By Christy Scannell
SDUN Senior Editor
Todd Worthington, manager of the U.S. Bank branch in North Park, was rushing out his office door to a couple of appointments. But when he saw Jeannelle Bitterlin’s number pop up on his cell phone, he answered.
“We have a 10-month-old girl who needs immediate placement,” Bitterlin, a social worker for foster family agency La Cuna, told him.
With just 30 minutes to make a decision, Worthington called his partner, Luke Kensen, to talk it over. Already foster parents to Aiden, 3, the couple discussed whether they could handle another child since they were finishing a home renovation and were involved in major changes at their businesses (Kensen owns house333, a North Park real estate firm).
“We had a lot of questions we didn’t have answers to,” Worthington said. “But I told [Luke] we can always say we’re really busy and there’s never going to be a perfect time.”
Kensen agreed.
The next evening, Worthington and Kensen pulled into the parking lot at Polinsky Children’s Center with an empty pink car seat in the back of their BMW. After signing some paperwork, they met with a nurse to discuss baby Jazelle and found out the girl was of Filipino descent.
“We just want a healthy baby,” Kensen said as the nurse went to get Jazelle from Polinsky’s nursery. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl.” He paused and smiled. “But I really wanted a girl.”
Moments later, he had one. As Jazelle was placed in his arms, Kensen beamed.
Placing children in the arms of loving adults has been the mission of La Cuna –“cradle” in Spanish – since its launch in 2003. Founded by Rachel Humphreys, now retired, the North Park agency specializes in finding foster homes for Latino children from birth through age 5. About half the children in San Diego County’s foster care system are Latinos.
Although 13 of the 87 children La Cuna has placed were later adopted by their foster parents, the agency’s executive director, Sandy Rees, is quick to point out that La Cuna’s program is not “a fast track to adoption.”
“Our goal is to reunify and rehabilitate the family unit,” she said.
La Cuna does that through therapeutic services for biological parents. Foster parents also receive 24 hours of specialized training in Latino cultural and language issues and go through a rigorous evaluation process.
“It’s not as easy as people think to become a foster parent,” Rees said. “But ultimately we are looking for real, honest, genuine love.”
And the program works: La Cuna has a 96 percent success rate in achieving permanency for child placement, which means a foster child remains in one home until returning to a biological family member or being adopted by a La Cuna family. Those characteristics – plus the agency’s willingness to accept any child regardless of race – make La Cuna a preferred source for foster care in the county.
“We want to minimize the change and trauma to kids when they come into the system,” said Margo Fudge, spokesperson for the county’s Child Welfare Services. “[La Cuna is] able to help put children in a family setting, often in their own communities, rather quickly with fairly little notice. That helps us in what can be a very stressful and overwhelming situation.”
La Cuna has a $425,000 operating budget but receives no government funding. Instead, the agency is supported by private donations and grants, including a California Endowment grant that requires La Cuna to prepare a manual on how to duplicate its culturally sensitive model.
Finding ways to improve foster care is a crucial task, Rees said. The current system results in a high school graduation rate of only 46 percent for foster children. As many as 25 percent of foster children become homeless adults and 84 percent become parents themselves within 12-18 months of leaving foster care. Eighty percent of all prison inmates are former foster children.
“If we allow children to continue in a broken foster care system, we end up trying to fix broken men and women,” Rees said. “[La Cuna] is a pilot program that is recognized to help in the long-term and bring change. We are saving taxpayers a huge amount of money by helping these children now.”
That urgency was a call to action to Carlos and Gloria Velarde in Chula Vista. When Carlos saw a newspaper article about La Cuna in 2007, he left a note attached to it for Gloria: “Let’s do this.”
Already parents to Carlos Jr., a student at Cal Poly, and Freddy, a high schooler, Carlos and Gloria were “facing an empty nest,” Gloria said.
“We always wanted to have more children and we knew the way to do it was through adoption,” she said. “But we were intrigued by the article so we decided to try fostering first. We wanted a child from our same cultural background but even more we wanted a child who needed us most.”
Within four months the Velardes had completed La Cuna’s training program and were certified as foster parents. They received six-month-old Angel in April 2008.
“When we got him we were told that we needed to understand there was a very strong likelihood he could be returned to his parents,” Gloria said. “But from day one we fell in love with him.”
Gloria’s large extended family, the Velardes’ neighbors and their son’s schoolmates and teachers surrounded Angel with attention, often dropping by gifts for him. Meanwhile, Freddy Velarde went from being a “good” student to being a “great” student, his mom said.
“Angel came to us with very few opportunities. He brought an awareness of those opportunities to Freddy. He had taken them for granted,” Gloria said.
Freddy, who became student body president at his high school, wrote his college essay about Angel’s influence on his life. He will be a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania this fall.
In December, the social worker’s initial warning about Angel leaving the Velardes came true when she informed the Velardes that Angel’s mother would be regaining custody. They were crushed.
A day later, Angel’s mother was arrested. Soon after, the court terminated her parental rights.
“His name is ‘Angel,’” Gloria said as she described her family’s surprise and delight over the news they could keep him. “That isn’t a coincidence.”
Although it took a year for Angel’s adoption to be finalized, Gloria said the wait and all of the extra emotion and effort was worth it.
“We owe a lot to Angel,” she said. “Instead of us giving to him, he’s always given a lot to all of us.”
Worthington and Kensen have had a similar experience. Aiden has been with them since January 2009 but during that time they also have foster-parented two other children – Mateo and Xavier. While they knew Xavier’s placement was temporary, they were told Mateo would be available for adoption when instead he was later reunited with family.
Jazelle’s initial paperwork indicates she too will be eligible for adoption, but after their disappointment over Mateo, Worthington and Kensen are trying not to let their hopes get too high.
“It’s not easy, this rollercoaster,” Worthington said. “The emotions you would feel as a (biological) parent – joy and sadness – you stretch those even further as a foster parent.”
Those feelings are intensifying again as Worthington and Kensen now face Aiden’s probable departure to his biological father. His mother has relinquished custody to him – she sees him often – but his father will appear in court later this month to attempt a reunification with the boy.
Worthington and Kensen hope to be granted custody, yet they understand the courts tend to favor biological parents.
“We’ve had a lot of talks with Aiden about it,” Worthington said. “If the courts decide his family members are the best place for him there will be hurt and emotion, of course. But we are not his parents at this point and we have to realize that.”
It’s not difficult to understand Worthington and Kensen’s anguish over Aiden leaving them. When they picked up him at Polinsky – much like Jazelle – he was an overweight, undisciplined toddler with a biting habit. Now he thrives on nutritional food, enjoys trips to Hawaii and is a happy, well-adjusted preschooler. They say they worry about what Aiden will face with his dad in Florida but they trust that their positive influence on him will endure.
“It is so rewarding to know you are putting a child in a much better place, even if it isn’t forever,” Worthington said. “You hope whatever they experienced with you stays with them for good in their life. We know the time he’s been with us we’ve really changed his life.”
“And he’s changed ours too,” Kensen added. “We’re not the people we were a year ago.”
