Meet Donna and Mike: New Hampshire Foster and Adoptive Parents
Creating strong families often is a process with many paths, all of them requiring love, flexibility, and, most important, commitment. Ask Mike and Donna Coraluzzo, two people from a small town in New Hampshire whose professional lives brought them into contact with vulnerable children and families nearly every day. He’s a state trooper and she is the director of a social services agency. So when they wanted to add to their family, which already included a 7-year old son, they became foster parents with Casey Family Services.
In their search for a foster child, they met a 12-year-old girl named Eliza and her 10-year-old sister Michelle, both of whom lived in a residential facility.
After four years at the group home, the sisters began to doubt they would find a family to love and care for them. The Coraluzzos changed that. Mike and Donna began having regular visits with the girls and after a few months, Eliza and Michelle moved into their home.
Having experienced many traumas in their young lives and having lived in a group home for several years, the sisters had to learn to live in a family again. The adjustment was difficult for Michelle, and, eventually, she was moved to a different placement. This devastated Eliza, but with hard work, commitment, and continued visits with her sister, the Coraluzzos and Eliza became a blended family and established a loving and trusting relationship.
Donna describes the process of integrating Eliza into the family: “I think the first thing was to give her a space of her own in our family, and a role that she filled … whether it was helping with certain chores, or making certain decisions with the family. Eliza knows that she’s part of this family just as much as anybody else.”
Both Mike and Donna entered foster care with the dream of a lifetime connection with their foster child. When Eliza was freed for adoption in the spring of 2007, the Coraluzzos began the process of adopting her. In March 2008, Eliza legally became part of the family.
Even with a loving adoptive family, Eliza’s birth family is important to her and the Coraluzzos have supported these relationships. While Michelle is being adopted by another family, she also maintains a loving relationship with the Coraluzzos. The two families provide opportunities for the girls to see one another as often as possible. Eliza also maintains an important connection with her birth mother, with the full support of the Coraluzzos.