At-risk children to find safe haven // Fallon grant helps set up ‘home'

By Betty Lilyestrom
CORRESPONDENT
Monday, January 23, 2006
Edition: ALL, Section: LOCAL NEWS, Page B5
Dateline: LEICESTER

LEICESTER - An organization aimed at providing secure emotional care for high-risk children from infancy to age 3 held its coming-out party Friday at a press conference at McAuley Nazareth Home for Boys on Mulberry Street.
Baby's Breath has been operating under the radar since 1999, attempting to develop a model program to assist children in that age group who are in need of a safe, caring and stable home environment. The first fruits of that program were announced jointly by representatives of Baby's Breath and Fallon Community Health Plan.
Kate McEvoy-Zdonczyk, director of community relations and development for Fallon, announced that FCHP has chosen Baby's Breath as a 2005 recipient of its Community Benefits Grant and will award the organization $20,000 to help establish a transitional home at the Nazareth facility for displaced infants and toddlers who might otherwise be moved from foster home to foster home at a time in their lives when they most need stability.
Teresa M. Rafferty, a psychotherapist whose years of research in early attachment and child development led to the founding of Baby's Breath, said that children in the first years of their lives are most in need of bonding on a daily basis with the adults in their lives.
"If their own home life is unstable, they don't get the opportunity to complete this bonding process successfully," she said, "and the result is they may never learn how to bond with others, developing what we call attachment disorder."
To prevent this from happening, Baby's Breath aims to provide a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week home environment.
"We eventually hope to secure a permanent home for our program, but it will take some time for us to raise the funds to make that happen," Ms. Rafferty said. "This grant from Fallon Community Health Plan makes it possible for us to get started in a small way in temporary space provided by the McAuley Nazareth Home for Boys."
The Nazareth Home is involved in a building program that will provide permanent space for offices now housed in one of the home's cottages. That cottage will be turned over to Baby's Breath for its transitional home, said Sister Janet Ballentine, Nazareth director.
"The construction is close to being finished," she said. "We hope to be moving by late winter or early spring, and then Baby's Breath can move in. We won't be directly involved in the project - they will have their own staff and program - but we are very happy to be able to provide these children with a place where they can be safe and cared for."
Ms. Rafferty said the group plans to establish eight cribs in the cottage, six for extended care of infants and toddlers referred by the Department of Social Services, and two for emergency cases on weekends when other resources are not available. She said they would also be able to take siblings on such occasions.
The aim of the program will be consistency, both in people and in environment, she said.
"These babies will sleep in the same crib each night, eat in the same high chair each day, become accustomed to the same caregivers during their stay here," she said. "That ... would never happen if they were involved in the foster-home shuffle that often happens today."
She said the ratio of adults to babies will be 2-to-1, the home parent model. The staff will consist of individuals with medical skills, people with experience working with young children, and dedicated volunteers.
"We also will work closely with Social Services," she said. "It is our hope that we won't have to keep these children past 3 years of age. Social Services will be working with their families so that, if at all possible, the family could be stabilized and the child returned to its own home. If that isn't possible, they would find a stable foster home where the child could be placed for long-term, even permanent care. In any event, the babies won't leave here until they're permanently placed."
At Baby's Breath, Ms. Rafferty, who is licensed in clinical social work and has a doctorate, works with a board of directors that includes social service workers, businesswomen, teachers, medical workers and early childhood specialists.
She is especially thankful to Fallon for providing the seed money to get her organization's program off the ground.
"Children who move from home to home have no hope of completing the bonding process successfully, and the subsequent emotional problems can often result in chaotic, unhealthy and unhappy lives," she said. "Fallon Community Health Plan's generous donation to our organization will help to eliminate the foster home shuffle and provide a stable, loving environment."
Each year FCHP seeks grant applications from nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of youth. Eight such organizations received Fallon grants in 2005.
"Baby's Breath is a wonderful organization that shares in our mission of making our communities healthy," said Eric H. Schultz, president and CEO of FCHP."
For more on Baby's Breath, call (508) 752-3009 or visit www.babysbreathhome.org.