A Healing Home

There are other foster homes in Ventura County, but none quite like the House of Grace.

Of the six children who live at the Ventura home, four are alleged victims of child abuse and two have medically related breathing problems. All require round-the-clock nursing.

They are children such as Barbara, 3, believed to be a victim of shaken-baby syndrome, and Armando, a toddler born with a respiratory ailment.

To Kim Lockwood, they are all the same--children in need of special care. But after 23 years as a foster parent, Lockwood knew how difficult it could be to place developmentally disabled or abused children.

So Lockwood, the former owner of a religious music store, and his wife, Gloria, decided to do something about it. In 1995 the couple obtained a license to operate a foster care facility and purchased a home in a Ventura neighborhood. Soon after, the House of Grace, named after Lockwood’s great-grandmother, opened for business.

“Kids need a home, a safe and loving place, not an institution,” said Lockwood, who oversees a 15-member staff.

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Although it’s his job, Lockwood’s dedication is apparent to his friends and co-workers.

Last year the 47-year-old Lockwood missed his staff Christmas party because he had a heart attack while admitting two children into a hospital.

“I’m astonished that he’s still functioning with his heart,” said Dr. William Goldie, a pediatric neurologist at Ventura County Medical Center. “If he can’t do this, it’ll be a disaster. These children are so dependent on him.”

Four-year-old Stephanie, a longtime resident at the House of Grace, is one of those children. Dressed in a pink pants suit, she wandered around her foster home on a recent weekday hugging everyone in sight.

Stephanie has survived despite the odds. Diagnosed with muscular dystrophy and other birth-related problems at 6 months of age, she was not expected to live long.

But she recovered with the help of round-the-clock nursing and a new medical procedure that helps rid her lungs of fluid. Today, Stephanie attends school and runs and plays, despite breathing through a tube in her neck and eating through another in her stomach.

Doctors may soon take the tubes out and allow Stephanie to go home with her mother.

Tom Hall, a respiratory therapist and nurse at the House of Grace, smiles at the prospect.

“The great thing about this place is that it’s like an extended family,” Hall said. “The kids are well cared for and happy.”

Inside the House of Grace, toys are scattered across the floor of rooms as colorful as a box of crayons. Barney skips and hops on the television screen as two girls and a boy--all toddlers--watch from their wheelchairs. Each was born healthy but are believed to be the victims of violent shaking that rendered them semi-comatose.

The importance of having a home-like setting for the long-term care of such children cannot be overestimated, said Goldie, who serves as medical director for the House of Grace and other care facilities in the county.

“In the past, we had these kids hidden away at state hospitals,” he said. “We closed those places, and here’s the alternative.”

Most foster parents don’t want a child with brain damage or one who suffers from seizures or relies on feeding tubes, Goldie said. The costs associated with treating an abused child or one with a severe medical condition can run into tens of thousands of dollars a year.

The House of Grace receives about $180 per child per day from state insurance, with hospital and prescription bills paid separately from another state account.

In total, housing and medical care can run about $100,000 a year for each child, Lockwood said. And no one, including House of Grace aides and other nonlicensed staff members, who average about $7.50 an hour, does this for the money, he said.

The goal at the House of Grace, he said, is getting the children healthy enough for a permanent home.

So far, eight children have returned to their parents, foster care or legal guardians. Four have died while at the House of Grace.

House aide Barbara Johnson points toward two portraits, a boy wearing a Jesus pendant and a girl with pigtails.

“It’s a very sad day when we lose them,” she said.

Armando, the toddler with a history of respiratory problems, wraps his arms around her and shakes his head from side-to-side to avoid a Kleenex.

“He’s our little lover,” Johnson said, adding that Armando may soon go home with his mother, who placed him in the House of Grace because she was unable to keep up with his round-the-clock medical needs.

Beds at the House of Grace don’t go empty long--there are at least two children on a waiting list now.

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Meanwhile, the stress of running the home has taken its toll on Lockwood. He has twice had open heart surgery, yet still makes frequent trips to the hospital, the pharmacy, a discount store for diapers and sometimes court.

Lockwood recently missed his 25th wedding anniversary so he could accompany a sick infant to the hospital.

“He [Lockwood] always makes me want to cry,” said his mother, Juanita. “He has always helped others, but he could not do this without these women. They are the jewels.”

Lockwood had a good teacher, his great-grandmother Grace, who died in 1997 just after turning 100. She helped Lockwood and his wife with the more than 80 drug-addicted babies they cared for as foster parents.

She liked rocking them, Lockwood said, and it seemed fitting to name the care facility after her. Grace’s portrait hangs above the fireplace, not far from the photos of the children.

In the nursery, Hall and Lockwood examine an infant’s feeding tube, which they fear must be replaced.

Lockwood tells Tina Frost, a retired certified nurse’s aide from Santa Paula Hospital, not to feed the 3-month-old girl until they know more.

Frost rocks the infant and sprays a breathing aid across her mouth. The medicine opens the baby’s lungs and brings phlegm from the tube in her neck. Frost suctions out the excess.

Staff members suspect the infant is another shaken baby. The 8-pound infant stares blankly at the ceiling.

Victims of such abuse often sustain retinal hemorrhages and brain swelling so severe it places them in a sort of coma, said Rob Parrish, deputy director at the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Some children lose their vision, others their hearing and motor skills. Most never fully recover.

Shaking a baby is the most common form of fatal and severe abuse for children under 5 years, Parrish said.

Hall watches the infant and says her strong grip shows promise. There’s always a chance of a decent recovery, Hall said.

“You work around kids long enough and you always see miracles. Just when you think you’ll give up, you realize you can’t,” he said.

Later that night the infant undergoes surgery for her feeding tube.

Lockwood has yet to return from the hospital when John Blair arrives with gifts from the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

“We have a close relationship with this place,” said Blair, a deputy prosecutor. “Some of the people in our office volunteer here.”

He touches one toddler’s arm and acknowledges that prosecuting child abusers can be difficult.

Despite even obvious injuries, shaken-baby cases are tough to prove, he said, and parents or caregivers almost never admit they’re to blame.

Blair looks at the toddlers in their wheelchairs and shakes his head.

“They’ve been robbed of a quality of life,” he said. “Even after the perpetrator gets released, these children are still living with this.”