Broadcasting a Need for New Homes

Nine little children are dressed in their best: flowered outfits and matching jumpers for the girls; shorts sets for the dimple-cheeked boys. They are washed and scrubbed, and none of the badges of early childhood--no stray smear of chocolate, crusted patch of cereal or blotch of catsup--is visible.

Indeed, everything that can be done to prepare the children both physically and emotionally for their big day has been done. Their social workers have told them they are going to be on television, and they have told them why.

“We’re going to be adopted!” 6-year-old Crystal blurts exuberantly, giving a little skip that sets her long, dark hair swinging.

So begins the day, as the children troop off to be filmed for “Waiting Child” segments to be shown in several television markets through mid-June.

The concept of the feature is not subtle--its point is to dangle appealing children before viewers with the hopes that someone will bite. But to social workers seeking to keep children from spending their entire lives in foster care, what the tactic may lack in delicacy it makes up for in efficiency.

The program, run under contract with a Santa Barbara television anchorman, has placed 82% of the 800 children featured over the years, and the state considers it one of its most effective adoption programs.

But for adoption officials, almost as important is the exposure the program gives to the issue of adoption, reminding the public that children are waiting for homes. According to the state Department of Social Services, about 250 children in Orange County and 8,600 statewide await adoption.

Each of the nine children, ages 2 to 7, filmed on this recent day were removed from their family’s homes because of either abuse or neglect and now live with foster parents or at Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s emergency shelter for children.

The children were chosen for the news spots for a variety of reasons. Physically attractive and enthusiastic, the children have a sparkle that communicates well visually. Their backgrounds reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the county’s children awaiting adoption and they also have siblings who need permanent homes.

The filming session meant to give them their best chance at happiness also brings out the central tension and complexity in their lives wrought by the absence of parents: they desperately want permanent homes but still are mourning the ones they have lost. Behind this flicker of opportunity are stories of small lives full of grief and disappointment.

Already they have borne losses that would test any adult: They have lost their mothers, fathers and sometimes siblings too. Some have had to leave beloved foster families unable to adopt them or been returned to Orangewood by families that no longer wanted to keep them.

“These are not little clean slates that have nothing written on them,” said James Brown, chief of adoptions for the state Department of Social Services. “They’re children who . . . have a strong sense of torn loyalty and are wondering what’s the right thing for them to do.”

Christina, 7, Crystal, 6, and Michelle, 5

The first stop is the children’s section of Martinez Books & Art in Santa Ana to film three little sisters. Michelle, who has a stomachache, has progressed from shy to glum, and Crystal’s delight dims as the session heads toward the half-hour mark. But Christina dutifully reads to her sisters while cameraman Richard Goudeau films the trio.

“Oh that was wonderful! How easy you make it sound. You’re a good reader,” KEYT-TV anchorman Bob Burton says to Christina. The child beams at him.

“Where did you learn to read so well?” he asks.

“My mom,” she says softly.

“And who’s your favorite person to read about?” he asks.

“My mom,” she says.

It is not clear, however, which mother she means. She and her sisters refer to both their biological mother and foster mother as “Mama ---,” adding the women’s first names.

Too young to talk at length about their feelings, their thoughts are often expressed in play therapy, in which games are used to help the children express their anxieties.

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On a recent visit to their foster home in La Habra, foster agency worker Kelley McWayne asked the girls to draw pictures about their feelings. Christina and Crystal chose the same sketch to color in; it shows a man and a woman with a baby coming through the door and another child sprawled across a bed alone.

Christina explains that she is the figure on the bed.

“This is me and this is my mom and my baby sister and I was worried. . . . I was worried that the baby might die because my mama didn’t have enough food,” she explained. Crystal gives a similar explanation. After their drawings are done, the girls clamor to go to a nearby park, and McWayne takes them outside to play.

In spite of their worries, the girls have an emotional strength that McWayne says will serve them well with new parents.

Their attachment to their foster mother, McWayne says, is a good indication of their ability to love, and they rarely blame themselves for their predicament--a sign that their self-esteem may not be irreparably damaged.

“A lot of times at that age they say, ‘I’m a bad girl; I needed too much food or I told someone that Mama didn’t feed me breakfast and it’s all my fault she can’t have me.’

“If later on, at adolescence, they do have some self-esteem problems, this early strength means it probably won’t be as severe,” McWayne said.

Child development specialists say that such self-esteem issues surface in all children who have been adopted, but they tend to be more pronounced in those with traumatic early childhoods or who were being adopted at an older age.

“If you do have an older child who was with their birth parents up until age 5 or 6, then you’re talking about a child who’s going to require therapy and understanding from parents who are patient,” said therapist Christine Olvera, who runs a county workshop free of charge for people interested in adopting.

