By Cindy Adams
For weeks, two children were almost home before they watched that chance slip away. Their father, the man who had sponsored their journey from El Salvador, was deported partway through the process. Everything had to restart, this time with their mother as sponsor instead of him.
The brother and sister had already made the most difficult part of the trip, but this was still quite a setback. Two older siblings had made that same journey before them and were already living with their mom in the U.S. All that stood between this family being whole again was paperwork, but now it all had to start from zero.
Their reasons for coming to the United States were like many who have fled their home countries — gang violence, poverty, government concerns, trafficking, war. But now the life they hoped for would have to wait. Their family remained scattered.
What made the delay bearable for the children was that their mom kept visiting regularly, bringing that irreplaceable love and support with her. The enCircle staff got to watch a family's bond holding steadily through a process that kept requiring them to be patient a little longer.
When the sponsorship piece was sorted and the day came for reunification, it wasn't complicated at all. Two kids went home to their mom and their older siblings. They would wait on dad together.
Chelsea Bolling knows this kind of story well. As enCircle's Transitional Foster Care program director, she says watching families come together is the part of the job she loves most. She comes from a family that does human services work. Her dad works in mental health, and her mom is a special education teacher in the juvenile justice system.
"For our family, it has always been a thing to work with kids or work in mental health," Chelsea explains. "I decided to do both."
What pulled her to this specific corner of the field was learning her dad's story. He went through the foster care system, and she was intrigued by how things have changed over the years. The system her dad grew up in is not the one she works in now. That gap is part of what keeps her alert to what's better, what's still difficult, what a kid might need today that maybe wasn't available to her dad. She is focused and dedicated to helping create families. She carries this desire outside of work where she is a practicing birth doula, which she'll tell you is really the same job, just wearing a different hat.
"It’s creating families, too," she said. "Just like adoptions and reunifications."
Chelsea gets to see the children in her program for a limited time, typically a couple of weeks to a couple of months, but she usually sees significant growth during that time and that, too, is what makes her smile at the end of the day.
"When I see these kiddos start to trust us and take an interest in growing, that's a good day for me," she said. "I feel like we can all learn from each other. The kids learn something from our culture, and we learn something from theirs. Small victories and we celebrate all of them."
Today, a mother and all her children are back together. Their dad is still working to make his way back to them. Sometimes a family gets created in pieces and out of order, but watching it come together, in whatever way it does, is a beautiful gift.
EnCircle is recruiting and training foster parents in Richmond, Virginia, to provide Transitional Foster Care, typically two weeks to four months. These children have entered the U.S. by themselves and are awaiting reunification with family/sponsors already here in the U.S. Learn more here.
