ANAHEIM : Free Day Care for Special Foster Kids

Like most mothers with babies, Karen Harvey laughs at the idea of free time. So when Advanced Resources for Foster Kids in Anaheim offered her four hours of free day care on Friday afternoon, she jumped at the opportunity.

“I’m going to lunch with my husband, hopefully down by the beach, something romantic,” she said.

Harvey, like other mothers dropping off infants and toddlers at the center, brought more than a diaper bag for her 7-month-old foster son. She also brought a machine that feeds the blue-eyed baby one drop of formula at a time through a tube into his stomach, plus special instructions for burping and changing the child.

Other mothers brought breathing machines and more special instructions.

The youngsters are foster children, the majority of whom were born to drug-addicted mothers, who need round-the-clock attention, said Liz Lafferty, executive director of the center.

For Harvey, that means feeding a baby son whose digestive system is so troubled that it takes him two hours to drink and digest 4 ounces of formula.

Friday’s offer of free day care for foster children with special needs begins what center operators hope will be a new service available on a monthly basis.

The center offers regular day care twice a week for foster children, but mingling the medically sensitive kids with the others was “overwhelming for the volunteers,” said Lafferty.

Maureen Kaminski, who works at the center, decided to organize a special day just for the kids with special needs.

One nurse and three volunteers, plus Lafferty and Kaminski, joined forces to give the moms a day off and the kids a place to stay.

“When a foster parent gives up, that child’s life is hell,” said Lafferty. “We want to look at the foster parent and say, ‘How can we help? What can we do?’ If a foster mother wants to go off and take a bubble bath, that’s fine.”

Baths and lunches with friends were high on the foster parents’ list of priorities Friday.

Linda Darden, who dropped off her four foster children--all of whom had been drug-addicted infants--said she couldn’t believe the center’s offer.

She said her free time would be spent “going to the hospital to look at another baby. And to have a nail fixed.”