Newsmakers 2017: Drs. Paul and Dawn Caruso

Paul and Dawn Caruso are doctors. He's the medical director of SoutheastHEALTH's neonatal intensive care unit. She's a psychiatrist. Their shared vocations -- helping and healing -- are also what spurred them to revitalize foster care in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding counties.

"Dawn and I have been involved in foster care since 1999 when we first moved to Cape," Paul says. "Dawn was actually seeing children in an outpatient setting and she asked me if I would be interested in getting involved in foster care."

He didn't know what he was getting into, but he agreed and said he quickly realized the need for dedicated individuals to advocate for foster kids.

"These kids were just wonderful kids who needed somebody to care for them and help them," he says.

A decade later, the Carusos had a similar conversation, only this time about starting a children's home.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Dr. Paul Caruso

"Without much thought going into it I said, 'Sure,'" Paul says, "'why don't we see if we can do it?'"

So they did.

Hope Children's Home opened in 2010, and since then close to 300 children have called it home at some point. That's good, he says, since the number of foster kids has grown to more than 400. Over the same span, however, the number of foster parents has tripled, Dawn says.

"It's crazy. We do the training for foster parents and the classes are always full now," she says. "It's awesome."

Also full is their own house, where the Carusos have nine children. Some, the Carusos adopted. Some, Paul even nursed in the NICU from the start. But all nine are family, he says.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Dr. Paul Caruso

And the Carusos' goal is to help as many foster parents and foster kids achieve the same.

And since the need is always growing, Dawn says their plan is just to keep pace.

"Just keep growing," she says of the Hope Children's Home's present goal. "And figuring out ways to help out."