“That’s a child who has a strong sense of loss,” added Olvera, who herself was adopted at birth.

Also, adoptive parents can expect their children to test them, experts say.

“You’re gonna see several behaviors--a lot of acting out,” said child development specialist Tim Healy.

“They’re going to show you their worst side because it’s going to take the child several months to realize they can do behaviors and you’ll still be there.”

A child’s ability to bond deeply, however, may be the most important key to whether an adoption will be successful, Olvera said.

“If they have had at least one deep, intimate attachment--whether with a foster mother, a teacher or even a social worker--that means they’ll be able to transfer that attachment to someone else,” she said.

Heather, 6, Timmy, 3, and Patrick, 2

Dark-eyed Heather, silent, adult and wary, guards her two little brothers--all that is left of her family--with a vigilance bordering on obsession.

Social workers use words like “parentified” to describe the overly maternal role she takes, trying to replace the mother with whom the boys have not lived for months.

But they are not surprised at her tenacity. Only her brothers, Timmy and Patrick, have never failed her, and her grip on them is as strong as their circumstances are tenuous.

Separated from her parents at age 4 because of their drug use, for two years Heather lived in Orangewood, then a foster home and then again in Orangewood, where she was joined by her brothers.

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During the filming of the TV spots, Heather and her brothers are driven from one site to another by social worker Jaime Munoz. Although she sits by a door, Heather always watches her brothers until they get out of the vehicle, exits on the same side and picks up one of the boys--usually Patrick.

In capturing Heather on film, it is the child Burton and Goudeau seek to reveal, and they succeed by filming all three siblings as they play in the children’s fountain at Fashion Island in Newport Beach.

Both boys are naturally outgoing, but while playing at the fountain they repeatedly make affectionate grabs at strangers. To social workers, their actions are not just the unguarded behavior of trusting children--the two literally have no boundaries with strangers.

Children who grow up with nurturing parents, Munoz said, learn to see their parents as the source of their security. Timmy and Patrick, with their indiscriminate affection for all, reveal that no particular adult is the center of their world.

But if so, it’s not because Heather does not try to keep the memory of their family alive.

When Timmy, missing his nap, became tearfully cranky, it was with the promise of a piece of candy from their mother that Heather tried to quiet him.

“Timmy, I’ll tell Mom you weren’t good,” Heather said. “I’ll tell Mom not to give you some candy, because she is going to come today, and I know she’s going to come give us a piece of candy.” (Their mother did not visit; she had lost the right to do so when the court permanently separated the family.)

Soon after the filming, social worker Shekoufeh Markel moved Heather and her brothers from Orangewood to a foster home in Orange. Out of the crowded emergency shelter and into a normal family setting, the children already have begun to flourish.

Their new foster mother, Arlene Bartlett, has a degree in child development and owns two preschools. She is an old hand at rearing children, and it shows. Patrick and Timmy, still eager to be cuddled, get constant attention. Timmy no longer merely points at objects, now he names them. And Heather is almost a different person. She is a child, shy and sweet where she was bossy and stern, smiling instead of serious.

Even when Timmy cried at being plucked from the swimming pool’s edge, she relaxed while their foster mother cared for him and continued to play in the water. Diving under the surface, Heather burst from the water again and again, pretending that she is Ariel, the “Little Mermaid.”

Bartlett and her husband have adopted six children--four through the county Social Services Department--ranging in age from 3 weeks to 10 years old. Two are siblings and three of their children are mixed race. (They do not have biological children of their own.)

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Like the vast majority of people in Orange County who adopt children, the Bartletts were foster parents first.

The couple have had a mixed experience with their children; all but one accepted them as mother and father, but the one who didn’t, a daughter, rejected them in adolescence and went to live with her natural mother.

Eventually the girl severed ties with both families and her whereabouts are unknown, Bartlett said. Even that pain, however, did not stop the couple from adopting again and they probably will take another child into their family at some point, Bartlett said.

The greatest fear of adoptive parents is that some unknown trauma embedded in a child’s psyche will suddenly burst forth to ruin their family. In California, prospective parents are legally entitled to see children’s complete medical and family histories, which document the extent of abuse or trauma they have suffered or whether they were prenatally exposed to drugs. But there is no way to predict what will trigger a crisis within a child as he or she grows older.

State officials say that of about 6,000 adoption placements yearly, 10 or so result in children being returned by parents who say they were not adequately informed about their child’s background.

Nationally, about 20% of all adoptions fail--in most cases the child is returned to foster care--and the rate for high-risk children is 33%. By contrast, the Orange County Social Services Agency rate is about 3%.

