Mrs. Barbara Howze had been a foster parent for two years when the telephone rang late one evening. It was a Youth Villages counselor with an emergency request: a child needed respite -- a place to stay for just a few days. Could she help?

A few hours later, Mrs. Howze met Sade, the seventh foster child to come into her life. Youth Villages counts on hundreds of parents like Mrs. Howze to care for children who have been removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.

Like many of our foster parents, Mrs. Howze first became interested in foster care when her own children began to grow up and leave home. "I had the room," she says. "And I've always loved children." Since becoming a foster parent, she has parented five teenagers and two small children.

Our foster parents provide safe, nurturing, temporary homes for children while family problems are resolved. Reunification with birth parents or families is always the goal, but when that isn't possible, it's necessary to find adoptive parents. Counselors had been trying to find the right family to adopt Sade for years and years without success.

But Sade's temporary placement with Mrs. Howze turned into something more. Mrs. Howze liked the young girl, and the feeling was mutual.

"I like spending time with her," Sade says, "and I love my foster sisters."

"I tell all the children that they can control their lives," Mrs. Howze says. "They have to do well in school and manage their behavior, and they can have better lives. What happened before with their parents can't be changed. People make mistakes. But these kids can start fresh and do well."

Sade had enrolled at the neighborhood school, and her grades were good for the first time. She started participating in more things at school and making friends. She joined the track team and began playing basketball in the neighborhood with friends.

"Sade has just blossomed," says Melinda Brady, her adoption counselor. "She became just a happy teenager, and her grades have shot up. I began to think that maybe Sade had found her place."

She talked to Mrs. Howze about adoption. The foster parent had never really thought about adopting one of her foster children, but she knew how much Sade wanted a real family. Melinda didn't want to get Sade's hopes up until all the paperwork had been completed. Then Mrs. Howze and the counselor sat down with Sade to talk.

"I don't want to be adopted," Sade cried. "I'm happy here!" And then she found out that this adoption didn't mean going to some other place, to someone new. It meant getting to stay home, forever. The adoption recently was finalized.