Operating under a contract with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS), the ECS Foster/Kinship Care program fills a vital need for children who have been adjudicated into out-of-home placements due to abuse, neglect, or a parent's temporary inability to care for them. ECS is also one of a handful of agencies in the region to specialize in services for children with serious medical conditions and disabilities.
It takes a special kind of person to become a foster parent: Someone who wants to make a difference in the life of a child. Or, in Deborah’s case, 14 children over the last two decades.
“If you look at the children in Philadelphia, they’re really hurting,” says Holmes. “We’re supposed to take care of one another. My mother and father did that for me, and I want to make sure that my children grow up with a sense of stability.”
Children are removed from their biological families for many reasons… a medical condition that is beyond a birth-parent’s ability to deal with, instances of neglect or abuse, and other symptoms of poverty. None of these issues is easy to deal with when you take a child into your home. But Deborah has answered the call, caring for children with medical conditions and adopting four of her foster children along the way. Even with a full house, she recently partnered with ECS to provide a home for an infant the same age as her youngest grandchild.
In foster care, the ECS focus on keeping families together can mean both strengthening biological families and sustaining new families formed through long-term placements and adoptions. Holmes excels in both. Her commitment to involving birth parents in their children’s lives has continued even with the children she has adopted. “I’m only one person. I can only give them so much, but I can give them my love.”
ECS began its foster care program in the 1930’s, and helped develop the specialty of foster care for medically-needy children in the 1980’s. The agency applies its competent, compassionate case management to other programs for children, including kinship care, in which children are placed with relatives, and through a family preservation program to help parents resolve issues that might otherwise lead to out of home placements.
“I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else besides ECS,” says Deborah. “They’re like family. If I’m going through any problems, they’ll help me solve them. If I need anything for my children, they’ll get it.”