This article appeared in MotherTown – July 2006

Matchmakers: Building families, one child at a time

By Christine M. Quirk/ Staff Writer
Thursday, July 6, 2006

Ten children surround Debbie and Carle Sargent in their West Boylston home. (Ann Ringwood photo)

There are more than 100,000 children in this country waiting for adoptive homes, 3,000 in Massachusetts alone. Debbie and Carle Sargent of West Boylston are out to change all that, one child, one sibling group at a time. "We want people to know what adoption is," Debbie said.

For the Sargents, adoption is a way to become a parent. It’s a way to make a difference. It’s a way to save a child. And every day, they see what a difference it can make - seven of the Sargents’ 10 children were adopted from the foster care system, three from Connecticut and four from Texas.

The Sargents can’t adopt all the children who need stable homes, but they firmly believe there are families out there who can. Thus has been born U.S. Adoption Solutions, a private, non-profit adoption agency to address the need to recruit and train families for those waiting children. If only one in every 900 families adopt a child, which Carle estimates to be one-tenth of one percent of all U.S. families, the crisis will be solved.

Building a family

How does an ordinary couple begin a movement? For Carle and Debbie Sargent, it started with their wedding in 1990.

"I was adopted," Debbie said. "We talked a lot about it before we got married. We had three girls and we really wanted a son."

After daughters Robin, Julie and Emily were born, the Sargents followed through on their desire to pay it forward and take a child out of the foster care system and into a permanent home. They contacted the state’s Dept. of Social Services and attended a seminar that outlined the adoption process. When it came time to actually fill out the paperwork, a DSS social worker suggested that, with three little girls, the Sargents already had their hands full.

But Debbie and Carle believed they knew what they could and could not handle, and so they contacted Downey Side, a private adoption agency based in Springfield, which deals exclusively in placing children aged 7 to 17. After completing a home study, a lengthy process including interviews and providing medical and financial information, they were matched with a sibling group, Scott and Anna, who were then 7 and 11.

Scott, now 14, remembers the first time he met his parents, they went to a burger place for lunch and he had his very first double cheeseburger.

Debbie remembers that it was a week before Halloween and she was worried about trick or treat.

"All I could think of was that they had no costumes," she said. "Anna wanted to be a vampire - she said she’d always wanted to dress up as a vampire, but everywhere she lived before, someone else had been one instead. So she got to be a vampire."

A year after Scott and Anna came home, Debbie said, they thought Scott needed a brother to play with. And Scott, as the only boy with four sisters, put in a very specific request: he wanted an older brother, a teenager who would play video games with him and show him all the cheats.

The Sargents went back to Downey Side and said they had a place in their family for another boy. Shortly thereafter, Justin, then 3, came home.

"I said, ’wait, he’s 10 years too young,’" Scott said.

For a few years, the Sargents thought their family was complete. The children and the adults had all adjusted to one another and life had become a busy routine of school, work, family time and extracurricular activities. Carle had long wanted to start his own non-profit and was doing research for what would become U.S. Adoption Solutions. As he looked at various Web sites listing hundreds of children waiting for homes, he came across a sibling group from Texas: Rocky, Cora, Shawn and Stariona. Unless a suitable home was found, the children were going to be split up. The Sargents contacted the children’s social worker and, as it turned out, she had just taken a class in creating big families.

"She put her new knowledge to the test," Carle said.

Drive to Denali

Opening a business, any business, is not cheap. The Sargents estimate it will cost about $1 million to get their first office off the ground. Daughter Julie, 13, came up with the "Drive to Denali" idea.

Each year, the Sargents pack up the kids and head off to Montana for a family vacation. This year, at Julie’s suggestion, they’ve decided to expand the trip to Alaska’s Denali National Park, more than 4,600 miles, to raise both money and awareness. The family has a donated RV and plans to leave July 30, arrive in Denali on Aug. 14 and return to West Boylston around Aug. 26. Julie has written to Massachusetts newspapers and is notifying the media along the way. She is also trying to convince comedienne and talk show host Ellen Degeneres to help promote the cause.

Debbie said the Wal-Mart corporation allows RVs to stay in their parking lots for free, so they are notifying the Wal-Marts along the way, hoping for both hospitality and publicity.

"We’re trying to set up stuff for all along the trip, having media points as we go," Debbie said.

Julie also started a pledge drive at school, asking her friends to take one sheet each, solicit 25 $10 donations for a total of $250, and bring the sheet back. She set up a contest, so the student who raises the most money will get a prize, such as a mall gift card.

"We’re trying to give them some incentive," Julie said. "There was a lot of interest."

"We need people to get involved and help," Debbie said. "Raising $1 million is not easy. You have to be passionate about it."

The fledgling organization also has a Web site, www.usadoptionsolutions.org, with information on their mission, the children who need homes, and donation and volunteer opportunities.

Making matches

Debbie and Carle estimate there are more than a half million children in foster care nationwide, 118,000 of whom will need new permanent homes. In Massachusetts, there are just over 10,000 children in foster care, according to Denise Monteiro, spokeswoman for the state Dept. of Social Services. Of those, two-thirds will return home, but about 3,000 are waiting placement in an adoptive home.

