The night Sara was taken away for the second time in her 4-year-old life, state child-protection workers were once again on an emergency rescue mission.
The first time, in 1996, the toddler was barely breathing after being shaken into a coma while under the care of her mother’s boyfriend.
Her latest removal came in August, after the foster mother who had helped nurse her back to health was accused of neglect.
“They didn’t even allow her to take her favorite toys,” said the Markham foster mother, Debra Keeling, as she touched a photo album filled with holiday portraits and candids of Sara, Sara’s half-brother, and Becky, Keeling’s adopted 10-year-old daughter. “I kept asking, `Won’t you let her take her pushcart?’ “
Keeling has been cleared of the neglect charges and has taken in two special-needs foster children. But she cannot stop wondering whether Sara, now in another foster home, thinks she abandoned her, and she is still fighting for a series of visits so that she can say goodbye.
“When they were taking her, she saw I was crying, and she said, `Does Mommy have a boo-boo?’ ” said Keeling, an art teacher at Stone Christian Church Academy in Palos Heights. “I said, `No, Mommy’s heart hurts.’ She said, `Aw, Mommy’s heart hurts,’ and she patted me on the back.”
Such emergency removals from foster homes, although not common, are done in the best interests of the child, according to officials for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and Schaumburg-based Illinois Mentor, the agency that is handling the case.
The case illustrates the far-reaching impact seemingly routine decisions have on wards in the child-welfare system, which has been the target of ongoing reforms.
And it shows how quickly relationships can break down when a foster parent appears to get too close to the child and begins to oppose agency-set goals.
“The foster mother, in my opinion, became way too bonded with the child,” said Mark Mennes, the biological mother’s attorney. “I’m not saying this mother did not do a lot for (Sara). Certainly there was a bonding and a love, (but) that went a little too far.”
The last time Keeling saw Sara, she was waving goodbye, off to what she thought was just a visit. After Keeling lost an appeal of the removal, she was barred from contact with Sara, even though a September DCFS review recommended transitional, supervised visitation.
Keeling believes her troubles with the agency began earlier this year when she began inquiring about guardianship of Sara. The state-set goal for Sara has always been reunification with the mother, who was not home at the time her daughter was shaken. The child’s biological father has not expressed an interest in custody, Mennes said.
Kimberly Thomas, the assistant public guardian on the case, said the mother broke up with Charles Bragiel, an Alsip resident who is facing charges of aggravated battery to a child. Bragiel is not Sara’s biological father. A DCFS investigation into possible abuse of Sara’s half-brother was pending when Sara was injured.
The boy’s father, Erik Greene, had won custody of his son in 1995, three years after the couple’s divorce. He got an order of protection against Bragiel when Greene’s son came home from a weekend visit with bruises that he said were inflicted by “Mommy’s boyfriend Chuck.”
Today, Sara’s mother lives with extended family in Orland Park, has a job, has cooperated with counseling, and is learning how to better evaluate her relationship choices, Thomas added.
Thomas said that although she, too, had reservations about Keeling’s attachment to the child, it was two calls to the hot line in the space of one year that prompted the emergency removal.
In the first, Sara suffered a broken leg, which her pediatrician later agreed was caused by another child accidentally falling on Sara while Keeling was watching the two children.
The latter came last summer, after Keeling left Sara in the car with her 14-year-old daughter while Keeling ran in to buy a birthday present for Sara’s half-brother.
Keeling and agency officials are still at odds about how long she was left in the car and how hot it was, but the report was eventually ruled unfounded and Keeling maintained her foster-parent license.
And no one disputes that the child made substantial physical and emotional progress in the Keeling home. In the short span of 15 months, Sara went from scooting, to standing, to walking. Sara re-learned how to talk and feed herself, and therapists even lauded Keeling’s at-home work in progress reports.
“It was when I loved her the most that she progressed the most,” said Keeling, who with her husband, Bruce, has Becky, three teen-agers and a grown son. “I would still like to be a part of her life.”
Months after the emergency removal, in response to inquiries from the Tribune, DCFS and agency officials acknowledged that Sara, which is not the child’s real name, should have been allowed to take some token memory of her first foster home.
“It seems like a double whammy to me,” said Judy Battig, president of the Illinois Foster Parent Association. “First she has to deal with the physical abuse, then the emotional (separation).”
In emergency removals, transition is important, said Bernadette McCarthy, DCFS deputy director of clinical services. “They need to say goodbye.”
Illinois Mentor recently offered Keeling a one-hour, therapist-supervised “termination visit” with Sara in an agency office. But Keeling, who has gone on to another agency and is caring for two foster children, ages 12 and 5, considers the offer akin to a “drive-through” goodbye.
She said she is worried that it would confuse Sara more, and she doesn’t want to further upset her daughter Becky, 10, the former foster child with cerebral palsy whom the Keeling family adopted five years ago.
Keeling said she hopes to convince DCFS officials to allow her four, two-hour home visits with Sara so that they could convince her she did not “dump her.”
Job West, Illinois Mentor Agency’s state director, said Sara has done well in recent months. “She is not in any emotional turmoil from not being in the home,” he said.
Mennes, who also supported the move, said the biological mother is pleased because “a lot more bonding is going on since the new placement.” Keeling’s attachment to the child “detracted from assisting the natural mother with the natural bond,” he said.
But Keeling and the family of Sara’s half-brother, Erik, worry about the 24-year-old mother’s ability to care for Sara, who is still partially paralyzed on one side and requires special medical attention.
Deanna Greene, Erik’s stepmother, wishes Keeling could have adopted the child. But at the very least, Keeling deserves a chance to stay in touch, Greene said.
Keeling said she deeply regrets ever leaving the car to buy the birthday present, and she worries about the long-term consequences of that mistake.
“She will learn she has to guard her heart,” she said of Sara.
Mennes disagreed, saying Sara is already enjoying overnight visits with her mother, who could be reunited with her daughter in the spring.
