'There to be a bridge': Pueblo foster mom goes 'above and beyond' to reunite one family
A Pueblo foster mom is being recognized by the National Association of Counsel for Children for her efforts to ensure a pair of siblings in her care were reunited with their biological mother.
Stephanie Mastroantonio, a foster mother who’s fostered six kids since 2016, recently helped a local mom recovering from substance abuse reunite with her 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter.
About nine months into the children’s 13-month stay in Mastroantonio’s home, she said their biological mother had advanced in her substance-abuse treatment but was living in a home that did not allow children.
“They were at a place where they were close to being reunified and they should be spending time together in a home. All of a sudden it was going to go backward," Mastroantonio said.
“She had done a lot of treatment, so it made sense to me to say, ‘Well, why don’t you come stay with us one night a week on your night off from work?’ They needed to reintegrate in a home environment, so this allowed them to just hang out together.”
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Allowing the mother to come in and live in her home was Mastroantonio going “above and beyond” to reunite the family, said Sarah Bailey, director of recruitment for Kids Crossing, a foster care service organization based in Colorado Springs with an office in Pueblo.
“That was amazing. She saw a barrier for this situation, figured out the next step and how to make it happen,” Bailey said of Mastroantonio. “She is really putting the needs of the children first and that’s ultimately what we need in foster parents.”
When the foster children's mom came to stay, she would cook dinner, watch movies or just play games with her kids.
“Sometimes me and my daughter would leave and she was safe in my home,” Mastroantonio said.
“I remember on one of those occasions she texted me and said that was when she knew they really were family, when they were allowed to do things without someone watching. She was always very appreciative.”
Kids Crossing provides help to foster parents so they can “focus on supporting the kids in their home,” Bailey said.
The agency has seen about 60% of its Pueblo foster children reunited with members of their biological families.
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Getting a start as a foster parent
Mastroantonio said she got into foster parenting when she moved home to Pueblo in 2016. She often heard about kids sitting in juvenile detention centers because there was no place for them to go and not enough foster homes in Pueblo.
“Being in my mid-30s I was ready to have a family in whatever form that looked like and ready to be a parent,” she said.
Her first foster child, a 2-year-old girl, stayed with her for two years before they moved to a bigger home that could accommodate more foster children in June 2020. Mastroantonio, a licensed clinical social worker, ended up adopting that first foster child last May because reunification wasn’t an option.
“There are a lot of flowers and rainbows in foster care," she said. "But it is imperfect sometimes, chaotic, messy and we're trying to figure out what works.
"I am just trying to be an advocate and with 15 years of working in the juvenile justice system, I am keenly aware of the challenges in the system. I am not trying to save families, I am just there to be a bridge," she said.
The founders of Kids Crossing, Jan and Larry Faubion, who started the organization 30 years ago, also were “huge advocates of reunification,” Bailey said, so much so that they, too, would have biological parents come into their home to learn how to care for children with disabilities.
Pueblo has a growing need for foster parents, especially those who hope to see children reunited with their biological families.
“We especially need foster parents who are willing to take teenagers or sibling groups,” Bailey said. “Sometimes it takes a long time until they are reunified with a biological family member — it might be with the parents or a grandparent.”
To find out more about Kids Crossing, visit kidscrossing.com. The Kids Crossing Pueblo office can be reached at 719-545-3882.
Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon covers business news. She can be reached by email at tharmon@chieftain.com or via Twitter at twitter.com/tracywumps.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo foster parents needed to help children reunite with families
