For those that think staying with Masshealth is the way to go, you could be doing your a child a huge disservice.  My son's doctor had tried numerous times to get my son's medication approved, but Masshealth kept denying it and would only approve the lesser medication.  We had to increase medication because Masshealth wouldn't approve the extended release.  We also found difficulties finding specialists who would take Masshealth.  All of that is GONE.

We added our son to our healthplan and like magic all scripts are approved, specialist galore and we get treated so differently from the care givers then when we were just Masshealth. I know it shouldn't be , but it is.  Don't forget doing this didn't cost us anything, in fact MassHealth Premium is paying our premiums.   Our son is now able to get the medications and care he needs when needs it without prior approval or letter writing.

If your on the fence of adding your adopted child to your private health insurance, get off the fence and get over it.  If you have any questions,  please contact me, I'll walk you through it.  Your child deserves the best care they can get.

New Resources for a New School Year

The start of the school year and a new routine can be a stressful time for any family. It is especially difficult for families who have children with special education needs or are new to town. The Home is proud to offer parents a new resource, our school liaison at the Boston-Suffolk County Family Resource Center, to ease their concerns and help them with local school districts’ unique processes.

Boston-Suffolk FRC has only been open a few months but School Liaison Shaneika Martin has already helped many families get ready for the 2015-2016 school year. Many of the families that have come in for assistance needed help either applying or adjusting an individual educational plan (IEP) for their child. Creating the best specialized education plan for your child can be a swamp of meetings, paperwork, phone calls, and other tasks. Shaneika has helped parents by advocating to their local school districts for specific needs of their child and will even be attending some IEP meetings with families and schools in the fall! Recently, she connected a parent who spoke little English to a translator to ensure that the parent’s concerns and suggestions were heard by the child’s local school district during IEP discussions. 

Enrolling your child in a new school district typically means a maze-like enrollment process and mounds of paperwork. Over the summer and early fall Shaneika has helped families, many from Boston, get enrolled in their new schools. She has walked them through the process starting by prepping them to have the correct documents before heading to the Boston Public School administration building. Families in Boston have the ability to choose which school their children will attend. Shaneika helped parents familiarize themselves with the different school options to make the best choice for their child and prompted them to take into consideration issues like the school’s distance from home, transportation options, and specialty courses and supports provided. 

Shaneika and the rest of the staff at the Boston-Suffolk County FRC are looking forward to helping more families with school, behavioral challenges, and other family issues. “We’re here to help families get connected to the resources that are already in their communities and guide them through those processes,” explained Shaneika.

Empowerment Day: Be Kind WE can't rewind

  Youth tie dye t-shirts at the annual
Empowerment Day held at Longview Farm.
Celebrating the end of a great summer, The Home hosted its third annual Empowerment Day at Longview Farm. Each year the event combines an array of fun activities and a theme that promotes important values with kids from Longview Farm, Safe at Home, Harrington House, and other programs!

Staff was nervous about the weather with torrential rain in the early morning hours but the weather cleared for President and CEO Joan Wallace-Benjamin to welcome all the kids and talk about the day’s theme: respect and kindness. She told the group of 80 youth the importance of not only showing respect and kindness to others but showing it to their own mind and body. Everyone was encouraged to embody the day’s theme and was rewarded with a raffle ticket if they were seen being kind or respectful to peers and staff.

The outdoor activities were the main event of Empowerment Day. Kids enjoyed a tie-dye table, an inflatable obstacle course, face painting, scavenger hunt, art station, brain teasers, Zumba and other fun stations. Knucklebones, an athletic wellness company, joined in the fun and brought new and different activities like their own version of volleyball played with a giant inflatable ball and a low net. “I really like creating my own t-shirt and not caring if I get messy,” shared 7 year-old Michaela.

At the end of the day kids entered their raffle tickets which they earned for participation and being kind. Winners received gifts cards to stores such as Old Navy and TJ Maxx, remote control cars, art supplies, and other great prizes. One young man even won an electric scooter, “This is going to me the most fun,” he yelled as he held his new toy!

Days like the annual Empowerment Day gives the youth we serve, many of them who have been abused or neglected, a chance to experience the joys of childhood. It is thanks to donors like you that The Home has the ability to host these events. Every child deserves  the opportunity to just be a kid.

POP receives prestigious award from Boston Children’s Hospital 

  (R-L) Paul Creelan, Ph.D., Program Director,
Preschool Outreach Program, The Home for
Little Wanderers Lesli Suggs, Vice President
Program Operations. The Home for Little
Wanderers, Sandra L. Fenwick, President
and CEO, Boston Children’s Hospital
William L. Boyan, former chair of the Board
of Trustees, Boston Children’s Hospital.On August 24th, The Home was formally presented with the prestigious Boston Children’s Hospital William L. Boyan Award for Excellence in Community Health for its Preschool Outreach Program (POP). Each year, the award and its accompanying $50,000 grant recognizes a community organization for their work and commitment to the health of children and families in Boston.

