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Next Friend: The Journal of a Foster Parent
Cleveland Author Recounts Family’s Struggle Caring for Foster Teenager
CLEVELAND, Ohio (February 26, 2007) – Next Friend: The Journal of a Foster Parent relates the experiences of Anne Southworth and her husband as they struggle to foster parent a willful 16-year-old until she graduates from high school. Nikki is an orphan whose mother died of a drug overdose. She has thwarted the placement efforts of adoptive parents, foster parents, caseworkers and therapists alike – until she meets the Southworths.
Nikki (not her real name) comes into the Southworth household in March 1981, deeply trapped in anger at being orphaned and bounced from home to home – nine altogether. Her anger presents in an argumentativeness that makes most people turn away. It isn’t long after she joins the Southworth family until they all start going to therapy. Here is how the author describes one therapy session:
I am watching
Nikki. For the first time I find
myself the observer, the third party in the room with the behavior that
is
usually directed at me. There is Nikki – eyes down, legs crossed, feet
shoved
out, lower lip about five feet forward, contesting everything that [the
therapist]
says. Nikki is giving short, flip answers but arguing wherever she can.
I am surprised.
I feel better. For the first time I see that this behavior isn’t
reserved
solely for me.
The 200-page
journal richly
details interactions between the petulant teenager and her feisty
foster mother
– a career librarian and lawyer – as they struggle to live under the
same roof.
The Southworths prove to be resourceful, refusing to give up. They sort
things
out – at first stormily and with much emotion, yelling and door
slamming that
slowly turn into hugs and love.
Asked why she and her husband took on the role of foster parents,
Southworth
explains, “A foster father once said to me, ‘A foster child is your
child
without you.’ If anything happened to me – and my extended family – I
would
want somebody to be there for my child.”
The Southworths were helped by a tremendous amount of support from many
sources. One source came from another foster parent –
Looking back on her own days as a foster parent, Riha now says, “It’s tough being a foster parent. You have to have people in your life who care for you and give you support.” “Through no fault of their own,” explains Jerry Blake, a system care coordinator with the Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services, “some children need to be brought into county custody for their own safety. Although the child may be traumatized by the situation in its bio-family, he/she fares better when encouraged to interact with its bio-family. This places an extra challenge on the foster family to provide opportunities for supervised interactions and visitations with the bio-family.”
The Southworths encouraged Nikki to interact with her biological
grandmother and sister. Her sister was Nikki’s only bio-family member
present
at her high school graduation party.
Anne
Southworth is a librarian, lawyer
and advocate for children in the juvenile justice system. She serves as
a
part-time law librarian and a Guardian ad Litem in the
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