Fostering family ties> After raising family of five, Winterport couple now b five adopted foster children

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Maureen Dillane loves children. She also loves a crowd. Both qualities have served the Winterport woman well, because she and her husband adopted five state foster children after raising to adulthood her first family of two sons, a daughter and two stepsons. They also raised one long-term foster child to adulthood and are raising another long-term foster child.

The spacious country home Dillane shares with her husband, Dave Warwick, is a magnet for their kids, their grandkids and assorted friends and classmates. Adding to the good-natured fray usually under way at the family homestead are four cats, two dogs and an Arabian horse, Danny, who occupies a stall in a nearby barn.

Nestled on 21 wooded acres, the two-level contemporary structure reverberates with sound, action and more than occasional laughter.

It’s Thanksgiving Day, and it’s a family effort to prepare the meal at the Dillane-Warwick household.

“Each kid has to make something,” announces Maureen Dillane. “I bought the turkey, I stuffed the turkey, everybody else can do something.”

One can understand why Dillane wants help today. She’s got a total of nine children and six adults to feed. She won’t be getting any help from her adult son Joey; he’s always at least a half an hour late for the meal. Her other children will have to take up the slack. In between helping prepare the meal, the kids spend the day playing in the snow outside and watching a Christmas movie.

In Dillane’s childhood family, her grandmother was the one who always cooked on Thanksgiving.

“I often say to these kids, ‘I wish you could’ve met my mom and grandmother,”‘ she reminisces. “Boy, could they cook.”

Dillane grew up in an Italian family, and Thanksgiving dinner was an all-day event composed of a seven-course meal. “We always had lots of people,” Dillane recalls.

Humor, and lots of it, is a basic requirement in a home that has sheltered 12 children at various stages of development and provided a safe haven, at least temporarily, for scores of others. A winding driveway leading to the family’s home greets visitors with the sign “Dillane-Warwick Happy Acres.”

When she married Warwick 18 years ago, Dillane kept her maiden name “because I like it. It’s a good Irish name,” she said. It also is a tribute to her beloved father, Vincent Dillane, who died two years ago.

It was from her father that Maureen Dillane said she developed a sense of family. She is the youngest of three children; her mother died when Dillane was a child.

A young-looking woman with long, dark hair and sparkling blue eyes, Dillane meets most challenges with a pause followed by a hearty laugh. “It helps to keep things in perspective,” she said.

“At 47, I’ve had 12 kids. I’ve developed a good sense of humor,” Dillane said.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. Most governors, including Gov. Angus King of Maine, have signed proclamations to that fact.

While it is a time of thanksgiving for many, November also provides a time to focus on those youngsters who don’t have a lot for which to be thankful – kids removed from their biological families for various reasons, kids who need a second chance at a normal family life. It is a year-round need.

There are 3,100 children in foster care in Maine. Parental rights have been terminated for about 745 of them, who are available for adoption at any given time, according to the state Department of Human Services.

Dillane views adoption as a social necessity in a world where too many children are left without family ties. “There is such a high need,” she said.

Adoption “offers stability for kids because they know they belong,” Dillane said.

With the support of her husband – “my best friend, my equal,” she said – Dillane now raises Staci, 15, a studious, musical girl; and Rose, 14, a caring child who changed her first name “because she wanted to be my rosebud,” Dillane said. There is Emma, 13, a personable child and born manager, and her twin brother, Sennen, a talkative, bright boy who already is learning the art of flirting. Wesley, 10, is a quiet “gentle soul”, Dillane said.

In addition, Dillane raised a girl named Anna to adulthood who was placed in her home by the state. Anna now lives in Florida and is a mother herself.

A second girl, now 15, has been welcomed into the Dillane-Warwick family as a long-term foster placement. Because the state is her guardian, the child’s name cannot be disclosed publicly.

Additionally, Dillane works as a guardian ad litem – a court-appointed child advocate. Since 1985 she has represented the needs of more than 100 children in cases where they have been removed, or are about to be removed, from their families for their own safety. She currently serves about 30 children.

When her own kids are in school – some in Winterport, some at Hampden Academy – Dillane spends a lot of time on the phone or on the road, visiting agencies and courts throughout a four-county area. She talks with social workers and attorneys about children in bad situations. She started doing the work in 1986 on a volunteer basis. In 1999, she received the Outstanding Volunteer of the Year award from the Maine judicial branch for her work. She now gets paid for a job that consumes well over 60 hours a week, she said.

Dillane’s work is “thorough, reliable and of great assistance” in resolving complex child-protective issues,” Nonny Soifer, director of the Maine CASA program, said. The acronym stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate and represents a program that enlists child-oriented people like Dillane to use their common sense and years of experience to speak up for those youngsters who cannot legally speak for themselves.

Born in Waterbury, Conn., Dillane was 10 when her mother, Mary Dillane, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Though her father provided a good life for the family, Dillane said the loss of her mother in her youth is a key to her motivation to help children.

“Everybody has the right to call somebody `mom,”‘ said Dillane.

Eschewing the term “foster” when referring to children without families, Dillane says the word is more destructive than helpful. “It sets kids apart, makes them appear different,” she said.

People don’t get rich for adopting state foster children, although stipends are paid in many cases. The payments vary widely and tend to decrease if a child’s needs decrease over time. Still, an adoptive parent can expect $11 to $15 a day for a “normal” child and $18 to $35 a day if the child has special needs, according to DHS information.

For Dillane and her husband, the stipends pay for the musical instruments and dance lessons for each child. The money may pay for a better class of hotel room when she attends a once-a-year conference on adoption.

The money helps get the “extras” that enrich the kids’ lives, and Dillane is frank about its worth.