POP was selected because of its unique combination of direct therapeutic services and mental health consultations to caregivers and teachers of young children. POP has trained more than 1,000 caregivers, teachers, homeless shelter staff, and others in areas of childhood mental health and directly provides services to almost 400 children each year.

Can 10- and 7-year-old picky eaters, accustomed to being served the easy meals they prefer, change their ways?

The first Picky Eater Project for the Motherlode blog, chronicled how we successfully helped a family with one very picky 4-year-old transform mealtimes and help the child — and his twin — open up to new tastes and new rules, especially around dinnertime. To his parents’ relief, they no longer feel compelled to make two dinners, and we called the project a complete success. The truth is, it almost seemed too easy. Would it work for older children?

This time, we’re working with the parents Marlo and Corey and their children: Brooke, 10, and Hunter, 7. Brooke refuses to eat many foods, preferring pasta with butter and cheese or ramen noodles. Her younger brother almost always follows her lead, and to make sure the two active children have enough energy, vitamins and minerals to grow, Marlo and Corey are willing to prepare something different for each child just to be sure that they eat enough. Their primary goal is to make one dinner for the whole family, and to have the children eat more vegetables (carrots are their default) and fish (which they will not eat). Over the next six weeks, we (the authors Sally Sampson, founder and editor of the nonprofit children’s cooking magazine Chop Chop and Natalie Digate Muth, a practicing pediatrician and registered dietitian) will work to help them reach those goals.

The big question, for Marlo and Corey and for many families like theirs: Once picky eating is a set pattern, is it better to avoid a lot of heartache, fighting, wasted food, and the children potentially going to bed hungry by just letting them eat the foods they like?

It isn’t better, and what’s more, it isn’t necessary. Between us, we have worked with hundreds of families who are committed to raising their children to be healthy eaters. Along the way, almost all of them (ourselves included) have had to deal with the very common experience of picky eating. We’ve found that the best way to help children expand their eating preferences — especially school-aged children — is to get them involved in growing, choosing, preparing and experimenting with food. In other words, teaching children to cook.

To help Marlo, Corey, Brooke and Hunter, we sat down with them to better understand their family mealtime routines. Marlo, a nurse in a cardiac cath lab, has a very sporadic schedule, including many overnight and weekend calls. Corey works as a federal agent with erratic but somewhat flexible hours.

There is not a lot of time or desire to throw together gourmet meals. Not that the children would eat them anyway. Marlo and Corey think their children are “picky eaters” because they won’t try entire categories of food, and they refuse almost anything unfamiliar. (For the purposes of this column, a picky eater is a child who won’t try foods, not one who is willing to try but doesn’t like a particular food or foods.)

Marlo and Corey usually start by offering one meal. But when the children refuse it (which they do more often than not), the parent cooking readily jumps up and makes something else. Marlo and Corey would like their children to be more adventurous in their eating choices, but do not feel it is worth fighting about or letting them “starve” by refusing to cook something different. Both agree that Brooke is the pickiest of the two. She is also the most influential. If she tries something, Hunter will too. If she refuses or rejects it, there is little chance Hunter will go for it, unless he is trying to win bonus points.

Interestingly, when Brooke learned about the project, she jumped up and pulled an apron out of the kitchen drawer and exclaimed, “Wait, does this mean I get to learn how to cook?” Hunter’s reaction was to share his disdain for brussels sprouts, but then later offered that if he helped make it and it looked as if it would taste good, he would give almost anything a try.

PhotoHunter, 7, peeling carrots.Credit This first meeting, we set goals.

Marlo’s goal is to get the children to eat more variety of healthy foods, especially fruits and vegetables. She would really like them to eat fish, because she loves it and would like to eat it together as a family.

Corey’s goal is for the whole family to eat the same meal, and ideally to get a list of meals that everyone will eat rather than eating the same one acceptable meal day in and day out.

Brooke’s goal is to learn to flip a pancake without having it smear all over the pan, and to be trusted to use not only the microwave but also the oven, stove and toaster. Her all-time favorite meal is turkey, stuffing and cranberries. She says her favorite vegetable is broccoflower, which she has never tried, and celery.

Hunter’s goal is learn to make artichokes, which he tried at a friend’s house, thanks to positive peer pressure, and to his surprise he really liked. His all-time favorite food is pizza. He says his favorite vegetable is artichokes (his parents would say it’s carrots).

Based on those goals, we gave the family a realistic plan for the week:

Create a mission statement together. What do you hope to achieve together by the end of the six weeks?

Make a few “mealtime rules” for everyone. We offered our 10 Rules for Picky-free Parenting
(available at the link, and below), like “We are one family, and we will eat one meal” and “As parents, we will decide what foods are offered, when, and where. As kids, we will decide what we will eat and how much.”

Cook one meal together this week. Based on this family’s food preferences, we offered the following recipes to try: Roasted Carrots, Pasta Pesto with Peas, and Avocado Green Goddess Dressing.

Plant a small herb garden Put a few plants in the windowsill or backyard to harvest from later.

Try one new food For Brooke and Hunter: Taste something that you’ve never had before and write a quick sentence of what you thought of it to share next week.

