By Sarah Sheridan
Jaymi Matranga is 28 years old and is an incredible mom and grandma through guardianship, birth, adoption, and foster care. She is also a former foster youth and social worker! I have had the incredible opportunity to meet Jaymi and her family and this past week had the joy of interviewing her for our blog. As we bring National Adoption Awareness Month to close I would love to share with you some of what Jaymi shared with me.
“Jaymi, can you share with us a little bit about your story?”
At the age of 13 Jaymi entered foster care along with her 11 year old, 3 year old, and newborn brothers. Up until this point there had been many investigations due to domestic violence and substance abuse in her home. Because she was older than her younger brothers she and her 11 year old brother returned home fairly quickly. Sadly it would be another year and a half before her younger brothers would come home.
Jaymi says that she started going to church at 4 years old on her own through the bus ministry with her church. She claims that this is a huge reason why she had so much resilience. She knew at a very young age that God loved her and also had a really good support system at church.
When Jaymi was 17 she met two of her younger sisters (on her dad’s side) through facebook and they started talking and building a relationship with one another. By the time she was 19 she realized that her sisters, who were 14 and 15 at the time, were not safe in their home. Her 21 year old boyfriend, who is now her husband, suggested that they should take them into their home and raise her sisters. Jaymi and Josh were not living together at the time and would not move in together until they got married. But before then they filed for legal guardianship of Jaymi’s two sisters and raised them till they were 18. Soon after that they got married, Jaymi got pregnant and started going to school. While she was still going to school they became foster parents to a beautiful baby boy and eventually adopted him. Jaymi went to school while raising two teens and two toddlers! She earned 9 college degrees and certificates in 5 years! About a year and a half ago they became foster parents to a 14 year old girl who was pregnant. They are now in the process of adopting her and she has a beautiful baby boy! They are also fostering another teen girl and are working towards adopting her as well.
Back when Jaymi was 13 and met her sister Hayli who was 3 years old at the time. At the time she was living with her dad. A few years later Jaymi found out that her sister was in foster care and around the same time as when she took her teen sisters in she also rushed to approve her home and tried to get legal guardianship of Hayli as well. But by this point she was already being adopted. Sadly, she lost contact with her sister for almost 9 years. That never stopped Jaymi from trying to find her sister and reunite with her. This past summer, Jaymi got a call from Hayli’s adoptive mom asking her to come get Hayli, who at this point was 16. Sadly, Hayli’s adoptive family did not want her anymore and through that tragedy she was reunited with her sister. Jaymi and her husband Josh are now Hayli’s legal guardian. Due to the pain of losing a sister to the system, Jaymi is a huge advocate for keeping families together.
“What advice would you give parents who are wanting to foster or adopt?”
Jaymi’s advice for parents that are wanting to foster or adopt is to “make sure that you are taking all of the trauma training that you can. TBRI stands for Trust Based Relational Intervention and that’s a really, really good trauma training.” She told me that there are some good YouTube videos and books out there in regards to TBRI and recommended that parents read as much as they can. But, “most importantly, be listening to former foster youth and adoptees because they’re the experts! They have been through it and so listen to them and what they have to say about foster care and trauma.”
Jaymi also recommends working through your own trauma and dealing with your past. That will help you be a better parent in the long run.
“How have you felt like you’ve dealt with your own trauma in order to be a better parent?”
“Doing my own work and going to therapy. I think that every single person who does foster care, should be in therapy or go to therapy. Because even if you’ve never been in foster care, being a foster parent or a social worker and dealing hands on with other people’s trauma, it triggers your own stuff, even if you had a great childhood. And so being in therapy and getting your own mental health assistance is really really important. Having a really strong support system is important. And sometimes I just have to remind myself that their stories are not my stories. And even though I can relate on some level, my story is completely different than theirs. Even in kinship, my story is completely different than my siblings and we aren’t all going to experience things the same way. So I think that’s been really helpful too.”
“What are some things that you do for self care?”
Jokingly she said “COFFEE” and I am sure that some of you can relate to this! But in all seriousness she says, “making sure that your own basic needs are met is self care! I think we overlook that too much. So for example, self care for me can be making sure that I have coffee, water, food, and things that make me a good mom! Oftentimes, people think that self care is going to get massages or going to spas and that kind of thing. But it’s really just making sure that you’re regulated and that your basic needs are met so that you can help regulate your kids, especially when they’re going through trauma. And then for fun things I like to take time alone. For example, going to the movies alone is one of my favorite things to do.”
“If you could change one thing in the foster care system what would it be?”
“In an ideal world it would be for the foster care system to never exist! I think a lot of the foster care issues start with prevention and preventing abuse or neglect in the first place and then the focus should be on families being reunified, being made whole, and support given so they could be together.” Obviously, that’s a high end lofty goal. But other than that, I would say most of the issues come from federal policy and state policy. So it really needs to start with changing things from the top down.”
