This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Cynthia Nieves is far from home, living with her Army husband in Texas, caring for her toddler daughter and expecting a baby son to be born any day. She is 20.

Whom does she call for advice about what to do when her husband deploys? Chrissy Watson, an Orem woman who, with her husband, Eli Watson, fostered Nieves from age 13 to 16.

"I think of them as my other family," says Nieves, a Latina who jokes that the Watsons are her "white family."

The two women have the kind of relationship, now, that makes the hard work of fostering teenagers worth doing.

"I'm so glad," Watson says, "when she calls to tell me she used coupons to buy diapers."

Other former foster children, who keep in touch on Facebook or by email, tell her they remembered her tips about filling out applications when applying to beauty school or to boast that they've earned their GEDs or gotten off food stamps.

"It makes me feel like … they heard. They gained something useful," Watson says. "I like to hear of their successes, even if they're very small."

Watson and her husband have fostered more than 100 children in their Orem home during the past eight years, most all of them teenage girls.

New Hampshire natives, the two moved to Utah, where he had served a Mormon mission, shortly after marrying 13 years ago.

Not interested in having children of their own, they began taking in foster children six years into their marriage. The first was Savannah, then a 7-year-old. They ended up adopting her and five more of their foster children.

But, early on, they started "specializing" in teenage girls.

Watson has a bachelor's degree in social work and both she and her husband had worked in group homes.

"We knew what the need was firsthand," she says.

The Utah Division of Child and Family Services, like state agencies nationwide, has the most difficulty placing older children in foster or permanent homes.

"If they are looking to place small children, they have a lot of options," Watson says. "But when it comes to teenagers, it's very difficult."

Teen gap • At any one time, about 38 percent of the 2,700 Utah children in foster care are teenagers, according to DCFS' 2014 annual report.

Yet, says Mike Hamblin, "Not a lot of people are jumping up to take care of teens."

Hamblin is director of foster and adoptive family recruitment at the Utah Foster Care Foundation.

"People are more comfortable with younger kids," he says. "They feel the teens are more problematic."

That's especially true for couples who never have had teenagers.

Teens also are less likely to be adopted out of foster care.

Of the 552 who were adopted from Utah foster care in fiscal 2014, only 86, or 16 percent, were 12 and older.

DCFS Director Brent Platt says those aging out of foster care without a permanent home have a much harder time as adults.

Nationally, statistics show those who leave state custody at age 18 without permanent guardians or adoptive parents are more likely to commit crimes, have higher unemployment or have children while young and unmarried.

Those facts prompted Watson to contact her legislator, Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, about raising the cap on the number of children a foster family can take from three to four.

Not only do foster families cost the state less money than group homes or placements through proctor agencies, she told lawmakers considering HB139, but they also give teens a shot at forming lasting relationships with a family, whether through adoption or affection, as in Nieves' case.

"It's permanent families these kids need to come back to as adults," she told lawmakers. With group homes, she argued, "They can't go back there for Christmas."

The Legislature passed the bill and the governor signed it, allowing foster families to take on four children at once. In the case of sibling groups, foster families sometimes can care for even more.

Life at home • It's a calm night at the Watsons.

No running the three younger ones to piano lessons. No picking up 17-year-old Shelby from her after-school job at Wendy's. And it's Eli's night off from teaching a philosophy course at Utah Valley University. By day, he's a manager for Boostability, a search-engine optimization company.

Five of the couple's six children — the eldest is 21 and living on her own — are home, as are two foster children, teenage girls.

The family has a routine, as any large family must.

The kids have about 20 minutes to relax after school, and then they hit the books in the dining-room-turned-computer room at the far end of the kitchen. Five computer stations line two walls — three for the teenagers and two for the younger children: True, 8; Jude, 7; and Rowan, 6.

The three are biological siblings who started living with the Watsons as foster children and were all adopted while they were in diapers.

Down the hall, on the wall outside their parents' office, is a rack for file folders. That's where the children put papers that need Watson's attention: notes from teachers, permission slips for field trips.

Each child also has a separate calendar in the hall, noting therapy appointments and scheduled visits with biological family members.

When homework is over, the older girls stay at the computer or go to the basement, which has been turned into one big dorm for teenage girls. The younger ones play upstairs or outside on bikes.

Chrissy, says Eli, is the most organized person he's ever known.

"You have to be," she shrugs.

Savannah, now 15, says she chafes at her mom's house rules, such as the requirement that everybody do chores on Saturday mornings before going anywhere. The younger ones clean up after the family's two cats, four goats and a dog. The older children tidy their rooms, the goat pen and take turns cleaning bathrooms.

"I like that she's strict," Savannah says, "but sometimes it gets annoying."

Shelby actually likes the cleaning.

"I like how everything is structured. Everything is organized. ... It's very balanced, and it keeps you from questioning, 'What are we doing next? What's going to happen?' "

Shelby recalls being thrilled when Watson asked if she wanted the couple to adopt her. She'd been their foster child for some time by then. "I was like, 'That sounds like a really good idea, actually. I really like that,' " Shelby says. "I'd never had a mom. I just wanted to bond with another girl."

"Keep your guard up" • It's hard, Watson says, not to burn out as a foster mom to teenagers.

She has lost track of the times she has felt betrayed after taking in a teen and trying to give her the structure, discipline and stability she needs.

One complained to DCFS that all she got was oatmeal for breakfast. Another's birth family accused Watson of medical neglect because she didn't rush a teen with a sniffle to the doctor. Household chores are a perennial complaint.

"The first couple of times it happened, I was devastated and upset," Watson says. "You just have to know it's going to happen and try your best to keep your guard up."

She sometimes feels like her foster girls hate her, but she knows it's foster care they're hating.

Foster children often resent the fact they are in state custody, says Platt, the DCFS director.

"No matter how abusive, no matter how bad a home is, even though it's best for the children to be removed for their own safety," he says, "it's still hard for them to leave their family."

DCFS requires that foster homes have enough space — the Watsons' house has more than 6,000 square feet — and beds for each child, and that the families provide food and transportation to medical and mental-health appointments.

The expectation is that foster parents will treat foster children just as they do their own children, with the same opportunities for extracurricular activities or trips.

But can the state require foster parents to love the children who stay in their homes for a week, a month, a year or more?

"Years ago, I had one say, 'You don't love me like you love your kids,' and I almost responded, 'Oh yes, I do,' " Watson says. "But I realized, 'No, that's a lie.'

"I said, 'You're right. And you don't love me like you love your mom. That's just not the relationship we have.'

"And even though I care for them and want the best for them, I'm not their mom," she says. "I'm their parent figure."

kmoulton@sltrib.com Twitter: @KristenMoulton —

› XX