Special Care for Meng Meng*

Foster parents provide secure, loving care for a boy with a delicate condition

by John Aeby, Director of Communications

Nanchang, China–There was a strange sound-quiet–when Holt International CEO, Kim Brown, and I first arrived at the Nanchang Group Foster Home. Of course… it was Tuesday afternoon and school was in session. Still, we thought we’d take a quick look around and come back after the children returned from school.
The Group Home’s six apartments provide a family environment for up to 36 children–children who once lived in the adjacent orphanage. Simple, orderly and clean–the neatly-made bunk beds, desks and toys placed out of the way here and there confirmed the presence of children. But without their activity, the apartments seemed quite empty, rather spartan. And so when we entered one particular room and found a school-age boy at home during the day, it came as a bit of a surprise. Wrapped in a heavy coat and surrounded in an oversized chair with piles of quilts, I thought the boy might be sick and kept home from school. A handsome little boy with a solemn expression, he turned a toy over in hands, manipulating its parts while cartoons played on the TV–multitasking.  “This boy has hemophilia,” says Lisa Xu, Holt’s program coordinator for Jianxi Province. Suddenly the coat and quilts make sense. In the restricted world of a child with hemophilia, an injury near a joint can cause internal bleeding with painful and debilitating swelling. A bump on the head can cause a lethal hemorrhage. The coat and quilts were largely for protection.

“Fortunately the foster parents love Meng Meng and take very good care for him,” explained Dr. Lv (pronounced loo) who directs the Group Home program. “When he can’t sleep because of the pain, his foster parents accompany him in turns all through the night. He is smart and a quick learner. He knows a lot of classical poems. In the preschool, he likes to answer the teacher’s questions. He likes to ask questions, too.” Meng Meng’s foster mother often teaches him at home.

At about age two Meng Meng was left at a clinic in the province. Police brought him to the Nanchang Orphanage where he lived about six months until a space became available for him in the Group Home. Now, a little over 5 years old, he lives with two foster parents and five foster siblings who also came from the orphanage.

Obviously Meng Meng needs special attention because of hemophilia–the kinds of care he couldn’t possibly receive when he lived at the orphanage. Though the Nanchang Orphanage provides good care for its children, it’s simply not able to give the individualized care and protection a child like Meng Meng must have.  The Group Home foster parents approximate normal Chinese family life in many ways. Some of the foster fathers work outside the home while kids go to school. Mothers maintain the homes and prepare meals, and both parents share in encouraging and helping their children with schoolwork, teaching them how to live in a home, in a family.

Holt and Nanchang Orphanage developed the Group Home project in 2004 partially as an experiment and partially to demonstrate the value of the love, nurturing, security and life lessons that parents normally provide in a family. I visited the Group Home when it was just opening. While the first children brought into the program had already spent some time with their new foster parents, they had moved in together only a few days before I got there. At that time many of the children had a distinctively rough appearance. Rather unkempt and wary, they showed signs of the self-protective posture it takes to survive the harsh life of an orphanage. The next time I visited much of that hardness had been replaced with the softer expressions of children who knew they were loved.

Largely due to their better development overall and loving preparation, many of the Group Home children have been adopted. Over 60 children have been adopted from the Nanchang Group Home as of the first of 2009.

The success of the group home project has led Holt to help develop a second home a few hours away. Holt also supports children at Shangrao, another orphanage in Jianxi Province. That orphanage is currently building a new facility and the design includes a group foster home for up to 60 children. Holt will help develop this new group foster home program and help furnish it as well.

For Meng Meng, his foster parents’ extra level of love and care has probably preserved his life, and they have given him so much more. His foster father even considered quitting his job so that he could better care for him. You can sense the loving bond between them. The foster mother was affectionate with Meng Meng, but careful as well. When I asked to take a photo of her with Meng Meng, she enthusiastically got down next to his chair and leaned close, but she was careful to touch him lightly as she placed her head next to his.

Meng Meng is not currently in Holt’s Waiting Child Program, however, we hope to find a potential adoptive family and advocate for him to be released for adoption. Please contact Beth Smith at Holt’s China Program if you would consider making this boy your son. And see other children who wait for adoptive families by visiting Holt’s online photolisting.

* Name changed