Feeling Right at Home

The guests pass through and leave cheery bed-and-breakfast-style entries in the journal: Wonderful hosts--family atmosphere--fluffy pillows--fun activities . . . thank you, thank you, thank you!

They’re grateful about other things, too: A respite from brutal parents . . . a break from being the big, mean, tough chick . . . a holiday from Attitude . . . a little peace.

On Aug. 24, 1997, Nancy Bennett made the first entry. She and her husband John were ready to take in their first troubled teenager, and she wanted to set the right tone.

“Although our ‘Cool Home’ kids will only spend a few days with us, I hope I can help them feel God’s peace and calmness.”

Then come the stories. In the past 2 1/2 years, the Bennetts have hosted 32 girls, one at a time, in their Thousand Oaks home. Some spend just a night and others spend nearly a week. All are recommended by school counselors and police, people who know a thing or two about families primed to blow apart.

“I don’t feel that it’s fair to beat a kid up and nothin hapins,” a girl confided in the Bennetts’ journal. “I don’t really have love for my mom or grandma, I don’t want to go home, I feel no one cares for me. I have no one to turn 2.

“I want every other kid that comes here 2 know there is HOPE 4 all of us. Some day we all will get thru it. Just hang in there.”

The stories roll on, page by page. Sometimes Nancy sits alone in the bright yellow spare bedroom and prays over the journal.

“My dad got arrested right in front of me for molestation charges,” one girl wrote. “It was on a video that my stepmom taped because they were on drugs--I was so confused because my dad was the only one I trusted forever.”

There are lots of hearts and yin-yangs and smiley faces and stars, a full array of the happy teen punctuation you see in high school yearbooks. It adorns heartbreaking expressions of gratitude.

“John and Nancy are really nice people. They have a nice backyard. You could read books. You could play with the two beautiful little kids. They are cool parents. Don’t take advantage of them! Be cool and don’t run away. They won’t hurt you.”

In 1997, the Bennetts responded to an announcement in their church bulletin. Interface, a nonprofit social services agency based in Thousand Oaks, was looking for people willing to open their homes to troubled teens for a few days at a time. Both the girls and their parents have agreed to the voluntary placement, but that’s the only point on which they agree.

Now 35, Nancy is the stay-at-home mother of two little girls and the survivor of her own painful adolescence. John is a commercial photographer. Both are committed to living their religious convictions and saw starting a Cool Home as a chance to serve.

They’ve had plenty of opportunities.

Some of the kids--the couple accepts only girls--are truants. Some are chronic runaways. Some are chafing under their parents’ restrictions, while others are totally neglected. Most like the idea of hanging out for a while with a family at peace.

“They’ll draw and draw, and pet the dog, and suddenly they’ll be playing house with our kids,” Nancy said. “It’s amazing to watch them become children again.”

When the girls arrive, the Bennetts’ daughters--Macaela, 4, and Shelby, 5--take their hands and lead them to the guest room.

During the day, they’re driven to classes and counseling sessions at Interface. Their parents are also given the opportunity to receive counseling.

The rest of the time, they do what a lot of families used to do before TV and the Internet. They sit around the kitchen table playing games. They help plan a garage sale, or go to the mall, or get down on the lawn and pull weeds.

“After two days, it’s like some of them have been there forever,” Nancy said. “They’re so eager to help out. Others really have an attitude: Why can’t I watch TV? Why can’t I call my friends?”

One girl was arrested in the Bennetts’ living room for stealing money from them. But most are weary of the defiance that colors every minute of their lives at home.

“The strife is too much for them,” Nancy said. “When they get here, they sleep and sleep and sleep.”

In the mid-90s, as many as 30 families ran Cool Homes for Interface. Today, the Bennetts are one of four.

Licensing procedures imposed by the state became more cumbersome. And families with swimming pools or homes at the beach were required to build expensive 5-foot-high fences. Many dropped out of the program and weren’t replaced.

Trying to ease such requirements, Interface is constantly seeking new families. (For information, call volunteer coordinator Maureen Miller at 485-6114.)

Last fall, the Bennetts felt burned-out and thought of taking a break themselves.

But Nancy pored over the journal, and lingered over the photos she took of troubled kids briefly untroubled--smiling on her living room couch, smiling with her kids, smiling as they stood in line for rides on a family trip to the county fair.

“So you do a little extra laundry and set out an extra cereal bowl at breakfast,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.