‘90s FAMILY : THE REALITIES of Foster Parenting : It isn’t as easy as it looks. Taking in needy children <i> is</i> often rewarding, but there are lots of challenges and heartbreak.

A family of four, three or even two children is more than enough challenge for most frazzled parents. But how about six or eight kids? Or 48?

That’s how many foster children John and Dorothy Leicester took into their sprawling seven-bedroom house in Pacific Palisades during the 15 years that their own six children were growing up and vacating their rooms.

“We did everything for them that we did for our own,” said Dorothy, 66. “John helped them with homework, and I drove them to football and trumpet lessons. I made lunches and did laundry and cooked dinner every night. The only thing I wouldn’t do was pick them up from the police station downtown when they got into trouble. John had to do that.”

Nowadays when the Leicesters serve Thanksgiving dinner, they preside over a gathering that includes their offspring and spouses, and some of the foster children, now adults, who have kept in touch over the years.

Although foster parenting can provide plenty of warm fuzzies, the job is always challenging and often punctuated by heartbreak, say those who have tried it.

Prospective foster parents need to remember that they’re taking in a child with a history, said Elias Lefferman, director of community services at Vista Del Mar Child & Family Services, a licensed private agency in West Los Angeles.

“This child is not a clean slate that you can mold,” he said. “You’re taking a person into your family who has his or her own parents, siblings and special set of problems.”

The task of parenting a child while remembering that you are only a temporary caregiver can be so confounding that the state requires would-be foster parents to complete a training course and be licensed. The free courses, which focus not only on parenting techniques but also on the special needs of foster children, are offered by the state and private foster family agencies.

Although each private agency designs its own courses, the material covered is similar. A certification from Vista Del Mar includes a two-hour orientation, 12 hours of classes, six hours of home study and a one-day CPR and first-aid course.

At the Westside Children’s Center in Santa Monica, would-be foster parents take 10 weeks of evening classes based on a program called MAPP, or Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting. The classes are followed by a home study evaluation and one day of CPR and first-aid training.

Subjects such as bonding and attachment, loss and separation, and working with birth parents not only provide the groundwork for successful adult-child relationships, but also tend to eliminate people who aren’t really qualified, said Gaylyn Thomas, director of the Westside Children’s Center.

“Our classes include 14 different techniques of discipline that parents need to manage the kids and keep communicating,” she said. “Spanking won’t work, because it’s against the law to use physical punishment.”

Beyond rules against spanking, other licensing regulations are stricter than they used to be. Now foster parents have to be fingerprinted, cleared through the Child Abuse Index in Sacramento, fence-in swimming pools, lock all medicine cabinets, prepare a disaster plan, have their cars inspected and provide a room, bed, bureau and closet space for each foster child (two children can share a room). Some agencies even require vaccinations for pets.

Most private agencies offer 24-hour hot-line support and counseling services. This first level of support--buttressed by a network of counselors, social workers, church, family and friends--is one of the keys to success in foster parenting, said Robert Allen, supervisor of the foster care program at Five Acres in Altadena.

“Foster parents need to be humble and realize they are part of a team,” he said. “These are special-needs children, and parents have to reach out and accept professional resources and not try to solve all the problems themselves.”

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Renee Greene, a single mother and foster parent who has worked with Vista Del Mar for the last seven years, agreed.

“Sometimes I’m on the phone to them every week, besides the regular twice-a-month home visits,” she said.

Greene now has three girls in her home, two foster children ages 3 and 6, and an adopted 8-year-old, who started out as Greene’s foster daughter and then became available for adoption.

Allen, 51, himself a foster child who “got into every kind of trouble you can imagine,” credits the unconditional love and faith of Leah Hamilton, his foster mother, with his eventual success. “She told me I was special and constantly reinforced the good in me, until I finally began to believe it.”

Unlike the licensed private agencies, which have the tools and time to provide support services, the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services is so overloaded with cases that most social workers say privately that there simply isn’t time to provide the same in-depth follow-up.

And as more families are adopting children, the pool of foster parents is shrinking. In February, 1994, there were 40,165 children in Los Angeles in what is called “out-of-home care,” but not enough families to take them in.

Dorothy Leicester recalled the time when her seven bedrooms were full and a social worker from the state telephoned and asked her to take in, or at least meet with, a homeless 16-year-old girl.

“But we have absolutely no space, and we’re really not supposed to have more than six children here,” Leicester recalled protesting. Twenty minutes later, “the social worker arrived with the girl and all her clothes and possessions, and a rosy boa snake and a kitten.” Leicester took her in.

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One of the fundamental underpinnings of foster care, Vista Del Mar’s Lefferman said, is its legally mandated goal of reunification--that is, to provide “nurturing care and parental supervision on a temporary basis with the eventual goal of reuniting the child with its natural family.”

“One of the worst things you can do is to try to separate a child from its real family. You expect the child to love you and appreciate what you’re doing. They don’t, at least not right away,” he added.

“They’re not happy to leave their birth parents, even if they’ve been abused. They want to go home to Mom and Dad. Leaving means feelings of guilt and uncertainty, and they blame themselves. How would you feel if a stranger knocked on your door, whisked you away with a bag of clothes and took you to live somewhere else?”

Under the circumstances, most foster children act out their unhappiness by refusing to talk, sulking, biting, bed-wetting, lying, stealing and even running away, experts said.

To succeed in gaining their trust, foster parents must avoid dividing the child’s loyalties between the birth family and the foster family, and resist the desire to sabotage the natural parents’ efforts to call or visit.

The reunification policy has been criticized by some social workers and others in the field, who say some birth parents are incapable of caring for their children.

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Ironically, at a time when judges are getting tougher on birth mothers who give up their babies then change their minds, the courts are showing more leniency in returning foster children to less-than-suitable birth parents, Lefferman said.

Many foster parents tell stories of being ready to adopt a child, only to have the birth mother suddenly reappear.

“It’s an emotional roller coaster,” Greene said. “When they took away my first (foster) child, it was heart-wrenching. Now I’ve gotten more used to it.”

But Greene, who had cultivated a friendly relationship with the birth mother, has stayed in touch with the girl. She is now 12 and in another foster home.

Various parenting styles seem to work, but everyone agrees on one constant:

“Remember that the child isn’t there to serve your needs,” Westside Children’s Center’s Thomas said. “Don’t take a child because you’re lonely, or never had children, or your own child wants a playmate, or you think it’s a way to make money. Your job is to serve the child’s best interests.”

Where to Go for Information, Training For information and the location of training classes offered through the California State Foster Care Recruitment Program, call (800) 735-4984 or (310) 568-1807.

The following private licensed agencies also give training classes for foster parents:

Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, 3200 Motor Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90034; (310) 836-1223.

Westside Children’s Center, 2505 5th St., Santa Monica, Calif. 90405; (310) 396-5199.

Five Acres, 760 West Mountain View St., Altadena, Calif. 91001; (818) 798-6793 or (213) 681-4827.

Guadalupe Homes, 6666 Reseda Blvd., Suite 102, Reseda, Calif. 91335; (818) 776-0033.

Concept 7 Foster Family Agency, 25411 Cabot Road, Suite 201, Laguna Hills, Calif. 92653; (714) 472-0707.

Olivecrest, 1300 N. Kellogg Drive, Suite D, Anaheim, Calif. 92807; (714) 777-4999.

David and Margaret Home, 1350 3rd St., La Verne, Calif. 91750; (909) 596-5921.