There comes a time in everyone’s life when they need help from others to build a bridge to overcome a hurdle. It is an honor to help someone achieve a goal, and this is a story of bringing a family back together by making it possible to be safe, comfortable and secure in their home.

The Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition was formed in1985 to create permanency in foster children’s lives by recruiting and retaining high-quality foster and adoptive families.

The State of Missouri has approximately 1,400 children waiting for an adoption or placement; 500 of these children are in the St. Louis Metro area. The average time they stay in foster care before being placed in a permanent home or “aging out” is 26 months. Many foster children arrive in school with impairments due to prenatal drug and alcohol exposure. Furthermore, foster children are estimated to lose six months of emotional development with each new placement, and these children average one or two placement changes a year. So a 14-year-old with four lifetime placements is closer in age, emotionally, to a 12-year-old, which is a challenge for learning and relating.

The Coalition’s Extreme Recruitment® program works exclusively with the hardest-to-place foster children – those age 10 and over, sibling groups, and youth with special emotional, behavioral, or educational concerns.  By rearranging the way child welfare professionals work together, the program is able to place 70% of children in permanent homes (compared to a 40% national average) and reconnect 90% with a network of safe, appropriate family members who will become lifelong supporters.

Ian Forber-Pratt is on of the Coalition’s Extreme Recruiters, and is involved with an adoptive foster family facing an extreme challenge: 2 of their 4 adoptive/foster children have a degenerative disease which makes it physically difficult to get in and out of the house. The daughter had just been removed from the home because of this accessibility problem, and the son was facing the same fate. The family needed a ramp to keep the son at home and bring the daughter back where she belonged.

At the beginning of June, David Singer, owner of Warehouse of Fixtures and Junior Board Member of the Care Coalition, sent an e-mail to Judy Mosby, co-owner of Mosby Building Arts, seeking a solution that would bring the family’s daughter back home.

David explained they had architectural drawings provided by Nathan Bavolek of Nathan & James Company; would Judy know of a skilled carpenter who would lead a group of volunteers in building this much-needed ramp?

Judy Mosby Tells The Story

“David told me about the trials the foster mother has been through just to make this ramp happen. She was born blind, but with the loving support of her family, she obtained her teaching degree and taught blind children in the special school district, a career she left a year and a half ago to care for her 4 adopted foster children full-time.

“So, Mom took her application and money, and walked up to the City Hall with her cane and told them, ‘I need a ramp for my baby to come home. Will you help me?’

“With a building permit in hand, she bought all the materials for building the ramp with money from a savings account she set up just for this project. She made several attempts to line up labor to install the ramp, and they all fell through. For instance, a non-profit group offered to help, but the fee was too high and it was a 2-year waiting list. A church group offered to build the ramp until learning the project was too complicated for them. Another group was rained out on start day, and rescheduling had become impossible.

“All of these delays caused one daughter to be removed from the home, and the son’s worsening conditioning was moving him toward the same fate. Even though neighbors were helping her to bring him in and out of the house, it was becoming too much and time was running out, and the emotional toll was unbearable.

“After hearing the story, I wanted to make the ramp happen that day! I immediately went to our Energy Auditor (and former draftsman) for help with drawings and he immediately said ‘yes!’ I then asked one of our Project Managers, Rick Henson, who not only said ‘yes,’ but ‘Let’s do it next Wednesday.’

“Rick stopped by the family’s home to talk about the ramp, take a look at what materials were already on hand and what else would be needed, and immediately put together his crew. The Mosby angels who banded with Rick to build the ramp were Doug McCauley, Ryan Lane, Brian Brocco and Eric Fick.”

“Come the following Wednesday, after 8 hours of working on their own jobs, the Mosby crew converged on the family’s front yard to begin building a deck. They were joined by the Coalition’s Junior Board members Jenny and Kevin Reid, Ryan Blackburn, Kristen Weber, and of course, David Singer, who made this possible.”

“With building knowledge, skills, tools and enough hands, they completed the ramp structure and decking from 4 – 9:30 PM. The railings were all cut and left for the volunteers to attach over the coming weekend.”

“As we stood in the dark looking at what had been accomplished in 4.5 hours, the eldest daughter came out onto the front porch and in an angelic voice sang ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ for all of us, and thanked us for helping her family to stay together.  I still tear up when I think about what a powerful and gracious moment that was.”

“I just received this photo from Ian, showing us that they did put up the railings over the weekend, and the accessible ramp is now complete! Mom can now get her son in and out of the home with much less effort than before. The Mom’s spirit of ‘getting things done,’ is infectious, and we are so honored to be a part of building a bridge that keeps this family together and growing strong.”

For more information or to donate time or resources to The Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition see http://www.foster-adopt.org/

Related posts:

1. Designing for Dogs

Learn the Art of Living at CallMosby.com.

Tags: foster and adoptive care coalition

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2010 at 6:19 am and is filed under accessible design, community involvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.