An institution, even if it has love, sometimes is not sufficient,” said Esther Lazo, a madrina who lives in Maywood.

Since becoming a recruiter more than a year ago, Nations has been conducting monthly meetings in several Southeast locations to publicize the foster care program. She said she began holding meetings at the Norwalk Social Services Center last September, when she realized that the city--which is 40% Latino--only has 18 Latino foster homes.

The figures parallel other Southeast cities. Long Beach has five Latino foster homes, Huntington Park has 18, but Hawaiian Gardens has none.

Taken Far From Homes

Because there are so few foster homes in the area, Latino children from Southeast cities often have to be placed 20 to 25 miles from their home. County officials say they would rather place children as close to their homes as possible, since the parents are sometimes allowed to visit them.

“I want to see that we have enough foster homes in our community and not create an additional frustration for the parents. The resources need to be near where the problem is happening, instead of having San Fernando taking care of Long Beach kids,” Nations said.

During a presentation last month at the Norwalk center, Nations pulled no punches. She warned prospective foster parents that the children will not arrive at their homes primped and proper, with clean clothes and ribbons in their hair.

“The child feels frightened, insecure, alone. They are kids who have gone through hell. They don’t feel good about themselves,” said Nations, who can tell one heart-wrenching story after another. “The child needs protection and a sanctuary. The foster home is the first safe sanctuary.

“Foster parents are special people. It takes a person that has 600 pounds of heart to take on the responsibility of being a foster parent,” Nations said.

The material rewards are few--foster parents get reimbursed for expenses ranging from $294 to $433 per child--but most do it for the opportunity to help children, county officials said.

Room in Her Home

Just ask Rosa Rodriguez of Norwalk, a widowed mother of eight children.

As she saw her children grow up and leave to attend college or work, she had a desire to share her three-bedroom home with children who needed a temporary residence.

“I worry a lot for these children. A lot of them have problems. It’s not a difficult thing. Why not help someone if you can?” said Rodriguez, who has been a host mother for three years to scores of boys who have shared her home with her two youngest sons.

But, she said, it was not always easy. When she first became a foster parent, she almost regretted it as soon as her first charge walked into her home. The 8-year-old boy spat in people’s faces and liked to swear. After three weeks, Rodriguez reluctantly called a social worker from the department and asked that she take the boy back.

“I thought I would never be able to do this job,” said Rodriguez, who has since had success in foster care.

Nations cites the story of William and Camila Hammond of Whittier when asked about the successes and joys that come with foster parenting.

The Hammonds were taking care of a 10-year-old girl, who had been neglected by her mother, when it became apparent that the mother would remain too ill to care for the girl. She was put up for adoption. The Hammonds--who have been foster parents to more than 50 children since 1972--decided to adopt the girl, who is half Italian and half Latino.

Adoption a Possibility

Nations said that while the desired goal is to reunite the child with his or her parents, sometimes that cannot be. The next best thing is to have the foster parents adopt the child, especially if the child has adjusted well in the home.

Camila Hammond, who is Latina, said she never thought that she and her husband would become so involved with foster parenting that they would actually adopt one of their charges.

“We love and wanted to have her as our daughter,” said William Hammond.

The Hammonds--who are in the process of adopting another 4-year-old girl--said they will continue to care for foster children.

“We say someday we’ll retire. Then we think a couple of kids out there need help. I’m sure we’ll always have some foster children,” William Hammond said.