Family first

Foster mom uses own experience to make a difference in her corner of the world

Editor's note: Many area individuals and organizations are dedicated to assisting those in need year-round by giving their time, money and resources. In this third of a four-part weekly series, The Sun visits a family joined together with the help of Our Children's Homestead.

There's a chair in the middle of the kitchen in Lisa Porter's Naperville home more often than anyone living there would like to see it.

"That chair is rarely lonely," whispered the 45-year-old mother of nine while, in the midst of preparing dinner, she escorted 8-year-old Callie to it for a time-out.

Callie raised a lot of commotion, as if her life might end if she sat in that seat for six minutes, but soon she calmed down, and soon those six minutes passed and she was back playing with her sisters.

"She's still so afraid that if she does something wrong she's going to get beat," Porter said.

Callie and her 9-year-old sister, Isabella, have been a part of the Porter family for two years, and are now two of Porter's three daughters adopted out of the foster care she provided for them. The third, Nicole, became part of the Porter family four years ago in the same fashion, giving Lisa her first daughter.

Lisa also has four grown sons, Zach Porter, 19, Adam Hamel, 21, Homer Porter, 23, and Alex Hamel, 24. Two — Homer and Zach — are her biological sons, and two were adopted out of foster care, but Porter doesn't split hairs along those lines.

"They're all mine," she said.

Including, in her eyes, the eighth and ninth members of her household — a brother, 10, and sister, 11, that she welcomed into her home three months ago through the services of Naperville-based Our Children's Homestead — a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding foster care for abused, neglected and troubled children and teenagers. The siblings that just joined the family can't be identified because Porter has not adopted them yet. In fact, she's not sure how long the siblings will even be part of her family.

"It is what it is in my mind. It could be short term. It's likely to be long term," she said. "I don't like to let them go. If they're going back to their home, I can live with that, but I don't want them to go to another foster home."

However, Porter said the two most recent additions to her humble four-bedroom home turned it upside down upon their arrival, and not just because their additions rearranged the bedroom situation, landing her on the couch downstairs.

"It was utter chaos all the time because they were so used to being unkind to each other all of the time," she said.

All of Porter's children adopted out of foster care came from families where domestic violence was prevalent and they were either physically or sexually abused or neglected, she said.

"I mean, any one of them has gone through some of that if not all of it," she said.

Our Children's Homestead is contracted through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to provide foster-care programs for abused, neglected and troubled children from infancy to age 18. When children arrive in its care, they are assigned to a care team appointed to advocate and look out for their best interests at all times.

The team is composed of trained and licensed foster parents, a specialized case manager, and, most importantly, a permanency specialist, whose job is to represent the children in court, obtain special services when needed, advise them as obstacles arise, and conduct in-home safety checks. The children are also assigned licensed therapists and either psychiatric or pediatric nurses, or both. They also benefit from having either paid or volunteer mentors who provide them with one-on-one attention and role models.

These teams conduct a comprehensive assessment of the children and subsequently meets with them to make sure the treatment plans assigned to them are being tailored to meet the unique needs of each child. The team also works to identify the children's dreams and to build a plan that will help them achieve those dreams.

Our Children's Homestead's kids typically have four legal goals — to return home, to be adopted, a secure subsidized guardianship, or to achieve independence.

That's a lot for a kid to deal with, and Porter knows what they're feeling as they face these uncertain futures. As a youngster, she spent time in and out of foster care.

"The same things that these kids are going through, I've gone through," she said. "So it's easier for them to connect with me in a way, and talk about their feelings. You get kids talking when they have never talked before because they have someone that really does understand what they've been through."

Take, for example, the federal free-lunch program that they, as foster children, qualify for at school.

"I remember when I was a foster child, and I remember getting that free lunch and how much I hated it because it separates you from everybody else," she said. "So I pack their lunches every day. Everybody's lunches are packed because I want to do everything I can do to make them feel at ease and more like everybody else."

But Porter doesn't become a parent for these children simply because she relates to them. She loves kids, she said. She loves to watch them grow and evolve into adults, and she enjoys the opportunity she has to "raise them the way they ought to be raised."

"You know how people say you can't save the world? Well, you can't save the world, but you can save your little corner of it, and this is my little corner of it," she said. "This is what I can do."

As a foster parent, Porter does receive some financial support from Our Children's Homestead to help her raise them the right way, but, if you're doing it right, said Porter, you're not making any money off the arrangement. Porter sends her daughters to hip-hop classes and her young son to tae kwon do, and, as scrapbook photos from Disney World and other family fun destinations show, they go to lots of places.

"Those are the things I think that money is for," Porter said. "So you can do things for them or with them to enrich their lives."

Having raised two sons adopted from foster care, Porter said they eventually grow to appreciate what their adoptive parents have provided for them. However, it's a different story to start out.

"As a child, they are happy to be here. They love me. They refer to me as mom," she said. "But they still have animosity toward whoever is taking care of them because they still miss their biological parents. No matter what happened there, they still want to be home, and it's very hard not to be able to have what you want that way."

Which is why Porter wants her children to maintain ties with their families if at all possible.

"If you can't accept their families, you're not accepting them," she said.

An example of this dynamic arose not long ago with her youngest son when, after a planned visit with his mother didn't work out, he turned hateful and "completely fell apart," Porter said. So, kicking and crying, she sat him on that chair in the middle of the kitchen and just let him be for a little while.

"He went and set in a time-out and he finally cooled down, and then I picked him up and put him in my lap and he just cried for like 15 minutes," she said. "And after he had just cried and cried and cried and cried and cried, he just finally said, 'I miss my mom.' And I said, 'I know honey, but don't take it out on me. I'm on your side.'"

Porter said the key to overcoming these emotional meltdowns is to remain calm, stay consistent and try not to take it personally when they scream "I hate you" from time to time.

"It's not meant toward me. It's not really personally meant that way," she said. "It's just that they are so angry about whatever."

Porter said everyone goes through ups and downs when God places children in their lives, whether one gave birth to those children or gave them a new family to call their own.

"It's no less of a commitment toward them," she said of being their foster mother. "They're yours."

12/21/04