Foster family numbers dwindling in Connecticut, but the care is all about love

May 28--NEW HAVEN -- Thinking about the morning of Feb. 10 still brings tears to Junie Johnson's eyes.

Her little boy, who was leaving to go live with his aunt and uncle on Long Island, couldn't make it past the step on the back deck before he would turn around and run back to her, begging her to come with him.

In the months that he had lived with her, Johnson said, the 5-year-old boy had gone from a child who refused to be touched, to one that couldn't seem to let go.

On May 14, which also falls during National Foster Care Month, the little boy called Johnson to wish her a happy Mother's Day.

In the past decade, Johnson, who has two daughters and four grandchildren of her own, has welcomed more than 10 foster children into her home, of all ages, and sometimes multiple at once. She's a licensed therapeutic foster parent, meaning that the children she takes in her home have a history of trauma, abuse, or, often, mental illness.

"I really love helping them because I know they have the need," Johnson said. "Some of them, it is a challenge."

The little boy who moved out on Feb. 10, who is not being named to protect his identity, used to be triggered by small things into having raging tantrums. She had to work and fight for him to get one-on-one tutoring in school because she recognized that he wasn't able to behave in a classroom because of his past.

After months of therapy and a steady routine in her household, he slowly began to open up and be more comfortable. In the weeks before he left, he started putting his arm around her when she read his bedtime stories.

Johnson is licensed to be a therapeutic foster parent through the Children's Community Program of Connecticut, an organization that works in partnership with the state Department of Children and Families to find homes for children who cannot stay with their biological parents and have more of a need, whether because of medical problems or a history of beatings, sexual abuse, and mistreatment. To maintain her license, Johnson must complete 28 hours of training per year after the initial round of training sessions, home inspections, and background checks, which she completed after her husband died in 2005.

"Children's Community Program is a valuable partner especially because the foster parents it licenses receive special training to care for children with more complex needs," DCF Commissioner Joette Katz said in an emailed statement. "As we continue to move children out of institutional settings and into family homes, that more intensive level of care is vitally important."

On average, 25 percent of all children placed with foster parents in Connecticut are reunified with their families, according to DCF. The agency also reported in a press release celebrating National Foster Care Month that the second most common outcome for children in foster homes is adoption by the foster parents.

Currently, the state has approximately 4,400 children in the foster care system, according to DCF.

A future for foster care

No matter how much he begged her to go, Johnson told her little boy that she had to stay in New Haven to take care of more children like him who needed a home after he went to live with his aunt and uncle. She said she misses tucking him in at night and hearing him call "I love you Ms. Junie" from his room, but like more and more foster children lately, the state has prioritized that he live with relatives.

Since 2011, the state has doubled the percentage of children in DCF care that are living with relatives, according to the agency.

"A kid should always go to a relative first," said Brian Lynch, the chief executive officer of CCP. "Children do so much better when placed in relative care."

"It's extremely traumatic for a child to be removed from their home," he added. "You really have to personalize it... I wouldn't want to go to a stranger's home."

In searching for relatives to take in children, Mike Savenelli, program director for the organization, said they exhaust all possible family options before turning to a volunteer foster family.

Once a child turns 18, they often go to seek their biological family anyway, Savenelli said.

Placing children with kin is also a way to combat the need for traditional foster parents, Lynch said. It's a national problem, he said, and the number of willing volunteers to take in foster children is dwindling.

"The supply of foster care homes doesn't come close to the demand for them," Lynch said.

Kim Boyd-Hunter, who has been a therapeutic foster parent for the last four years, said she loves when the foster children in her home are reunited with their biological families. She has maintained contact with some of her foster children, but only when it seems healthful and appropriate to do so. Sometimes, separation is needed so they can readjust to their life with their biological family, she said.

"You have to love unconditionally," Boyd-Hunter said. "I love when they get reunited (with family). That's the greatest gift of all."

Kinship placements come with the same financial help as is provided for traditional foster parents -- $1,500 per month -- and they must also be licensed if the child has more needs that require a therapeutic foster parent, Lynch said. Taking in another child, even for an aunt or grandmother, is a life-changing and monumental experience, he said, so they are not left alone by the agency.

"We value foster parents as staff members," Lynch said. "We give them everything they could possibly need."

A place for love

Boyd-Hunter has heard the stories and seen the unfortunate signs of a child being mistreated by a foster parent -- a child with torn clothing or only one pair of shoes. She said it's all too obvious when a foster parent is just in it for the money. But, if the child is cared for the right way, it should be expensive and the monthly stipend will not be enough, she said.

"I always thought it was really sad that children are mistreated," Boyd-Hunter said. "No child asks to be brought here, so no one should mistreat them."

Boyd-Hunter had four children before she met her current husband, Ural Hunter, who also had four children when they married. The couple has one daughter together and they have been foster parents for the last four years.

"I'm the mother hen," Boyd-Hunter said. "You don't have to be blood to be related here. We take you in."

And all children are treated the same -- whether it's giving money to a child for ice cream or new clothes for the school year, pushing them to stay in school, or working through a drug problem or teen pregnancy. Boyd-Hunter said she tells all of her kids, related or not, that they have to play the cards they were dealt in life to win.

The couple has had their fair share of struggles with children coming in who have had behavioral issues triggered by past neglect or abuse, they said. Sometimes children arrived at their home on Taylor Avenue in New Haven after having been through a number of other homes.

"We have been the last resort," Hunter said. "These kids can be challenging. You cannot do this for the money. It won't work."

The couple said they pray for strength and rely on honest and direct communication with their kids to make it work day after day.

Boyd-Hunter said she tells her kids, "Do what you need to do as a child and I'll take care of you."

The Thompsons have taken a similar approach of prayer and honesty with their foster kids to keep their full house in Waterbury running smoothly.

"It's not about the money, it's about the passion," said Ty Thompson, who said he was inspired to be a foster parent by his own brother's experiences in the system. His wife, Niekka, prior to meeting Ty, had taken in young cousins in the past and knew she wanted to help other children in need.

In the last eight years the Thompsons have welcomed nine children into their home, and even had five teenage boys in their six-bedroom home all at once at one point. While the couple hopes to have their own children someday, they have no plans to discontinue opening their home to foster children.

"It's just our passion," Niekka Thompson said. "It wasn't as difficult as CCP said it would be."

But, that doesn't mean there haven't been challenges along the way as their kids have all been through some tough things in their pasts, she said.

Ty Thompson said the couple relies on prayer and patience to get through those difficult times and they make sure they are in constant communication about their kids. It's been eight years of constant attention, training, meetings, and just being there for their children who need presence more than anything else.

The couple has seen six of their children get to a point where they no longer need therapy or medication for mental illness. They have watched kids graduate high school and the oldest in their house now will be going off to community college next year.

"We want to have fun and give them a life they never had," she said. "A lot of these kids just need love."

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