Editorial: ‘You guys always made it a family thing’

By The Herald Editorial Board

STANWOOD — DeeDee and Chuck Alfieri, after some 30 years of caring for foster children in their modest home, are retiring from that duty.

Aside from a reminder about paperwork, the Alfieris haven’t received much recognition from the state and its child welfare agency, the Department of Children, Youth and Families, regarding their retirement from the system and their years of service

The thanks, instead, come in thoughts of the children they’ve cared for through the years, 122 in total.

DeeDee and Chuck, a truck mechanic for Paccar, started as foster parents in Alaska where they lived there for a year and half, starting in 1990 before returning to Washington state.

DeeDee grew up in Darrington, the daughter of “Tarheel” parents, who returned to North Carolina when DeeDee was a teenager. While there she met Chuck, a native of Asheville, N.C., and a Navy veteran. The pair moved to Darrington shortly after marrying, and after their stay in Alaska, moved back to Washington, and have since lived in Stanwood.

Licensed as foster parents in Washington state since 1994, the Alfieris have adopted seven of the 122 children they cared for; three adult children and two sets of twin boys, 13 and 10.

“She raised eight,” said Chuck, referring to himself as that eighth kid.

As a young couple, they knew they wanted children and looked into adoption.

“We didn’t necessarily think we had to have a newborn baby or anything,” DeeDee said. “We just wanted to have kids.”

So the couple were licensed as foster parents, with an eye toward eventually adopting.

“We did foster care for a couple kids, and then it was not very long till the state called. Then we had our first son, and then we just kind of kept doing it,” said DeeDee.

The family grew from there, Chuck said, with some direction from the children.

“We got Levi, and then we was going to go for one boy, one girl, Emily, and then Jared, he came into the picture,” he said. “And then as they was growing up, we figured we’d get them a playmate the same age. And then, it got to be a little fight for affection.”

A family meeting followed, with agreement that the family would provide foster care for babies.

“‘But I’m not going to change no loaded diaper,’” one child objected, Chuck said. “So that’s how we got into the baby side of things.”

And it has been a family effort, starting with the eldest kids, and continuing with the four youngest, Jordan and Jayden, 13, who attend middle school in Stanwood, and Gabe and Jose. Both Jordan and Jayden, who the Alfieris have had since birth, are quick to attend to their younger brothers, who are wheelchair-dependent and have other needs that require a high level of care, care the boys help deliver without prompting from Mom or Dad.

“They don’t have to be asked; if something needs done, they just do it,” DeeDee said.

And the demands are great for many of the kids they provided foster care for, many infants suffering from exposure to drugs and alcohol, and even going through withdrawal themselves.

“Somebody asked me the other day, how did we decide which ones to adopt, and I said, ‘We didn’t. God did,’” she said.

The state has provided training and other resources to help them care for the children, she said, and even provided some occasional — very occasional — respite care. But neither parent had great criticism for the state agency, noting the high demand among too few willing foster parents, but said greater resources and compensation for foster families is necessary.

“I wish they could help the foster parents as much as they help the ‘bio’ parents,” she said.

The foster kids, regardless of the demands on the family, are family, the couple said.

“Pretty much from day one, the day we got them, they’re ours, until they move on,” she said. In some cases, the Alfieris found adoptive homes among the children’s teachers and principals in Stanwood’s schools, where the children attended and DeeDee volunteered. The Alfieris also have convinced their nieces and nephews to adopt children.

DeeDee said she does have some concern around the change in the agency’s philosophy and state law in the last few years to keep families together rather than removing children from homes and placing them in foster care.

The state’s foster care system, for a number of years, was criticized for being too quick to remove children from homes, rather than find ways to work with families to meet children’s needs and provide support and training for parents.

That change has resulted, as reported this month by The Seattle Times and the Washington State Standard, in cutting the number of children in the state’s foster care system significantly, from 9,171 in 2018 to 4,971 as of earlier this month. The law, passed in 2022 and taking effect a year ago, changed the judicial standard for removing a child from “serious threat of substantial harm” to “imminent physical harm.”

That has kept more families together, in particular reducing the disproportionate number of children removed from Black and Native American families.

Yet, there have been concerns that some children have been left in dangerous situations, especially in homes where they are exposed to fentanyl, opioids and other drugs.

That standard was adjusted this spring by a bill that requires courts to give “great weight” to the presence of opioids in the home in determining when to remove a child.

The state, in her experience, DeeDee said, gives parents about two years to correct problems, end their drug use and improve the home environment. But she wonders how well some are meeting those requirements, in particular around drug use.

“Every time we get one child, we think, ‘Oh, that’s the worst story I’ve ever heard. That’s horrible.’ And then another would come along and there’d be more violence, or more drugs,” she said.

“I just think with the drug problems it’s getting harder and harder,” she said.

Of the more than 120 children for which the Alfieris have provided foster care, DeeDee said, she could recall only one parent who was successfully reunited with her child.

As much as the demand for foster parents remains, the Alfieris say they have reached the point where they need to ease their own load and focus on raising their four boys and setting them on their own paths.

“We’re getting so busy with these guys, it’s time for younger families to take over,” DeeDee said.

Yet, the connection to many of their foster children won’t end. Even some parents have kept in contact with their children and the Alfieris, including Gabe’s and Jose’s father, who lives in Mount Vernon but couldn’t provide the care that the boys require.

Another of the 122 foster children reached out a few years ago on a Feb. 14.

“We got a call from D.J. and he says, ‘I just wanted to call; I’ve been thinking about Valentine’s Day. You guys always made it a family thing, not a husband-wife thing,’” DeeDee said. “We always did a big Valentine’s Day dinner, for all the kids. And that was pretty cool to hear that. And now he has three kids of his own.”