GILROY
– Dressed in a bright blue jersey and Nike sneakers,
”
Ryan
”
(whose real name was withheld) looks like an average 13-year-old
boy with close-cropped brown hair and greenish-blue eyes.
GILROY – Dressed in a bright blue jersey and Nike sneakers, “Ryan” (whose real name was withheld) looks like an average 13-year-old boy with close-cropped brown hair and greenish-blue eyes.
He’s a fan of the San Jose Sharks, Nintendo, Smash Brothers and macaroni and cheese dinners. He hopes to go to Six Flags Theme Park one day and to have a German shepherd for a pet.
While those are modest aspirations, a big question mark looms over the boy’s future.
Ryan is a resident at Rebekah Children’s Services, a residential care facility for disadvantaged children in Gilroy. Like most children, homework and daily chores are on Ryan’s to-do list, but unlike them, he has to find a family who will care for him.
Born in San Jose, Ryan was removed from his birth parents when he was 4 years old. Since then, he has bounced around in the social care system, living for periods in group homes and foster families in San Jose, Hollister and Sacramento.
He came to the care facility in October 2002. This is where he eats, sleeps, goes to school and meets daily with his therapist.
Administration, residential units and the school are housed in separate buildings in the foliage-lined abode. Previously known as an Independent Order of Odd Fellows children’s home, the 108-year-old organization began as an orphanage. It shifted its purpose to caring for children from troubled homes and children with developmental disabilities in the 1950s and ’60s, when orphanages fell out of favor.
Ryan has been at the facility for a little more than a year, and while he is able to participate in recreational activities and therapeutic day treatments here, his ideal home is with a foster family.
“I would like to live in a house and be kind to people,” he said. “I would like to have a family that would take me on outings to go shopping, ice skating, take me to the (San Jose) Arena, go to the park.”
Ryan has prior experience with foster care, but those took place when he was about 5 years old and were short-lived.
Ideally, children removed from their biological families are eventually reunified, but this is not an option in Ryan’s situation. The next best alternatives are adoption, where the child takes on the adoptive family’s last name and becomes a member, or long-term foster care, where the court maintains control over the child. Failing those options, group care facilities provide for the child’s well-being.
Ryan is at a crossroads. Unless a foster family can be found, he will be transferred to yet another group home.
Currently, 30 kids live at the facility. They are divided into three groups of 10. One group consists of boys ages 12 through 17, a second for girls ages 12 through 17, and a third group, Ryan’s, is coed and intended for kids ages six through 12. Ryan has outgrown his group, but the older boy’s group is already at full capacity.
Though Ryan has behavioral issues and needs supervision, his therapist, Kirsten Marcel, emphasized his development since his arrival at the Rebekah Children’s Services.
“He has made a lot of progress, in terms of being more well-behaved and not being as aggressive as before,” she said. “He is better able to use words to express his feelings rather than acting out. He is more respectful of boundaries and better able to respect others’ personal space.”
Academically, Ryan also has shown a lot of improvement. Emotionally and cognitively delayed, he is in the sixth grade at the facility’s school.
“He has been doing well at school, better than he has at other places,” said Marcel. “His behavior in classrooms is better and he is more able to focus.”
In class, he is learning about addition and multiplication, the solar system and state capitals. Like many kids his age, he cites “recess” as his favorite subject and also math.
His ideal home, according to Family Linkage Recruiter Melissa Driscoll, is one that is in this area. Both his birth mother and his brother live within driving distance, and Ryan visits with them once a month.
A foster home in Gilroy also will be able to provide continuity in terms of allowing him to meet regularly with Marcel, who has been his therapist since he arrived here, and enables him to continue attending the facility’s school.
“He needs a lot of supervision,” Driscoll said. “A family where he is the youngest or the only child would be best.”
Driscoll adds that the facility provides training and outreach support services for foster parents. A stipend from the county also is available. Foster parents need to be 21 years or older and living in a house that has two or more bedrooms. Singles and couples, married or not, are eligible.
“He’s ready to leave,” Driscoll said. “What we need to do now is find a family who can meet his needs.”
For more information about Rebekah Children’s Services, visit www.rcskids.org or call Family Linkage Recruiter Melissa Driscoll at 846-2119.
