For many children in foster care, finding a stable and loving home can be a challenge. For Naperville Central ASL teacher Kim Cancio and her husband Brian, the goal isn’t just providing a place to stay — it’s creating a sense of belonging, no matter how long a child is with them.
The Cancios have two biological children, and in total have fostered 10 children. Less than two years ago the Cancios began fostering a young girl who is deaf. While adoption was never expected to be in the books for the Cancios when it came to fostering, the longer they got to know the foster child, the more it felt like she didn’t belong anywhere else except their home.
Due to confidentiality laws surrounding foster children, the Central Times has opted to refrain from using the girl’s name, as she has not yet been adopted.
“There’s not a whole lot of foster families that have sign language,” Brian Cancio said. “We knew that if our foster daughter doesn’t go back home, [she] would have harder challenges than other foster kids finding a more permanent adoptive home. That was the part that had Kim and I started to change our thoughts about [adoption].”
The Cancio’s always wanted to foster deaf or hard of hearing children because they knew the process for fostering these children is much more challenging than for hearing children.
“We were one of either five or six homes in the state who listed American Sign Language as a second language on [their] license,” Kim Cancio said.
Prior to meeting their foster daughter, Kim and Brian Cancio weren’t sure how much ASL she would know, but they were prepared to support her however necessary.
“When she came to us, she had no [American Sign Language] [and] she knew maybe three or four home signs,” Kim Cancio said.
Many deaf children that come from hearing parents have signs of their own called “home signs.” These are gestures that take the place of American Sign Language in order for the family to communicate, according to MT & Associates.
Lauren Cancio, the couple’s daughter, had faith in her parents that they would be good foster parents.
“They are very invested in all the kids that come into our house,” Lauren Cancio said. “If they have certain needs that they are not familiar with, they will do a lot of research on it.”
Their foster daughter had no trouble picking up the language, and the Cancios saw exponential improvement in her ability to sign ASL.
“When we used ASL to try to communicate with her, we found that [she] was kind of like a sponge, she just latched on to the language,” Brian Cancio said.
Lauren Cancio believes her foster sister has a bright future ahead of her despite knowing the struggle of people with hearing disabilities.
“People assume that just because they have a disability, it means that they are not as smart or as capable,” Lauren Cancio said. “But living with [my foster sister] specifically [taught me] if people open up the doors for her, she’ll go crazy and she’ll do amazing things.”
Kim Cancio and her husband first developed the desire to foster after working at a behavioral health hospital for deaf and hard of hearing children with no homes. The process to become a foster parent is lengthy, and they have acquired multiple licenses in order to house foster children.
“We were originally licensed for children [ages] 3-18, and then when we had amended our license later, [for ages] 0-3, we had to do all the baby proofing,” Kim Cancio said.
Their first foster child was an 18-year-old girl. It was quite a different experience than they had intended, according to Brian Cancio.
“Because of the age of the teen, it was more of a transition experience,” Brian Cancio said. “We provided her [with] food, shelter and even beyond the basics that she needed.”
The Cancio’s began to foster younger kids after the teen because they wanted to help the large number of young children in foster care. According to the Christian Alliance for Orphans, the average age of a child in foster care is eight.
The longest foster placement the Cancios have had is two sets of siblings for about a year and a half. Their current foster daughter was three and a half when they got her and she is now five, making her the youngest they have had long term.
“Every time a kid has to leave one home and go to another, that’s just adding additional trauma to the trauma that they’ve already had,” Kim Cancio said. “We were the first [foster] home where these two kids had lived, and I didn’t want to do that to them.”
Each child has a different experience in the system, and according to Kim Cancio, you never know exactly what it’s going to be until they walk through the door.
“Some kids are coming from other foster homes. They’ve done it before, and they know what to expect,” Kim Cancio said. “Some kids have no idea, and they come in scared.”
Kim Cancio is grateful for the kids she has been able to help but knows there are still many others out there who won’t receive the help they need. According to the Christian Alliance for Orphans, there are about 20,743 children in foster care.
“There’s a lot of kids out there that need good homes,” Kim Cancio said. “They need people that are willing to open their homes and their hearts to them and take care of them and show them love and support.”