“How could anyone adopt five children without financial help?” she asked.

Still, people shouldn’t expect to get rich off adopting foster children.

“If that’s their key motivation, forget it,” Dillane said.

Of the 3,100 children in foster care in Maine, most have lived their lives in a situation considered by state officials and others to be temporary. Many have been moved within the child welfare system more times than they can remember.

Most foster children will be reunified with their biological parents. Of the 745 currently up for adoption, most range between 5 and 15 years of age, according to John Levesque, adoption program manager for the Bureau of Child and Family Services in Augusta.

For Dillane, the numbers are “staggering, tragic. I wish I could do more, but I can’t take them all,” she said, only half jokingly.

Dillane’s husband recalled the discussion he and his wife had to start a second family.

“It was probably a 60-40 decision” to adopt children after raising five to adulthood, said Dave Warwick, 55, who works as an advertising sales representative at a local weekly newspaper.

Despite initial skepticism, Warwick said he found it enjoyable to have a second crop of kids in the house.

“It keeps you young,” Warwick said.

When he married Dillane, Warwick brought two teen-age sons with him. Dillane had two sons and a young daughter from her first marriage, so the family blended and bonded. The original brood now is grown, and most live in the area. One of Dillane’s sons is a single foster parent.

Warwick credited Dillane with juggling the myriad details of a busy household.

“She holds the whole thing together. She’s the spirit, I’ll tell you,” Warwick said.

Not one to hold her tongue when it comes to child-welfare issues, Dillane is quick to point out seemingly inane rules handed down from the state Department of Human Services. A recent order following a home inspection by the state that she store Clorox bleach under lock and key drew a few caustic comments, especially since her kids are mostly responsible teen-agers, Dillane said.

Despite her occasional outspokenness, Dillane’s adoption caseworker calls her a “strong advocate for children.” Janet Anderson of DHS in Bangor has helped Dillane and her husband adopt three children.

“She’s a wonderful, dynamic, very up-front person,” Anderson said, adding that Dillane “takes wonderful care of children.”

Children float in and out of Dillane’s daily life in an almost constant rotation. On a recent fall day, she took care of her 21/2-year-old granddaughter, an enjoyable, if busy, job she squeezes in two to three times a week.

Not afraid to blaze her own trail, Dillane befriends not only the children who come to stay with her as a licensed foster parent, but also, on occasion, their family members as well. When she can, Dillane welcomes the siblings of her kids into her home for visits.

“She’s amazing,” said Annie Cilley of Islesboro, who met Dillane four years ago. “Maureen sees things not only from the adult point of view but from the child’s, and this helps them with their problems.”

Dillane housed Cilley’s granddaughter for a period of time until the teen-ager went to live with her grandparents. Cilley and Dillane remain close friends, and Dillane often brings her family to Cilley’s home in the summer for a picnic on the coast.

Dillane “can be both stern and compassionate,” Cilley said. “She amazes me with her strength of character.”

The state has made progress in finding families to permanently adopt children. This year, about 350 adoptions will be finalized, double the number of last year and triple the number of the state’s most recent 10-year average. Still, much work remains to be done.

The state’s 1,601 licensed foster homes do not offer enough space for all the kids who need them. Further complicating the situation is the fact that close to 400 of those foster homes belong to relatives of children removed from their parents’ care who open their doors only to their own grandchildren, nieces or nephews who need care. Some of the facilities are called therapeutic foster homes and can house only two foster children at a time because of intensive care needs.

Only 15 percent of adolescents under state guardianship are placed in permanent homes, a fact that disturbs Dillane.

Older children have their advantages, the Winterport mother said. They can help out around the house and usually can understand the reasons for rules to keep the large family functioning. In addition, “teen-agers can be fun,” said Dillane, who currently has four in her home.

Dillane recently earned a bachelor’s degree in child and family studies from the University of Maine and has a goal of eventually attending law school.

“Whether I’m an attorney or not, I’ll always work with kids,” Dillane said. After her second family is grown and gone, Dillane said she wants to open her home to teen-age mothers and their infants.

Fourteen years ago, Dillane came in contact with a 1-year-old baby girl who had been legally removed from her biological parents’ care. The child, from the central coast of Maine, had to be placed, temporarily, in a foster home in Fort Kent because no local foster homes were available. Transporting a child regularly the 400 miles from northern Maine to mid-Maine for visits and other appointments seemed cruel to Dillane.

“I felt so bad. I talked to my husband about taking children in,” Dillane said.

Her husband “agreed to the idea but said, ‘No boys and no teen-agers,”‘ Dillane recalled. Most of all, he said, “None are staying long.”

After she became licensed by the state, Dillane’s first call for help was to house a 13-year-old girl who needed long-term care. It was the opposite of what she and her husband had agreed upon.

“I told Dave, ‘One out of three ain’t bad,”‘ Dillane recalled. That child stayed for seven years.

NEWS photographer Susan Latham contributed to this report.

Adoption Awareness Month maybe nearing its end, but the need for adoptive families is growing. Those interested in adopting may call agencies, which have been licensed by the Department of Human Services:

. MAPS, formerly called the Maine Adoption Placement Service, 941-9500 in Bangor; 532-9358 in Houlton; 772-3678 in Portland; or 775-4101 MAPS International in Portland.

. Care Development of Maine Inc., 945-4240 in Bangor. The agency also has off-site locations in Presque Isle, Fort Kent, Lincoln, Dexter, Machias and Augusta which can be reached by calling 1-888-236-CARE.

. Families and Children Together Bangor, 941-2347.

. Good Samaritan Agency, Bangor, 942-7211.

. International Adoption Services Center, Inc., Gardiner, 582-8842.

. Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers, Waterville, 873-4253.