In addition, there are 2,400 kids in residential and group homes, Monteiro said. Some are there because their emotional and behavioral issues necessitate specialized care, but others are placed there because there are no suitable foster or adoptive homes available.

"They are able and willing and wanting to go, and it’s their dream," Monteiro said. "Some kids should not be living in a group home setting. That’s why it’s so important to keep recruiting foster and adoptive families."

Though the Dept. of Social Services oversees foster care in Massachusetts, it contracts with private agencies to try to help find permanent homes for children. DSS, like many other state agencies, has been the victim of budget cuts and staff reductions over the last several years.

"DSS is overworked: that’s why we needed to go to a private agency," Carle said. "If the state had all the money they needed, they’d do a good job. This is why we need private partnerships with DSS."

The Sargents see U.S. Adoption Solutions as an element of that partnership, but they also do not want to limit their services to the BayState.

"Part of the problem is that DSS is only looking in Massachusetts," Carle said. "The kid that might be a good match might be in another state. There are more options with private agencies, and it works both ways. Making a good match is complicated. We don’t want to place just any kid in any family; we want to look at kids’ needs and the family’s needs as well. ... So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to find parents and match those parents with kids."

Carle had worked at Downey Side and has been a caseworker, administrator, fundraiser and development director. Even after leaving the agency, he continued to volunteer there.

"I decided we needed more places like that," Carle said. "We all thought there weren’t enough agencies. There are so many kids - we need more [agencies], whether it’s that places like Downey Side expand or that more are created."

Because of their adoption experience, Carle and Debbie have contacts in the field. Carle also has a business background, so the pieces fit together well. Though the focus would be on adoption, Carle said U.S. Adoption Solutions would also work to get support for children about to become adults.

"The kids who are aging out get lost," he said. "The kids who don’t get adopted turn 18 and then they’re out on their own. We would try to get them some stability, a mentor, a place for them to go on holidays. We all know people like that, there’s a family friend who’s at every holiday - they are family whether or not you have that paper. ... Those are the kids that get missed and we need to worry about them."

Monteiro agreed, saying that sometimes teenagers are viewed as being "too old to be cute."

"We’re also recruiting foster families for older kids - maybe kids who are in college, or who are working," Monteiro said.

Under the right circumstances, she said, youngsters can remain in the foster care system until they are 22. This can only be a good thing, the Sargents believe.

"Because you know, they say they’re grown up at 18, but they’re not," Debbie said.

The Sargents are putting their dreams and ideas into action. U.S. Adoption Solutions has a board of directors, has been established as a corporation and is awaiting its federal tax ID number. They have also completed a business plan, submitted paper work to be considered a nonprofit organization. The Web site is up and running and now they’re fundraising to open their first office, hopefully in the Worcester area, with an eye to expanding to other New England states and, eventually, nationwide.

"We really want to be on the family’s side," Debbie said. "We look at it as you should have your own social worker, who will do your home study and then find the match that works best for you."

The Sargents’ ultimate goal is to have their agency become obsolete.

"I want to be put out of business," Carle said.

Eight was not enough

The biggest trick to raising 10 kids is to be organized, though Carle said he thinks the house would be well-ordered anyway, even with fewer children. You have to keep a good schedule, Carle said, because with four boys and six girls playing sports and participating in after-school activities and play dates, it would be easy to miss something.

The Sargents also installed lockers by the back door. Each child has two, and they’re used for backpacks, hats and mittens and anything else that might inadvertently disappear in a family of 12.

There’s also a chore chart on the fridge and Carle said that since there are so many of them, after dinner cleanup can be done in record time. The teamwork the family exhibits is not only practical, it sends a very powerful message.

"They’re all worth something and we need them to help," Carle said.

The Sargents have been a family of 12 for a year now. Over the last several months, they’ve added on and remodeled their West Boylston home so now everyone has their own room, their own space painted in their own taste - princess pink and Patriots blue, for example - with a dining room, family room, an office for Mom’s wedding photography business and one for Dad to, and a TV room with movie theatre seats so everyone can watch a program together.

The family talks easily and candidly about adjusting to each other.

"Justin came in this van, this big van, and there was little Justin in his car seat," Debbie said. "He had so much stuff." Julie remembers getting off the bus from kindergarten to find her mother waiting for her with a couple of new siblings. Scott said he was nervous when he moved into his permanent home, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

"You have to build a relationship," Carle said. "Talk about the future. Talk about the vacation you’re going to have next summer, so they can start to think, ’Hmm, they’re planning on my being here next summer because we’re talking about that.”

Sometimes, Debbie said, the children will think in terms of birthdays or holidays, saying things like, "Oh, that was two birthdays ago" or "This is the third Christmas with you."

"After a while, they stop counting because they know it’s going to be forever," Carle said.

Another important part is to be truthful about the children’s past and let them talk about their former parents, birth and foster, and grieve that relationship.

"You can’t be afraid to talk about your parents," Scott said.

Every child can have a home. Both Carle and Debbie - and their children - urge people to educate themselves, think about it carefully and consider adopting foster children.

"People can make a difference," Carle said. "These kids end up in these situations through no fault of their own. And there is never a person that tries to be in a position to lose their kids. No one wishes that on themselves. But the kids end up being the helpless victims."