Foster care proved a perfect match for this New Jersey woman: ‘I needed to take care of someone’

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In March 2007, Kathy Filippo met 3-year-old Jasmine at a Burger King. Filippo, who was a teacher at the time, said the meeting felt like “divine intervention.”

“She stole my heart right away,” she said.

Filippo couldn’t conceive a child on her own. And after the death of her mother and brother, she wanted more love in her life and decided to adopt.

“I wasn’t going to wait to get married to have children,” she said. “I needed to take care of someone, because in my heart, I was feeling a big absence without my mom or my brother Mickey.”

At first, she wasn’t sure if she could do it by herself. But her meeting with Jasmine represented a special change.

“When I met this beautiful little 3 ½-year-old at Burger King, it was my brother Mickey’s birthday, which I consider a divine intervention,” she said.

The rest was history. Over the last 18 years, Jasmine has grown into a wonderful young woman, Filippo said.

“She’s 22 and she’s working with children who have autism, and she has done four missionary trips to Guatemala,” she said.

While Jasmine is the only child Filippo adopted, she has continued to foster others.

The need for care

Filippo’s experience is not always the case for her counterparts.

In 2024, there were 2,805 children in foster care in New Jersey. Of those children, the permanent resolution for over half was reunification with their parent or guardian, and 31% were adopted by their current foster parents.

The main goal of foster care in many cases is to safely reunite children with their families. But especially in situations where home life is not stable or there is addiction involved, children can get adopted by their foster parents, as well.

Although she knew from the beginning that she and Jasmine were a match, Filippo said there is still a process to formally adopt following the foster placement.

“You have to live together for at least six months when you’re adopting to make sure that you’re compatible,” she said.

As Filippo has fostered other children, she said she feels she made a difference in each of their lives. However, there were definitely challenges.

“With fostering, there’s a lot of situations with a lot of instability, and these kids are being placed in your home and they’re feeling insecure and unstable,” she said. “You’re a stranger, but then once they know that you’re loving and caring and you just want the best for them, then they break down that wall.”

Data shows that many foster children experience trauma or troubling home situations before entering the system. According to the American Society for the Positive Care of Children, 61% of children in foster care are removed from their original home due to neglect, while 34% of children are removed due to parental drug abuse.

Filippo said she realized she had made a difference for children, particularly for those who came from tough home backgrounds. She was surprised by the response when she prepared dinner for a pair of sisters on a short-term foster placement.

“When I prepared it, because it was like a last-minute thing, they’re like, ‘This is the best dinner ever,’” she said. “And it was chicken nuggets and mac-and-cheese.”

Because there is often neglect and abuse, she said, children can face — and present — unique challenges.

“The thing with fostering is that you always have issues that come into play, like these girls that I fostered hadn’t been to the dentist in four years,” she said. “Three root canals and extraction, and deep cleaning needs to be done. And there were kids who had seizures, so you have to go to a neurologist. The things that you think as a regular parent are innate that you just do for your kids, these kids come from the situation where it’s not being done.”

Filippo said these challenges leave a “tremendous need” for caring foster parents.

“We need people to welcome these kids,” she said. “The kids are great. They have just come from trauma, so you have to be willing to understand it’s not their fault that they’re being taken out of the house. They are a victim, in that case. So if you can, you can make a difference by offering meals, security, safety and consistency.”

According to 2023 data, the Child Welfare Outcomes Report to Congress shows that while the foster care entry rate has slightly decreased since 2019 to just under 1%, this isn’t a sole measure of progress being made in the foster care system.

There are many factors that can measure how well the foster care system works — including how fast children reunify with their families, if at all, if children move frequently between homes and how safe children are in their respective homes. And, these can be subjective.

Faith and support

Filippo feels strongly inspired by her faith. As a member of the St. Maximilian Kolbe Church in Toms River, New Jersey, Filippo feels much of her fostering has been inspired by “love thy neighbor” ideals.

“We’re all different, yet we’re all the same,” she said. “We all want the same things, and I feel like when you’re in my home, you’re family, so it doesn’t matter what color or what nationality your family is.”

Filippo has found support in her church’s community, particularly with fellow adoptive parent Ann Dunphy.

Dunphy said their beliefs help them be better foster parents.

“I truly believe that because of our faith, we’re naturally drawn to a lot of the same things,” she said. “That’s why she and I are friends and will continue to be friends, and we try to support one another, no matter what the effort is that we’re doing.”

For Dunphy, she explained this has helped her love and uplift everyone, including the children she fosters.

“I know people that think ‘love thy neighbor’ is just your next-door neighbor,” she said. “But I say no, it encompasses the whole human family of the whole world, no matter their circumstances.”

Filippo hopes the children she’s fostered see her as a safe space, and as family.

“You’re going to break that circle of, you know, the same repetitious anguish, and let them think, ‘Wow, I’m sitting down, I’m having a meal. My clothes are clean. I feel safe. I know tomorrow I’m going to go to school, and I know that I’m going to come back and there’s going to be a meal, and there’s going to be people that care about me, and I don’t have to be afraid. Nobody’s going to hurt me in any way. Nobody’s going to put me down verbally. I’m going to be OK,’” she said.

And all children, including Jasmine, will always find a spot back at her home.

“And whenever I have kids, I take their picture, so whenever they come back, they see their picture, and they know that’s my family,” she said.