Foster family welcomes children in need into their home
Maya Thornton, 11, and Ricky Anderson, 16, are all smiles as they pose with their guardians, Annette and Gerald Malinsky of Masontown, while at Northwestern Health Services in Peters Township Monday. The Malinskys are guardians of the two children and care for four others at their home.
Annette and Gerald Malinsky of Masontown are shown with Maya Thornton and Ricky Anderson at Northwestern Health Services in Peters Township.
On any given day, about 400,000 children and teens live in foster care in the United States.
Gerald and Annette Malinsky have opened their Masontown, Greene County, home to 13 foster children since they became foster parents for NHS Human Services in McMurray in 2008.
Currently sharing their nine-bedroom house are five foster children (the Malinskys have guardianship of two of them, 11-year-old Maya Thornton and 16-year-old Ricky Anderson), along with two adults who went through the foster care system and the couple’s 16-year-old son (three other sons are grown).
Ranging in age from 11 to 17, the foster kids come to the Malinskys with different physical needs and emotional challenges.
One of their foster children was placed in 36 homes between the ages of 8 and 10 and ballooned to nearly 200 pounds.
But the Malinskys embrace the challenges.
“For us, it’s all about the kids,” said Gerald, a retired state Department of Corrections employee and U.S. Navy veteran. “They had upbringings where their home situations weren’t the best, so they were taken out of that situation. We try to help them, to provide a stable place.”
Annette Malinsky’s parents volunteered as foster parents for 35 years and adopted Annette’s sister, so following in their footsteps seemed natural.
“I saw my parents doing it for all those years, and what a difference they made in the lives of the children they brought into our home, and it’s something I always wanted to do,” said Annette.
There is a need for foster parents like the Malinskys.
DeDe Blosnich-Goodin, deputy director of Washington County Children and Youth Services, said between 270 and 280 children were in foster care in Washington County in November.
The agency has 80 licensed foster homes in which it can place children, and CYS has contracts with 20 other provider agencies including NHS, which works with youth between the ages of 3 and 21.
Blosnich-Goodin said the state of Pennsylvania has made an effort to reduce the number of children who have to be placed outside of the home, and has worked to reunite children with their biological families or place them in adoptive homes.
“We see that there are not a lot of people out there willing to be foster parents, especially for teens. There’s a lack of foster homes for adolescent youths,” said Blosnich-Goodin. “We’re trying as an agency to recruit more foster parents for teenagers. Unfortunately, they end up in a group home or a shelter care facility licensed by the state Department of Public Welfare.”
Only about a quarter of foster children are eligible for adoption, and they wait an average of three years to find permanent families. Other children will end up back with their birth families or age out of the system, typically at the age of 18.
What happens to those kids who become too old for foster care placement?
The Children’s Advocacy Institute, an advocacy group that works to reform the child welfare system, estimated in 2012 that less than 3 percent of the more than 23,000 foster teens who aged out were headed to college, 51 percent were unemployed and 65 percent didn’t have a place to live.
But consistency and stability are what foster children need, said Angie Conrad, therapeutic foster care program director at NHS.
“Annette and Jerry are wonderful because they provide structure and predictability and nurturing that the kids need,” said Conrad. “They let them know that even if they do something wrong, someone still loves them. And they provide normalcy. The kids had a great Christmas. You couldn’t walk through the house because the presents were stacked so high.”
One of the Malinskys’ foster children, a teen-age girl whose name can’t be published for privacy reasons, said living with the couple has been good for her.
“It’s really helped me a lot. I couldn’t get along with my family, there were a lot of fights. I function best with structure and routine, so it’s worked out for me here.”
The Malinskys underwent an extensive screening and interview process before becoming foster parents, and they received intensive training on topics like trauma, abuse, neglect and CPR.
They also can turn to NHS’s clinically trained staff, which provides 24/7 crisis support.
The Malinskys also work on life skills and encourage academic success.
Annette said the family is gearing up for graduation and prom for the two foster children who are high school seniors.
It’s important for them to experience those high school rituals, Annette said.
It can be overwhelming sometimes, but fostering has been a positive experience for the Malinskys and their biological children.
In fact, one of the Malinskys’ sons and his wife recently became foster parents, becoming the third generation to volunteer with NHS.
“It’s so rewarding to see the kids be successful, to watch them accomplish things,” said Annette. “We want to show them what a loving family is, and for them to know that even if they do something wrong, someone will still care for them and love them.”
Good foster parents make a difference in the life of a child, said Blosnich-Goodin.
“It is a big commitment. You’re agreeing to take care of somebody else’s child or children for an unspecified period of time, and that’s a big responsibility. You want to treat them as your own, but the goal is for reunification, and that’s a balancing act,” she said. “Many of our older children remember the foster parents they stayed with, and foster parents can continue to provide that support for them as they get older. We ask kids who they would call if they ran out of gas at 2 a.m. or got in a sticky situation, and they’ll name their foster parents, and I think that’s an amazing gift.”