Santa Monica family looking to foster more
DOWNTOWN Kate Kirkpatrick quietly absorbed everything she was hearing, stories of drug addiction, neglect and a possible brain development disorder.
Amid the sound of rain tapping against the car window and the narrative of a social worker telling the heartbreaking background of a 2-year-old boy, was the voice of one’s own reassurance that everything would be OK.
“I am going to see how this is,” Kirkpatrick thought to herself.“I don’t have to commit if I don’t want to.”
She arrived at a run-down children’s shelter in Downtown Los Angeles, a dismal place in dismal surroundings.
Despite all that was wrong with the physical structure, the doubts and fears disappeared when the Santa Monica resident laid eyes on the young boy whose story she had just heard.
On a gloomy and rainy February day in 1995, the sun somehow finally shined. “He was so sweet and cute,” Kirkpatrick recalled on the day in which she met her future son.
It was the perfect meeting of sorts for a woman who had just recovered from a brain tumor and was looking for a child to foster,and a boy who desperately needed the love of a stable family. Everything just seemed to click.
The boy, now 15-year-old Nathan Michaelski, would spend the next four years as a foster child, living with Kirkpatrick, her husband John Michaelski, and their son Micah, who was 10 at the time of that fateful meeting. The family adopted Nathan when he turned 6.
The past 13 years haven’t been an easy ride, filled with bumps from the death of Nathan’s birth parents to accidental drug overdoses and dealing with struggles related to Nathan’s autism, but it’s one in which the family has never looked back. Now with Micah away studying anthropology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and Nathan coming into his own at Santa Monica High School as a sophomore,the couple is looking to foster another child with the hopes of adopting. With Nathan’s condition requiring less attention than before, the couple has more time to devote to another child, Kirkpatrick said.
The couple is among a handful of families and individuals in Santa Monica who are certified by Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services to foster a child in need. There are approximately 17,000 children who are either in custody of relatives or a foster family,according to Sari Grant,the recruitment administrator for DCFS.
The children are taken away for a variety of reasons with most of the cases concerning child abuse,neglect and substance abuse.Roughly 71 percent are under the age of 13. The department is actively looking for resource parents who are approved for both foster care and adoption. While the goal of foster care is to reunify the child with their birth parents, the department would at least like to offer a sense of permanency in case things don’t work out.
“The reason for this is so the child won’t have to make multiple moves,”Grant said.
Interested individuals are required to go through 13 orientation sessions, which typically take about three months to complete. They are then required to sign up for Permanency and Safety Model Approach to Partnership and Parenting (PSMAPP) classes where they learn how to care for children. A social worker will also interview prospective foster parents during the classes and conduct home assessments.
Foster families are compensated starting at approximately $485 a month.The amount goes up incrementally with age and depending on the special needs of the child. Since the goal is reunification, the birth parents do have visitation rights once the child is placed in a foster home. Those rights are revoked once the child is adopted. The majority do return to their birth parents.
“Our goal whenever possible is either not to remove the child and to strengthen the family, or if the child is not safe, remove the child as soon as possible and work with the family to get them in a safe environment,”Grant said.
BECOMING A FAMILY OF FOUR It was an old advertisement in the Outlook Newspaper that first caught the couple’s attention. Shortly after the family moved into a three-bedroom apartment adjacent to Will Rogers Elementary in 1994, Kirkpatrick was perusing the newspaper when she caught sight of a picture of a baby in an ad for the Westside Children Center, which they coincidentally lived across in their most previous home on Ocean Park Boulevard.
Kirkpatrick had just undergone surgery to remove a tumor the year before, spending her recovery thinking of the one thing she wished she had done more — have children.
Considering they had an extra bedroom,the couple decided to give foster parenting a try and took three months of orientation classes. In early January 1995,they received a call about a boy in a Downtown L.A. shelter.
After meeting Nathan, Kirkpatrick reported back to her family.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about him being there in that place and how sad his story was,” she said.
She went back the next day with Micah,who instantly connected with his future brother.
Nathan remained in contact with his birth parents, even calling Kirkpatrick “Momma Kate”and his birth mother,“Momma Darla.”
When Nathan was freed up for adoption, the family sat down to discuss whether they were willing to commit themselves to a child who had a developmental brain disorder and the responsibilities that entailed.
“When you make a commitment, you can’t back out if it,” John Michaelski, who is a park ranger for Santa Monica City Hall, said. “We were pretty much at that point locked in with him and bonded with him.”
The family feared what would happen to Nathan if they didn’t adopt him.
It was 13-year-old Micah who finally made the decision for the family.
“Of course we’re going to adopt him,” he said at the time. “You’re his mother, you’re his dad and I’m his brother.”
In adopting Nathan, Kirkpatrick continued a long tradition in her family. Her maternal grandfather was adopted as well as his sister. Her great-aunt had also fostered a child. Today the family still lives in the three-bedroom house in Sunset Park, still listening to the sounds of children at Will Rogers from their living room window, sounds which they hope will one day include another child of their own.
Nathan is now in his second year at Santa Monica High School where he is a member of Circle of Friends, a program that pairs regular with special education students. He also swims three days a week with the Shark Swim Team at Santa Monica College. While Nathan hasn’t voiced where he would like to attend college or what profession to take on in the future, his parents are sure that their son will be fine, describing him as being “focused.” The teenag-er can often be seen sitting in front of the television with a show on pause, carefully drawing the characters on the screen.
“It’s just the matter of finding the right place in life,” John Michaelski said. “We all go through that, trying to find the right niche.”
The couple has already gone through the orientation again and has been re-certified by the county. They have also spent a few nights babysitting children who are being fostered by other Santa Monica residents. In each instance, Nathan has bonded with the foster child.
“Micah had a chance to be a big brother,” the parents have told him.“Wouldn’t you like to have a chance to be a big brother too?”
For more information on adoption and fostering, contact Department of Child and Family Services (626) 229-3732
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 20, 2008. Read the original PDF.