This Christmas, 17-year-old Jennie* will spend the day at the same place she did last year: in a room surrounded by a few of her favorite possessions and with strangers who have become her new family.
Like many of the other girls in the Changing Faces group home, she will never have another typical childhood holiday.
After she leaves the county foster care system, she can do what she wants. And though Jennie said she’d like to spend time with her family, she doubts she’ll ever go back to living with them.
She remembers spending the holidays with her mom, stepdad, two sisters, and brother, but the memories are a mix of good times and bad and “all the drama that went down,” she explained.
The Orcutt house she’s lived in for the past year, sharing it with seven other girls, is her home.
Shortly after returning from school on a recent afternoon, Jennie talked about her family, her old life, and her current living situation as she readied for a Christmas choir concert in which she was set to perform.
Wiping her eye makeup off, she talked about what she missed about family and justified her current situation. It was hard to tell if she was getting teary eyed or if it was simply the tug of the washcloth.
At home, Jennie didn’t really get to help with Christmas decorating. In fact, her living situation was far from ideal—but it was home.
“All we ever did was fight, but I miss all of us getting together and trying to have our family moments,” she said.
The group home may not be what is traditionally considered family, but it comes close. There’s a large yard, a kitty on the porch, and comfy couches surround a fireplace in the living room. Holiday decorations fill the room, which is otherwise clean and generally in good repair. Bubbly teenagers flitter in and out of the kitchen and in and out of the various rooms as they all make their way home from school. Regardless of the turmoil that may have brought them to the group home, to an outsider, the girls behave like typical teenage girls.
And that’s the point of the group home: to keep things as normal and traditional as possible for the girls.
“Sure, they go out of their way to make it like family here with the holidays,” Jennie said. “They do things, like yesterday, we went out to get our tree. It was so exciting. We just, like, saw it, and we thought: That’s the one! And we got to bring it home.”
Jennie will spend Christmas day at the group home. The following day, she’ll try to see her grandmother, but her grandmother doesn’t live nearby, so that visit will be a challenge.
Her long, blond hair skimming her freshly scrubbed face is a striking reminder of how the girls in the group home are just as young and vulnerable as the younger children that are more commonly—and easily—placed in foster homes.
“I think most teenagers who say that they don’t want to be around family just say that,” Jennie said. “I want to be around my family. I don’t know what they are talking about. All the food, the presents, it all means nothing. All my friends talk about how they are going to get this present or that, and they can’t understand why I just want to be around my family.”
The girls at Changing Faces group home know that the stereotype of the teenager who just wants to be alone is just that: a stereotype. Even though many of the girls came from less-than-ideal situations, through the bad they hold the special moments with family dear to their hearts. Replicating that family experience is an important part of their life in the group home, but it still sometimes misses the mark.
Natalie* is 15, and this Christmas will be her second at Changing Faces group home.
“It’s like being with my family,” she said. “They all like to gather around the table for dinner and be together.”
Natalie was the middle child of five siblings. She said her favorite memory of Christmas is making gingerbread houses. And though she gets to do many of the same things she did at home at the group home, there’s still nothing like “home.” Natalie gets to visit her family each week, and that opportunity gets her through.
“Even though I’m here, I know once the weekend comes, I’ll be home,” Natalie said.
For Deanna*, 15, this Christmas will be her third at the group home. She said she enjoys the family atmosphere and the close bond the girls share.
“It’s cool here, I guess. I get to hang out with friends. Jennie wakes up and jumps on the bed and says ‘Jesus was born!’” Deanna said.
They take pictures and open presents, but it’s nothing like being with her six siblings.
“I like that I would get to help my mom cook,” Deanna said. “I’d help her make cookies.”
The girls recently made Christmas wish lists, which consist of the average teenage wants: clothes, iPods, a Justin Bieber CD.
“What I want for Christmas is that I get to go home overnight,” Deanna said.
Some of the girls do get to go home during holidays, depending on their individual situations, according to the group home’s manager, BreAnna McCormick.
“For Thanksgiving, we had all but two girls who were able to go home,” she explained. “The other group home had only one girl who got to go home.”
Going home doesn’t always mean going to family, however. Sometimes, it means they get to celebrate with a friend.
McCormick said the group home owners try to make it as much of a home as possible, especially during the holidays. The girls get stockings, presents, and a holiday dinner. They get a house gift. Every year, they also go out and take a group photo for the following year’s Christmas cards. But even the best intentions can pale in comparison to the families the girls miss.
“There are always some girls who get sullen and depressed around the holidays, but especially in this house, the girls don’t take it out on us too bad,” McCormick said. “They know that we are there for them and that we’ve been there throughout the year. They know that we’ll be there for them every day.”
Sometimes being there for the girls means doing everything to make sure they don’t have to spend the holiday in the group home, because no matter how much like home the group home is, being in the midst of an actual family—whether it’s their own or just close friends—is what the girls really want.
“The main thing we do for the holidays is we go above and beyond, and if we can get them out of this house and in their own home, we move heaven and Earth to do so,” McCormick said.
Kathy Davis, division chief for the Santa Barbara County Department of Social Services, said Santa Maria has three group homes, one for girls and two for boys. Most of them are geared toward older youth, and the county tries hard to place younger children in foster homes.
“Generally if a child is younger and has fewer behavioral issues, we try to put them in foster homes. We seek out relatives first, then close family friends, if appropriate. Then, if we can’t do that, we place them in licensed foster homes,” Davis said.
She said that group homes are a last resort and generally for children who aren’t able to be placed with a foster family.
“At any time, we have 50 or more children who are in group home care,” Davis said. “Additionally, there are more that are placed with family or relatives, and then there are transitional homes for children who are 16 1/2 or older and whose behaviors make it appropriate to live in an apartment or with a host, and they are given life skills to help them live on their own after they leave our system.”
Davis said many older youth are placed in group homes instead of with foster families because not too many foster homes care to have teenagers.
“I know that people are hesitant about having teenagers in their home, but teenagers are also searching for security and love and stability and what other kids have,” Davis said. “Even if it’s not their own family, they want to be a part of that and have that same connection, and if they can be a part of another family and that helps them make a connection with their own family, then that’s wonderful.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 8-15, 2011.