Fragile children need a community of help
BY STEPHEN ZEIGLER
Editor    28 September 2003

The most pressing need for White County's children. at risk is for families willing to open their homes to foster care and for adoption, said Sherri Guthrie, county supervisor for the Department of Human Services.
   There are only eight foster homes in the 68,000-population county, and at least four times that many are needed.
   "We average about 40-50 foster kids from White County at any given time:' she said, "and 20 more placed from other counties."
   The home of David and Becky Robbins in Higginson is a model of what is needed.
   Their only biological daughter, Amber, was born 17 years ago and shortly after, Becky had surgery preventing further pregnancies.
   "We wanted to adopt," she said last week, "and we checked into private adoptions, but you have to be rich to do that.
   It wasn't until Amber was 10, in 1996, that they heard about foster care through the Division of Children and Family Services.
   "I said 'yes,' and it was the best yes I ever said," Robbins said. Today, their home has provided temporary care for more than 100 children. Currently, they have twp adopted children and one foster child.
   "The hardest part is when they leave," Robbins said.
"The shortest time I had one was five hours. She was an infant needing to be picked up by an adoptive family coming from out of state. The
longest was for two-and-a-half years. I can see myself doing this until I can't do it anymore."
   A practical nurse,  Robbins worked in pediatrics at White County Medical Center from 1984 to 1991, so she knew what was in store.
   "I've dealt with severe physical abuse," she said.
   She once took in a 2-year-old foster child with attachment disorder -- an inability to bond with people resulting from not being  held or rocked as an infant.
    The child had two years of extensive therapy and she was 4 when the Robbins family adopted her.
    "She will repeat therapy throughout life. At different periods in her life, the disorder will manifest itself in different ways and you don't know what way it will be."
               But when Robbins is told she will one day be rewarded for her goodness, she says she is rewarded every day with love from her foster and adopted children.
               Amber says it takes some getting used to when new children arrive, but she, too, is very happy with the situation. Both are tireless
 advocates for foster homes and adoption.
   "But there are so many ways everyone can help. The community and schools can help out at Christmas, because every year there's a struggle to get gifts. These kids need clothing, especially the teenagers, and if people are going to throw out good clothes, they should contact the department. We get children who don't have clothing but what's on their backs."
   "Some don't even have shoes," Amber said.
   Some children have never had any kind of Christmas gifts, but there are immediate needs, as well.
Interested citizens can contact CASA  http://www.whitecountyar.org/wccasa.htm at 247-6263 or Sherri Guthrie's office at the Department of Children and Family Services, 268-8696.
   Robbins also stresses the ease of adoption.
   "You don't have to have a lot of money or the biggest home in the world. You don't have a lot of family and friends supporting you. You just have to be ordinary people with a lot of love."
   Many neglected and abused children suffer from post-traumatic stress, said Dr. Tammy Alexander, a clinical psychologist whose home clinic is in Kensett but who supervises outpatient behaviors clinics throughout north central Arkansas.
   Many traumatized children exhibit heightened anxiety and regression in developmental level.
   "You have to first put them in an environment that's safe and predictably routine," Alexander said. "You alleviate fear by giving them control of their environment and what's happening."
    For some children who have been severely abused, successful therapy can take years before a patient is returned to a pre-trauma level.
    And it is true that .some will grow up to repeat the abusive behavior.
    "Take a child who has spent six years seeing a father abuse the mother," Alexander said. "As that child grows up, it isn't unusual to see a component of violence in romantic relationships. People look at what happens and ask, 'Why don't they stop going back to those situations?"'
   The reason is that human nature is to go back to familiarity, she said. People seek predictability even if it means getting beaten up every night.
   "But it doesn't mean a child is doomed to that behavior;' she said. "Many have internal strength or external strength and can go the opposite way. We all know some- one who started life with everything against them and succeeded to beat the band. You can never discount individual character and strength."
   Dr. Alexander and Robbins agree that community support of all kinds is vital for children at risk.
   "People involved in youth organizations and church organizations can find ways to support these children;' Alexander said. "School counselors, Scout leaders, the janitor who sees kids in the hall. These fragile kids are the ones we talk about when we say it takes a community."
   "White County is a wonderful place to raise kids;' said Tracy Davis, director of CASA. "But that's not what everybody experiences. They need our help.
   'There are choices involved."

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