Foster parenting

April 1997

Fostering hope

A two-year-old program matches homeless queer youth with lesbian and gay foster parents
by Christopher Muther

"It's experiencing everything any parent experiences," Al Toney says of foster parenting. "There are happy times and sad times. It's stressful and testing. There are struggles, and there are victories. It's a lot of work."
During the past two years, Toney has not only taken two gay teens into his home but has trained other prospective parents for the Safe Homes Project, a volunteer program that finds foster homes for queer teens who've run away or been thrown out by their families.
Since getting its start nearly two years ago with the help of a $58,000 grant from the city, the project has trained nearly 20 families in the Boston area to be parents to queer teens. About 20 more are waiting to go through the Safe Homes training, which consists of a 10-week course given by the Department of Social Services (which every prospective foster parent must complete), plus an additional two weeks of training on the issues facing queer teens. Not all foster parents participating in the Safe Homes Project are lesbian or gay, but organizers say the majority of those interested in taking in queer kids are queer themselves.
"I know there's a strong desire in our community to nurture and parent kids," says Sherry Edwards, founder of the Safe Homes Project. "I think every queer person you talk to will have some story from their adolescence that translates into `If only I could use my experience to help a kid get through it easier.' "
That urge to help a gay teen was part of the reason Winthrop Booth and his partner, Bob Brier, decided to sign up for the three-month course. For the Jamaica Plain couple, who had previously thought about adopting a child, Safe Homes seemed like a logical starting point to learn about the responsibilities of parenting. They're now waiting for DSS approval to take in a teen.
"We were very excited about the whole idea of being foster parents and nurturing someone who is coming to terms with their sexuality," Booth says. "I know how difficult it was for me [to come out]. There were no programs in place, no activity groups at that time. Kids need to have those kinds of things, but also need to feel like they have a safe, nurturing home."
Gina Foglia, a Somerville landscape architect, and her partner have gone a step further and taken in a foster child since completing the training last year. Foglia acknowledges that life with a 14-year-old is not always easy, but she gives high marks to the Safe Homes Project for providing plenty of expert advice.
"You're dealing with kids who have been in the foster-care system, kids who are coming out, and kids in their teens," she says. "That's three very difficult situations. You need a lot of help."
Toney warns that taking in a queer teen is not like taking in a small child. Most of the youths in the program are 16 or 17 and are not looking for a new family.
"They may be grateful you've taken them in, but they also want to keep you at a certain distance because they're afraid of letting somebody in and then getting hurt again," he says. "Also, they're teenagers, and they're dealing with all of the other hormone, relationship, school, and friendship issues that teenagers deal with. There's a lot of things that happen. You're going to be helping someone out, and the walls may always be up."
The idea for Safe Homes was born when Edwards, an artist active in social causes who works at the Latino Health Institute, began working with gay youth several years ago and noticed an unusually large number of queer teens who had no place to live as a result of conflicts with their families over their sexuality.
"Often it was because home wasn't safe for them anymore," she says. "It wasn't just the kids in the programs I was working with. I would meet a lot of their friends, and I ended up meeting so many of them it was completely overwhelming to me. I said `Oh my God, we have to do something.' "
She heard stories of gay teens living on the streets, engaging in prostitution (or "survival sex," as she calls it) to earn money or find a place to sleep. Drugs are also a strong temptation, she says; they offer a potential source of income and a way to ease the pain of familial rejection. Even when gay teens can find a place to stay, their living conditions may be difficult. Edwards says she heard stories of six or seven youths living in a one-bedroom apartment because it was all they could afford.
"Young people don't have a lot of options," she says. "Not a lot of people are going to hire them, and not a lot of people are going to rent them an apartment. With no structure and no one helping you create a structure and organize your life, you can make some really bad decisions."
Under the aegis of the Healthy Boston Coalition for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth, where she was working, Edwards developed the Safe Homes concept and won a start-up grant from the city of Boston in the fall of 1995. Essentially, Safe Homes is based at the Coalition but works in partnership with the Department of Social Services to recruit and train parents. Sometimes, Safe Homes also refers teens to the DSS.
"At first I thought, `Let's set up a program to hook these parents and kids up,' " Edwards says. "Then I realized there are a ton of liability issues. You need to offer these folks follow-up support, money, and access to services. So then I thought of the [state's] foster-care system. It already exists; this is what it's supposed to be doing."
Edwards did have reservations about working with the DSS. "[Gay] kids weren't getting the service they needed," she says. "Our kids were getting put into foster homes that were really no less homophobic than their home of origin. So the queer kids spending a lot of time getting shuffled from place to place. That does a number on somebody." But those concerns merely confirmed her belief in the need for a program like Safe Homes.
Joy Cochran, family-resource coordinator for the Boston region of the DSS and the liaison between the state agency and Safe Homes, says she frequently sees a pattern of multiple placements in the histories of teens who are referred to her by the Safe Homes Project. Although she doesn't know how many gay and lesbian youths are currently in the foster-care system, because children in DSS custody are not identified by sexual orientation, she says that since the Safe Homes Project has come into existence, many DSS kids have contacted the program looking for resources.
Since last year, when Safe Homes graduated its most recent class of parents, the original grant from the city has expired and Edwards has been looking for new sources of funding. The next training session has been put on hold until a trainer can be hired. Although Edwards and Toney no longer work full-time on the program, they still manage Safe Homes on a volunteer basis, fielding calls from would-be parents and putting them in touch with the DSS.
The Healthy Boston Coalition, meanwhile, is studying the program to determine whether it should exist on its own or be absorbed into a pre-existing entity, such as a private social-service organization or the the DSS.
"If Safe Homes gets polished and goes to live on its own, the [Healthy Boston] Coalition can turn its attention to other problems facing queer teens," Edwards says. "And everyone knows they face a lot of obstacles."
For more information on the Safe Homes Project, call (617) 266-3856. For information on becoming an adoptive or foster parent, call (800) KIDS-508.
Christopher Muther is a frequent contributor to One in Ten. He can be reached at cmuther@aol.com.

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