It was a birthday party in Wailoa at least 18 years ago. But Debbie Pihana still remembers the dismay she and her husband Edwin felt as they watched their foster children, Sierra Soares and her brother Mike, tromp over to the food, load up their plates and scarf down a heaping pile of goodies.
It was a birthday party in Wailoa at least 18 years ago. But Debbie Pihana still remembers the dismay she and her husband Edwin felt as they watched their foster children, Sierra Soares and her brother Mike, tromp over to the food, load up their plates and scarf down a heaping pile of goodies.
“I told my husband, ‘Let’s just let them go,’” Debbie recalls. “And so we did. But then, they’re standing there, eating like they hadn’t eaten in a long time. I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh.’”
The Pihanas were new to fostering — it was a decision they’d made not long before, in part because their spacious, Kurtistown home was suddenly empty as their biological children were grown. Debbie had worked with children previously, and they decided to give it a try.
So when Sierra and Mike, age 8 and 10 at the time, arrived, there were jitters all around. The party was one of the newly jumbled family’s first outings together. For Sierra and Mike, the free-for-all food line was a first — in their previous environment, they had only a certain amount of time to eat before food was taken away.
Much has changed since then. Mike and Sierra are now 27 and 25. And Debbie and Edwin have since fostered and helped dozens more children. There have been countless excursions, weekly trips to church, lots of teaching moments and plenty of tough times.
Ultimately, they say it’s all been worth it. Debbie said they’re working to meet what she believes is a need for more Big Island residents to step up and serve as foster parents and help children in the community who need help most.
“People ask me, ‘Why do you do this?’” Debbie said. “It’s so stressful and everything. But I feel, in the 17 or 18 years I’ve done this, although it’s been a big, huge challenge and one of the hardest things anyone could do, I would do it all over again if I could. I feel like my husband and I have spent our time so wisely — to give to people, to give to kids.”
The Pihanas are among roughly 23 Big Island foster families in Catholic Charities Hawaii’s Na Ohana Pulama, a 30-year-old, therapeutic foster program funded by state Department of Health’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Division. The program places children on the Big Island and Oahu. Last year, it served more than 50 Big Island youth.
Therapeutic foster programs — unlike standard foster care through the state Department of Human Services — serve some of the most “traumatized” youth, according to Laura Caswell, parent coordinator for Catholic Charities, such as those with additional mental, emotional or behavioral needs. Many in the program are pre-teens and teenagers, and have experienced abuse or neglect.
“Abuse is predominant in many of our kids,” Caswell said. “We think of them as survivors.”
Statewide, there are more than 2,200 children in foster care of some kind, a number that’s dropped from more than 4,200 in 2000, DHS data shows.
The duration of a foster child’s stay varies, but Caswell said nine months is around average.
Mike and Sierra, whose biological parents were incarcerated at the time they went to live with the Pihanas, were unique — the family closely bonded and the Pihanas ultimately achieved guardianship of the children. To this day, they’re still close.
”For me, it was just having people who actually cared and paid attention to me, and cared about what I needed,” said Sierra, who graduated several years ago from Kamehameha Schools and currently lives with the Pihanas to assist with new foster children.
“That was what made the difference for me.”