Jaymi and I also talked about how important it is to have social workers who actually enjoy their jobs and love what they do. “We need more social workers and people in authority who are actually motivated to be there and are doing their jobs for the right reasons.”
Jaymi also thinks that the system as a whole needs more foster parents. And not just more foster parents but we need more “quality foster homes, especially for older kids”. She says that not having enough homes is “a big source of social worker stress.”
She explained that her role as a social worker is to do the investigations. She is the one up front deciding whether or not to put a child in foster care. She explained how stressful that situation can be and that there have been times whe
re she sees that a “home situation is not safe and is not great but it’s even worse having a teenager brought into foster care where there’s no home for them.” Sadly she says that shouldn’t even have to be a decision in her mind. “If I’m investigating, my ONLY question should be….is this child safe? But unfortunately, I have to weigh if there are enough foster homes.”
“Can you explain why you believe keeping siblings together is so important.”
“Because especially with siblings, there’s no one else on earth that can relate to your life experiences like your siblings. Even in a traditional family without foster care, if your parents die, you still have your siblings. And even if you don’t share both parents, biology is important. It’s science. And then besides that, they’re the people that you relate to the most! And for kids just going into foster care all they’ve had and ever known is their siblings.”
“Do you think there’s ever a time where it’s okay to separate siblings?”
“Personally, no, I know that people would argue that it is ok if there are safety concerns and it’s better to split them up. But honestly, I disagree, because in a biological family, you wouldn’t split up siblings, just because there was a safety concern, right? You wouldn’t just kick one of them out. So I think the issue with that is there’s not enough foster homes and social workers who are really trained to keep siblings together despite the safety concerns. But, I also hesitate to say never say never. So I hesitate to say there’s never a situation but I would say 99% of the time no, there isn’t a good situation where siblings should be separated.
“What is the hardest thing about kinship?”
“I think that your trauma triggers are also your kids’ trauma triggers. So siblings for example, your own triggers, and trauma, childhood history is very similar to yours. You have the same parents who can trigger you and your siblings’ responses are very similar. I think with an aunt, uncles, or grandparents who are fostering a niece, nephew, grandchild, it just gets really messy with your own family relationships. But I think the hardest thing is that your trauma is similar to theirs and it can be triggered by the same thing.”
“What has been the most rewarding part of kinship for you?”
Jaymi answered that the most rewarding part has been “being the one in my family to redeem what was broken and lost. And I think that family cycles repeat themselves and they repeat themselves automatically until someone says, ‘No! I’m going to be the one that does it differently.’ And so for me, especially being the oldest sibling a lot of that has come through me. And of course, it’s come at a huge cost. And it’s not easy to be the one to carry that on your shoulders. But that feeling of the idea that the cycle stopped with me and it’s stopping with my siblings because of me is really rewarding. And also just seeing God’s redemption and the cycles breaking.”
“What has been the hardest and most rewarding part of fostering teens?”
“I think it’s not much different than the hardest part of raising younger kids. The hardest part of raising kids in foster carers is trauma in general. It is a challenge to help them navigate trauma and to understand their trauma responses and help them find healing. But, I wouldn’t say that it is harder for teenagers. In some ways. I think it’s easier. With a 16 year old, I can say, ‘Hey, you’re having a trauma response right now. And your body’s not used to feeling safe and here’s some ways to talk through it.’ Whereas if you’re fostering a four year old or a two year old toddler, they don’t understand what’s going on. And so in a lot of ways, I would argue teenagers are easier.
I think the most rewarding part, especially with teenagers, is allowing them to have pieces of their childhood that they missed. I love holidays, I love traditions, I love birthdays. Those are the bigger moments they didn’t get when they were little. And so they only have this many years of childhood left so let’s make it worth it. Let’s make it count and let’s get some of those memories back. I think watching that is really rewarding.”
“Like how did you balance being at work and then coming home to like a similar kind of work?”
“It is really really hard because I deal with really heavy trauma at work, and then I come home and deal with the same thing. But, I think it just goes back to self care. Sometimes for me it looks like spending 10 minutes in the car before I walk in the house! It helps to put aside work and focus on home. I think being at work helps me be more intentional at home because I know I only have this much time with the kids at the end of the day or on the weekend. So that’s helped, too.” Jaymi also says that it all goes back to making sure you have a good big support system.
That was the end of our interview. It was a joy to hear Jaymi’s tips and advice. I hope that it was helpful to any of you who may be foster, adoptive, or parents through kinship. Also if adoption or foster care is something that you are considering I hope that you were able to glean a little bit from Jaymi’s experience. Another thing that Jaymi had mentioned is if you are considering adoption, please look into the list of waiting children. These are children who are already open for adoption and have been in foster care for a long time and are in desperate need for a good loving family to call home. Thank you all for reading and joining Jaymi and I today!