PROGRAM PUTS TROUBLED KIDS IN FAMILIES

By the time Tony turned 6, no foster family would take him.

When he was 3, the state took him from his parents. For the next few years, he went from foster home to foster home, never lasting more than a few weeks. Tony tried to hurt himself, biting his arm until it bled or hitting his head against a wall.

He landed in Cottonwood, a Cape Girardeau institution for foster children with behavioral problems. Without a Missouri Department of Mental Health program called Treatment Family Homes, Tony would be in Cottonwood today, bearing the dubious honor of being there the longest. Instead, he lives with a Wayne County couple.

Treatment Family Homes are special places, where parents must have infinite patience, devotion and love. The whole family must work together to take a child, one who probably has been abused, out of an institution and put him into a family. It's the child's shot at a normal life.

Sometimes the program works and sometimes it doesn't, but coordinators match the families and children with great care. Paul Schniedermeyer, director of children and family services for the Community Counseling Center, said Treatment Family Homes participants train intensely for six weeks, with part of the training devoted specifically to the child they will receive.

"We're looking for families with understanding, commitment and an interest in children," he said. "When I say understanding, I mean an understanding that they will have to make an impact on a kid's life. It takes more than love."

Trouble is, Cape Girardeau County is known as a tough place to recruit foster parents, nevermind ones who want kids with pronounced behavioral and emotional problems. Right now, there is a Jackson family who received the training and is ready for a child.

Ron and Patsy Collier, both in their 50s, have four sons. Only one, 18-year-old Patrick, still lives at home. When the Treatment Family Homes program came to Southeast Missouri, one of the sons who works at Cottonwood suggested the Colliers give it a try.

Many family discussions later, they said yes. The Colliers had experience with foster children from when their own boys were young.

"Families in this program must want to give someone a chance who hasn't had one," Ron Collier said. "These kids have been beaten down to where they don't know what a chance is. They were used in some way instead of allowed to be children."

The couple said they weren't as frightened by the prospect of getting a severely troubled child as they were of not being able to help him. After four sons of her own, Patsy Collier said she was ready to provide a stable home for another.

She and her husband have to wait for paperwork on a teen-ager who may be placed in their home soon. If they read the case and think they may be able to help him, the face-to-face meetings will begin. If that goes well, the teen is theirs for a trial period.

"If you can successfully help a child, the rewards are marvelous," Patsy Collier said. "To help him become a productive adult and get out of the system will be wonderful. Even if you help one in your lifetime, it's worth it."

Mike and Lori Hills of rural Wayne County agreed. Married 15 years, they are both in their 30s and had experience with average foster children before taking part in the pilot Treatment Family Homes project. They got Tony, mentioned earlier, a year ago.

"Tony had the reputation of being the worst," Lori Hills said. "The weekend he was supposed to come home with us, he tried to kill himself. We still wanted him, and two weekends later he came home."

Mike Hills, who is disabled, said he is a "house husband" while his wife attends Southeast Missouri State University to become a social worker. They couple have two sons of their own and a foster daughter through the Division of Family Services.

Structure and a strong belief in divine guidance helped keep the family going smoothly through Tony's first few months. The boy hadn't ever been shopping, so the Hillses took him to the Poplar Bluff Kmart for some shoes. When the store didn't have the pair he wanted in his size, Tony began screaming obscenities and had to be dragged from the store.

Later in his stay with the foster family, he jumped out of a moving car on Highway 67. The Hillses took off the door handle next to Tony's designated seat.

They said that, after a year of work, Tony isn't the boy he used to be. The kid who never played a sport is on the Greenville Public Schools fifth- and sixth-grade basketball team. He rides the bus to school one day a week with a minimal amount of problems. He smiles once every so often, something he never did before.

And the Hills said they want to keep him indefinitely.

Foster care facts

There are 42 Treatment Family Homes in Missouri serving 85 children.

Foster families are paid between $600 and $1,800 per child each month, depending on the child's problems and the level of attention needed.

The alternative -- institutional care -- can cost as much as $9,000 per child per month.