A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : Foster Parents Introduce Kids to Family Life

She had a face like Shirley Temple and an extensive ability to swear, but what the 4-year-old girl did not have when she arrived at the door of the Haendigeses in West Hills was any knowledge of what a family was.

Mike Haendiges, a foster parent, remembers one day when the family took the girl to the beach, and told her to stay in sight so she would not get lost.

“Well, if I get lost, I’ll just go find another family and be with them,” said the girl.

Haendiges and his wife, Donna, have cared for 16 children since they became foster parents 4 1/2 years ago. Their goal is to help each child understand what a family is.

They were recently named Foster Parents of the Year by the Children’s Bureau of Southern California, which supervises 175 certified foster homes throughout Los Angeles, and parts of Ventura and Orange counties. Foster children, who range in age from infants to 12, have been taken from their homes because of abuse, neglect, exposure to drug use or other reasons.

“It’s a real crash course on what a lot of other people are going through,” Mike Haendiges said.

At the Haendigeses’, each new foster child gets a photo album to fill with pictures, happy memories the couple try to create. They celebrate birthdays. Donna Haendiges remembers with a laugh how she wanted to do something special for the tough little Shirley Temple, and bought her a bicycle for her birthday.

“But I wanted makeup,” said the girl, who left in June to live with another foster family after being with the Haendigeses for a year.

A breakthrough in their relationship was when the girl started calling her Mom, Donna Haendiges said. “I almost didn’t want her to because I didn’t want her to get too attached to me.” She said she still gets sad when she sees reminders of the girl around the house.

The Haendigeses build trust with the children through small steps, keeping promises, encouraging their talents, sharing good times and helping them through the bad times.

“I think the thing that keeps us going is to have a sense of humor,” Donna Haendiges said.

One of their foster children, Tim, now 14, was adopted by the Haendigeses. He came to their home four years ago after living most of his life in foster homes.

The day the Haendigeses picked Tim up from a group home in Culver City, he screamed all the way, saying he did not want to leave the friends he had made there. “I didn’t want to be here,” Tim said. “You get tired of moving from one spot to another.”

“You could see everything ripping apart inside of him,” Donna Haendiges said. But, the couple told him, “You know, Tim, that’s not a permanent place, but living with us can be a permanent place.”

They adopted him with the support of their three biological children: Jayme, 18, Rochelle, 15, and Joshua, 11. The couple try to balance the needs of their children with the often greater needs of the foster children.

The experience of being a foster family and adoptive parents has had its ups and downs.

Because of everything he has gone through, for example, Tim has had more problems than their biological children, but at the same time, his life experience has given him a sharp sense of humor, Donna Haendiges said.

“You have made me laugh more than the other kids, and you have made me cry more than the other kids,” she once told him. “He kind of endears himself to me when I’m mad at him.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Mike Haendiges said.

“But to see the changes in these kids is really neat,” Donna Haendiges said. “It’s definitely worth it.”

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