‘It’s a fabulous experience’

Yesterday, Judith Montague and the 13-year-old ward of the state she fostered for the Christmas holidays under the Child Protection and Family Services Agency’s (CPFSA), ‘Take a Child Home for Christmas programme’, were enjoying some downtime by the pool at a resort in Runaway Bay, St Ann.

This was after they engaged in copious Christmas shopping days prior and indulged in a large Christmas dinner on Monday at Montague’s home in Kingston.

“It’s a fabulous experience. Under normal circumstances I would not be down here today. But when I got her the first thing I did was went online and I said I’m going to take her to one of the resorts, so she can get some hotel life,” Montague told The Gleaner.

“She loves it, she is just so excited! She couldn’t wait to get up this morning and get into the pool, and get to the beach and just to get to the outdoors,” she added.

This is the third Christmas that Montague, who is a retired banker, is fostering the now teenager. As an empty nester whose only child had migrated, she said she wanted a way to share her motherly love during the holiday season.

“Being a mother you have that instinct ... the motherly attention. I’m able to share that love, that innate gene that I have for caring for children,” she said.

In 2018, she responded to an advertisement placed by the CPFSA for their Take a Child Home for the Holiday initiative. The programme has existed for more than a decade and benefits children between three and 18 years old.

Montague followed the required process, which includes filling out an application form, providing references and passport pictures, a background check, and a home visit.

The ward was first placed in her care when she was only eight years old, and Montague said she had every intention of making it an annual event.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the programme to be suspended for two years. But she ensured she maintained a relationship with the child, who she described as very meticulous.

“I would visit her occasionally in between and after that it got restricted, I couldn’t go down. If I had anything for her I had to leave at the gate, and it had to be sanitised and sprayed before she could get anything. So there was a little distance between us for a little while,” she said.

As a member of the Kingston Kiwanis Club, Montague said she also tries to uphold the club’s motto; ‘Serving the Children of the World’.

“To get her and to have her with me, it’s like an extension of my Kiwanian life,” she said.

It was during a fun day that the club was hosting for children in state care facilities in October that she reconnected with the ward.

“When we saw each other again at Hope Gardens, she was so excited. The first question she asked, ‘Aunty, ya tek mi again fi Christmas?’ She was so excited and looking forward to coming back with us,” Montague said.

She said the child had also developed a bond with members of her family, who were equally fond of her.

“When she was with us in former years, my family took on to her so well, she just blended with everybody. I’ve taken her with me to St Elizabeth for Christmas dinner with my family, with my mother and my siblings and everybody, and she would just blend with everybody,” she said.

Montague said she has somewhat become an ambassador for the programme, readily sharing information to members of her church, The Church of Ascension, in Mona, where she works as an assistant administrative officer.

She is encouraging more people to share their love with children in state care for the holidays.

She explained that the ward she fosters is the eldest of three siblings in state care, and especially for this holiday, expressed a desire to share her good fortune with her younger siblings.

“There is a bond among the three of them that she takes responsibility for. But nevertheless I say to her that when we get back to town I’ll do some shopping so that you and your brother and sister, you can carry back gifts for them,” she said.

And luckily for her, Montague said she already has intentions of bringing them all together next Christmas as the perfect Christmas gift.

“I thought about it and I said, the other children would be thinking about themselves only, but for her it’s she and her siblings,” she said.

Carlyn Stewart, the CPFSA’s northeast regional director, told The Gleaner that approximately 80 wards have benefited from the programme this year. Additionally, she said visits are made to the homes where the children are placed by CPFSA officers, “just to make sure placements are going well”.

“What I can tell you (is) that so far, we have not had any reports of people calling us to tell us to come back and take children or to cut the holiday short for whatever reason. We don’t have reports of bad behaviour or anything negative,” she said.

Labelling the initiative as a solution for people who “don’t have the time to foster full time”, Stewart said it is also one the children get very excited about.

“Children get excited about Christmas regularly, but for an opportunity to go and be placed with a family for the period they always look forward to that,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com