For the Sake of the Children

Dona and James Perry are a foster child’s dream.

Their yard in the Ventura County community of Camarillo is filled with jungle gyms, a trampoline, chickens, pigs and fruit trees. Their house is a happy jumble of toys, bicycles and clothing.

Children dash through the rooms and cartwheel across the lawn.

Four-year-old Rikki, who came to the Perrys three years ago with a fractured skull and signs of autism, dangles upside down on a bar, giggling and chewing gum.

Nine-year-old Azael, deaf and mute, gestures wildly to his foster mother in sign language from atop a ship-shaped toy.

And 6-year-old Roberta--born three months premature, weighing less than 2 pounds, addicted to cocaine and suffering from syphilis, meningitis, swelling of the brain and intra-cranial bleeding--dangles from the yard’s monkey bars yelling, “Look! Look!” until she crashes down and tearfully runs into her foster mother’s arms.

In all, the Perrys care for six children, all severely disabled and considered the most difficult to place in foster homes. And by all accounts, they have met the remarkable challenge with a deep commitment to nurture the children into adulthood.

But the foster care system has not done nearly so well, they say, breaking its commitment by cutting the family’s payments nearly in half, leaving them thousands of dollars short.

The Perrys argue that when they moved from the San Fernando Valley to Ventura County in 1994, they were assured by Los Angeles officials that the amount they received as foster parents for severely disabled children would remain unchanged.

For two years, that was the case. In fact, the family took in two more children during that period at the request of Los Angeles County’s overwhelmed Department of Children and Family Services.

But in 1996, without warning, their payments were cut from about $60,000 annually to around $36,000, the going rate in Ventura County. And despite 14 administrative hearings that were settled in their favor, the state has consistently blocked restoration of the money.

So last week, the Perrys turned to Los Angeles Superior Court, filing one lawsuit for every child in their care.

They are seeking back payments since their money was reduced in 1996, and demanding that they be paid Los Angeles’ rates for the future--when they plan to adopt the children.

Los Angeles officials, who said they had not seen the lawsuits, declined to comment, as did state officials.

At a time when national and state legislators are urging better foster care and more adoptions, advocates say the Perry case shows the tremendous obstacles foster families face.

Andrew Bridge of the nonprofit Alliance for Children’s Rights, which provides free legal services to foster children and children of poverty, says there has been a push to adopt foster children. This is especially true of children with physical and emotional disabilities who are extremely difficult to place.

“The goal is to get the children back into a normalized family setting, a setting not dominated by lawyers, courtrooms, bureaucrats and social workers,” saidBridge, one of five lawyers working on the lawsuits. “The goal is to get them into families with parents.”

*

It’s almost dinner time.

As Dona Perry slices garlic bread and boils pasta, she talks about how she and her husband ended up with six disabled children.

As she tells it, it was an accident.

She knew she wanted to work with medically fragile, special children. After all, two of her idols, she says, were Mother Teresa and Mother Hale, who worked with crack babies in Harlem.

Dona and James, both 51, have children from earlier marriages but never had any together.

During the first 10 years after their 1983 marriage, they traveled the world in search of adventure, sailing to the Channel Islands and scuba diving in Australia and Mexico.

But they longed for something more.

In 1991, they took in Shawn, their first foster child.

Next came Roberta, who had spent three months in neonatal care. She had just had brain surgery. She couldn’t stand to be touched or even looked at. When the infant finally looked them in the eye and smiled after six months, the Perrys got a bottle of champagne and cried for joy.

“It was just like giving birth at that point,” Dona said. “You are just so involved.”

She launches into a description of how much progress each child has made.

Rikki was hostile and angry; anything would set him off. At 14 months he would not so much as babble, just lay on the floor and screamed. They thought he was autistic.

Today, he races around, talking endlessly. He still won’t speak at school, but “his teacher said he just made his first friend last week,” Dona Perry said.

When Myia arrived, the girl would literally tear her clothes apart. If they gave her a doll, she would tear it up too, then crumble to the floor and cry. Now Myia cartwheels on cue, and her smile dazzles.

“I just feel so good about what I am doing,” Dona said. “If you can make a difference in the life of a child, that’s what’s important. I feel that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.”

She says she can already see the difference a sense of security has made for these children. And these days, she worries about what could happen if that security is disrupted.

“It may take three years to resolve this lawsuit,” she said. “But we can’t give that time back to the kids.”

And right now they are giving the children all they can, she says.

Each child has a schedule packed with extracurricular activities, tailored to their specific developmental needs. The jungle gym, trampoline and a new pool help the children with coordination. Azael dives and is a Cub Scout.

Myia, Roberta, Shawn and Kimba, the youngest, all participate in gymnastics. Roberta and Myia also take speech and music lessons. On Saturdays, Dona takes them to special NAACP-sponsored classes so they can learn about their African American heritage.

The Perrys have a driver to help ferry the children to their activities. They also have a helper who works Monday through Friday assisting with cooking, cleaning and grappling with the 40-plus loads of laundry each week.

When Dona thought the children were behind in swimming, she hired a private instructor to teach them in the backyard pool, which the Perrys had built before their monthly payments were slashed.

Above and beyond the state reimbursement they originally received for the children, they estimate they spent $25,000 of their own money annually on the children.

“A lot of people will say, just because they are foster kids doesn’t mean they should get everything,” Dona said. “But they have a lot of catch-up to do to become productive members of society.”

It is now time for the family to gather for dinner. Each child has an assigned seat.

“Thank God for our food and family and friends,” says Dona, with a chorus of voices. They all speak sign language as well, so Azael takes part.

*

In 1993, when the Perrys had just four foster children, they began to consider moving from their Calabasas home to one that would be better and safer for their growing brood.

They found the perfect place, nestled among the citrus orchards of Hill Canyon in Camarillo.

Everything was perfect for two years, until June 1996. The Perrys received notices that their foster care payments were being reduced to Ventura County rates.

In more than a dozen administrative hearings, the Perrys prevailed, but Eloise Anderson, state director of the Department of Social Services, overruled each one. Anderson could not be reached for comment.

In her ruling of May 19, 1997, Anderson conceded that the Perrys had relied upon the county’s promise in deciding to move. But Anderson said that continuing to pay the additional sums “would nullify a strong rule of policy adopted for the benefit of the public.”

The Perrys are at a loss. They have sold a boat and their house in Calabasas to make ends meet.

They have weighed their options. They thought about giving some of the children back, but decided they couldn’t do that to the children, their siblings or themselves.

“My husband makes a good deal of money,” Perry said, though she would not say how much. “It’s enough for two or three kids, but not enough for six. And we want to do it right.”

She looks out across her yard, where children romp and play.

“It’s so incredible,” she said. “It’s such a grab bag. And we got such beautiful children.”