‘A lot of love to give’

Published 9:23 pm Tuesday, June 9, 2009

EDMONDS

Jim and Wendy Shapiro of Edmonds received a pre-Christmas surprise on the evening of Friday, Dec. 5, 2008.

The Shapiros, who have served as foster parents for seven children, had a four-day old baby boy delivered to their clean, spacious home by a caseworker that day.

The couple has two children of their own, daughter Gracia, 13, and son Atley, 9, who both attend King’s Schools in Shoreline, where Jim, 37, will enter his 13th year as head football coach at the high school in the fall.

The difference between the blue-eyed baby boy and the other children that had come through the Shapiro home was that he was a likely candidate for adoption.

The Shapiros started thinking about foster adoption when they attended Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, which has an adoption ministry. About five years ago they started parenting foster children in their home with placements from Olive Crest, a non-profit agency with an office in Bellevue.

“Foster care found us,” Jim Shapiro said. “I’ve just wanted to do our part. Our end goal was to adopt not just be foster parents.”

The second pregnancy for Wendy, 38, was a hard one so the couple figured if they were to add to their family, adoption was the way to go.

“We like our family, we feel like we have a lot of love to give,” Jim said.

At any given time, there are 6,000 foster children in Washington state and several thousand are ready to be adopted, George Chudnosky, Olive Crest’s program director, said.

“Part of it is our faith in God and there’s a scripture that talks about taking care of the widows and the orphans and so we better step up and do our part,” Jim said.

When they considered adoption, the Shapiros, discovered getting a foster license gives you a broader opportunity to adopt a child that’s in the system already.

The profile of a child the Shapiros’ planned to adopt was of a 3 to 7-year-old child but when the baby arrived it was a welcome surprise. The caseworker only had three diapers and a bottle, the Shapiros recalled, so they had to run out to the store and find more baby gear since it had been awhile since their biological children had been in a crib.

“We had nothing,” Wendy said.

The baby was born four weeks premature but right now is happy and healthy six months into his stay at the Shapiro home.

The adoption process is far from over, however, and it could take up to two years, if it happens at all. Caseworkers still arrange visits with the birth parents, who have other children. The courts will ultimately decide what happens.

The delays in adopting are a result of the court process, and there are often attorneys for each of the birth parents, an attorney for the child and court-appointed special advocate, as well as an attorney for the state and a caseworker who may be juggling 30 to 40 children’s cases.

Olive Crest has about 100 children in its various programs.

“It’s constantly in flux,” Chudnofsky said. “Children are coming in, children are going other places.”

The main goal of organizations like Olive Crest is to place children in homes with families as an alternative to things like group homes.

“We have a fundamental belief that children are better in families than in institutions,” Chudnofsky said. “Everything we do is to support the family so the children can get better in that family.”

Another 1,000 to 2,000 more capable families like the Shapiros volunteering to open their homes would absorb the children in the system, Chudnofsky said.

“Families like the Shapiros, they’re the kind of family that’s doing it for 100 percent pure heart,” he said. “The Shapiros are definitely golden for us.”

“It’s been great,” Jim said. “Our kids are old enough that it’s been a huge help. They enjoy other kids.”

The Shapiros said they’ve tried to expose their children to other children who are less fortunate. In five of the last seven summers, they’ve gone on a mission trip with several other families to Ensenañda, Mexico organized by a former neighbor from Mill Creek, Jeff Fransen. They work at an orphanage and spend time out in the community during their stays.

But back in Washington there continues to be a great need for foster care adoption.

“Usually people want little bitty babies,” Chudnofsky said. “As you get older it’s harder to get adopted in the state of Washington. Now there are 2,000 of those kids in group homes, residential group homes.”

The Shapiros got their feet wet with older children. A six-year old girl stuck out in their minds. When she first arrived, her language was laced with expletives, most likely repeating what she heard in her previous home.

“Even good kids, they’ve seen so much,” Jim said. “They’ve really lived a lifetime.”

But after her stay with the Shapiros, “she had all her please and thank yous down,” he said. “A completely changed person.”