“Even newborn infants know your heartbeat is not the heartbeat they listened to for nine months, and your voice is not the voice they listened to for nine months,” Bartlett said. “You can love them and love them and love them, and no matter how ideal the home there’s always some sense of ‘Why I given away? What was wrong with me?’ ”

Mariah, 4

Gentle and affectionate, Mariah runs and plays with the other girls, but speaks little.

Before the taping, her social worker hugs her several times for reassurance and then hands her to Burton for the segment. Following his example, Mariah gingerly touches the nose of a goat.

Prenatally exposed to cocaine, Mariah, like one out of five children in the county foster care system, has physical and cognitive developmental problems.

Although more patience may be needed to parent such children, child-care specialists have developed special child-rearing techniques.

Certain kinds of touching, behaviors and even changes in voice can help such children progress dramatically, Healy said, although some never completely overcome the early influences of drugs.

*

“Her parents are definitely going to have to be someone who could provide all that attention she’ll need, and she’s probably going to be in a special program at school for speech and language and other things,” said social worker Munoz, who watched Mariah as other children were being filmed.

Munoz is optimistic about her chances of being adopted. Sometimes people prefer to take children they know will need extra attention and help, he said.

Burton is hopeful too. Over the years he has seen children with what would seem to be significant emotional and physical hurdles selected over ones with fewer handicaps.

“We’ve matched medically needy children with families. We had some kid with cystic fibrosis who was adopted by a family,” he said. “I’ve learned you just can never tell who will come forward for a child.”

Brittany, 7, and Cassandra, 6

At a park in Garden Grove, Brittany and Cassandra are the last to be filmed--and they aren’t happy about it. Spirited and bright, both girls seem to have the same objective in their interviews with Burton--resisting the temptation to reveal themselves to him.

Brittany goes first, and Burton gets little he can show on the air.

When it is her turn, Cassandra, who has been aching for her turn in front of the camera, suddenly decides not to cooperate.

To all of Burton’s questions: What is her favorite food? Her favorite color? Favorite game? Cassandra laughingly answers “Nothing.”

All day long, Burton has asked questions meant to bring out the children’s best for the camera. But sometimes it seems that the two are at odds as Burton labors to make them appealing to new parents and the children, both want and resist his efforts.

For example, when Burton asks Brittany if anyone has talked to her about being adopted. Her answer betrays a world of confusion and hope.

“I think it stinks! I hate it!” Brittany said, looking away from Burton.

“So what would you do if you were adopted into a nice new home?” he asked.

“I’d run away!” she said, adding that Cassandra would run away with her even though Cassandra is a brat and it wouldn’t really matter if she did or didn’t.

“But don’t you want a nice new home . . . with parents of your very own?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” she admits, turning to face him. “And I don’t want any other brothers and sisters. I want it to be just them and me and Cassandra.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Looking Homeward

About 9,000 California children are in foster care each year waiting to be adopted. In 1995, most were 8 or younger or minority:

Age

0-3 years: 25%

4-8: 43

9-11: 16

12-14: 9

15 and older: 7

Ethnicity

Black: 37%

White: 35

Latino: 25

Asian: 3%

Successful Trend

During the past five years, the number of Orange County children referred for adoption has declined while finalized adoptions have increased:

1995

Referred: 553

Adopted: 224

Source: California Department of Social Services Adoptions Branch

Nine in Line

The “Waiting Child” segments feature children in need of adoption. The program, produced by a Santa Barbara television station under contract with the state, will spotlight nine children from Orange County through mid-June.

Christina, 7

Oldest of three sisters who social workers intend to place together. She worries about where she and her sisters ultimately will live, but says she is sure that somewhere new parents want her.

Crystal, 6

Like both her sisters, she is outgoing and affectionate. But unsettled life seems reflected in her behavior. She switches between independence and the strong desire for adult affection.

Michelle, 5

Although it is easy to think of her as part of a trio with her older sisters, Michelle has a strong sense of individuality and is self-assured.

Heather, 6

Silent and leery of strangers at first, she blossoms with consistent attention and affection. Two younger brothers are so engaging, however, that social workers say extra care must be taken to ensure she receives all the attention she needs.

Timmy, 3

Social workers worry that his affection with strangers indicates a lack of social boundaries. When upset, he stops talking and reverts to pointing at objects or people.

Patrick, 2

Like brother Timmy, Patrick is unusually outgoing and affectionate. But his child-star looks disguise a textbook case of the terrible 2s.

Brittany, 7

When she runs to look at something, other children follow. If she begins to sing, so do others.

Cassandra, 6

On a zoo trip, she is first to pet any animal, no matter how big or unfriendly looking. But like her sister, she seems more trusting of other children than adults.

Mariah, 4

Developmentally disabled, she is gentle and friendly, she plays well with other children. Social workers say she will require speech therapy and patient parents.

Source: Orange County Social Services Agency, interviews