The focus for Nutmeg now shifted to finding a suitable family for her – a home where she would be accepted, where new parents would be able to accept the training and learn the skills that would be needed for the years to come as Nutmeg grew up. Our agency and others sometimes published in the San Francisco Chronicle the stories of “Children Who Wait.” While we never used the names of the children or their photographs, an artist drew portraits of appealing youngsters which often looked amazingly like our kids, though she never saw them. We tried to be honest with the readers about who the child was, told some of their bad experiences and tried to elicit some warmth and understanding we hoped would get them to call us.
Once a call came, there was the serious and grueling job of home visits, some planned, some unexpected, to determine whether these adults and families were the right ones for our particular child. On Monday morning, I sat down with the artist, told her Nutmeg’s story, and watched as she drew an amazing likeness which would appear in Sunday’s paper. Then it was a call to her case worker to advise them that they’d see the story in the Chronicle on Monday morning.
“Just remember we have to have a Black family,” the Social Worker responded.
“We’ll do our best,” I replied, “but you know, Nutmeg doesn’t really want black parents. All her foster placements since the age of three months were with white families. Given the last fiasco, she could easily set up another failure if we try that.”
“Can’t help it. That’s the County Social Services Policy. If a kid is one-tenth black they have to be placed in a black family,” said her case worker.
“Yes, well, our policy is what is in the best interest of the child,” I said.
“I know … just warning you.”
Beyond the article that would appear in Monday morning’s Chronicle, we would put out the word to our own fost-adopt parents who would spread the word among friends that they thought might be interested in becoming fost-adopt parents for Children’s Garden. Unlike County Social Services, our agency paid our fost-adopt parents a real living wage as this was their full time work. At least one care-giving parent had to be available at home full time for our kids. In addition, the children each received their own support monies from the county in which they had resided, at least as long as they were in foster care. While county monies were supposed to cover the costs of food, clothing, school supplies and other needs of the children, it often was insufficient, and parents had to dig into their own pockets frequently.
We’d also publish a “Call for a Special Parent” in our Monthly newsletter that went to all County Welfare and Social Service agencies across the state’s northern counties.
Since this coming Wednesday was our monthly fost-adopt parent support meeting, I’d bring the story of Nutmeg and her need for a lifetime home to the group. Hopefully through these processes, we’d find a family willing and able to love, nurture and accept Nutmeg to adulthood and independence. Children’s Garden had been amazingly successful for nearly twenty years, and we’d seen many of our kids grow up and continue to love and support the families that had grown them. More than half had gone to college, and those that had not, had taken on vocational schools and work successfully.
Children’s Garden was literally known as “the placement where children can grow to maturity” throughout the state and the west coast in general. We offered comprehensive evaluation of physical, emotional, social and attachment needs, and possible placement for a period of one to three years in a group treatment home. In addition we could place children in long term foster and adoption placements with continued weekly professional support for as long as the children remained and the parents needed the services of the agency. (I knew of no fost-adopt parents in the agency who ever discontinued that need. They came to count on us as valuable family members.) In this way, we were unique and thus always had a waiting list of children that West Coast county agencies wanted us to take.