Over the next six weeks, we will share this family’s experience; what we suggest, what the children commit to and how it all turns out. If you have a picky eater in the family, know that it can’t change unless you try, and better yet, try together. Join us for your own “picky eater project,” and share your stories here.

10 Rules of Picky-free Parenting:

1. As parents, we will be good role models. We will only ask the kids to eat foods that we are willing to eat ourselves.

2. As parents, we will decide what foods are offered, when, and where. As kids, we will decide of the food that is offered, what we will eat and how much.

3. We will value the process of learning to be more adventurous eaters. We will be willing to try new foods, even if it is just a tiny bite.

4. We do not have to clean our plates. We will listen to our bodies and let hunger be our guide.

5. We will not offer food rewards. In other words, we do not have to ‘eat our vegetables’ in order to get dessert. We will not reward good behavior with sweets and ‘treats’.

6. Mealtimes are a family affair. As often as we can, we will shop, cook, and eat together.

7. We are one family, and we will eat one meal. We will not make separate meals. But we will be sure to include at least one thing each family member likes at each meal.

8. We will learn together about food, nutrition, farming, and cooking.

9. We will have fun, play, and experiment with new foods.

10. We will be consistent in following these rules, but not rigid

Foster Parent Diary Uncertainty Fills a Foster Child With Worry By Meghan Moravcik Walbert September 8, 2015 12:19 pm September 8, 2015 ">“I don’t want to live in a different house. I want to live in this house with this family.”

My 3-year-old foster son, whom we call BlueJay, has just returned from a visit with his birth family. He has lived with us all summer; it isn’t clear what will happen for him next, or when. These are among the first words he says to me, his eyes wide and bright, his mouth quivering.

I take a deep breath and nod, desperately and rapidly searching for the right response. I suspect his parents have told him, once again, that he will be going to live with them soon in a new home. Perhaps they have told him again about the party they will give in celebration when he moves “home.” Perhaps his mom has told him again that he can help select the party menu, that she will cook anything he wants.

I know how much BlueJay’s parents love him, and I know how badly they want their family back together. I am sure they mean these words as reassurances to their children. They want them to know they love them, they want them, they are trying.

But I don’t think they understand how much these words confuse BlueJay week after week. The fact is, it has been so long since his birth family lived together as one unit that BlueJay is simply too young to remember it. Telling him he will leave the home he has become comfortable in to move to one he has never seen and can’t imagine doesn’t feel like a reassurance to him right now.

It has the exact opposite effect. It leaves him worrying that at any moment, someone may knock on the door to collect him and his box of belongings yet again.

His birth parents don’t see the way BlueJay has suddenly become apprehensive of going to new places, the same way he was during the first couple of weeks we had him, because he is afraid we will leave him somewhere. Or the way he has become wary of new people coming into our home because he is afraid he will have to leave with them.

They don’t see the fear in his eyes after he throws a tantrum, as if it has occurred to him that maybe this time he has gone too far. They don’t see the way he apologizes profusely and tells me repeatedly how much he loves me. They don’t feel the way his heart still races, no matter how many times I hug him and reassure him that it’s O.K. for him to have a rough day or to feel angry or sad and that nothing he does will change the fact that I love him.

The only constant in his life so far has been instability and that instability has conditioned him to always be looking over his shoulder. The list of places he has lived — so many of them and each one vastly different from the one before it — runs on a loop through my head. Our home, at the end of the list, is among the places he has been the longest.

He senses this; he is preparing himself for the moment he will be forced to move on, while simultaneously grasping at a chance for the kind of stability he has never had. I want to assure him that he will find that stability soon, whether it is here or someplace else, but these assurances are not mine to give. They are assurances no one should be giving. They are assurances none of us have.

The only thing I can tell him for certain is this: “We love having you here, too. You are not going any

If there is one issue that will keep you frustrated as a foster parent is the set of standards for you the foster parent and those for the bio parent.  For instance, as a foster parent you must have at least 50 square feet per child in a room, can only be the same sex up to age 4, or more if siblings, own bed etc.  For most of us, that sounds normal and great.  However, with the bio parent, if they have a mattress on the floor its acceptable.  Don't go blaming just the social worker, they didn't make the rules, they just have to follow them.  We as foster parents have to do something so that standards are set across the board for the best interest of the child. 


Take into consideration the service plan, if you as the foster parent don't follow the rules, you run the risk of the child being taken away, and/or your home being closed.  On the other hand a bio parent can break the rules several times and still maintain visitation as if nothing has happened.  This will also be a huge frustration to you the foster parent.  Unless, we as foster parents work together to change this, nothing is going to change, the children will continue to have a revolving door into the system and we will be left frustrated, and some cases just give up and close our home.


I have been there, but what has stopped me is that the children need me.  There is such a shortage of homes here in Mass that children are going into home that are suitable for them, IE into specialized homes because there is no other option.  Then the cycle begins of multiple placements for children and constant trauma to children, that they may never overcome.  Standards for both the bio parent and foster parent should be across the board for the best interest of the child.  It needs to be an action statement instead of one that's just thrown around.