Not All

I am a defender of family preservation but I am also a realist and know the world is not so perfect. Today’s heartbreaking story (which had a lot of affirming me too’s, sadly).

An adoptee who spent time in foster care writes – I made this in preschool. They said “make a Christmas decoration for your mommies”. I was already in foster care at the time and the ‘M’ word made my tummy sick. I made it anyway and gave it to my foster mother, asking her to hold onto it because I didn’t have a mommy.

I was unfortunately returned to my abuser/birth giver not long after. That foster mother did hold onto this frame, until I came back into her care many years later. I never got to thank her for keeping it safe. Please save the little things. You have no idea how big they really are.

She added – I encourage foster parents to make crafts with their kids addressed to ‘their future self’, instead of focusing on guardians or parents. Maybe have them add a small note on the back to future them (‘Did we ever see the mountains?’.. ‘I hope we still love reading!’)

Responses – I’m so sorry your biological mom was abusive. I know exactly what that’s like. And another – Empathy from a former foster kid who kept getting returned to their abusive birth parent.

Another shares – I was just talking to my daughter today about looking at pictures of myself as a child and just seeing her face and how painful it is to know how unprotected I was. After becoming a mom you see your child self so differently. It hurts a different part of you. I’m so sorry you went through that. I hope this lady made you feel safe and loved. It sounds like she really cared.

Someone who was in foster care as a youth noted – I could relate to this so much. It stinks to not have baby photos or memories, or know my birth weight. Just another thing that makes me feel not normal. Similarly another with the same foster care experience said – Making things like that in foster care is so weird but it still holds meaning that no one else understands. I remember many times as a kid asking to go to the guidance counselor when those activities came up (which my school allowed).

Family First Always

Today’s story – my dear friend is fighting for custody of her biological nephew (both the child’s parents are incarcerated for abuse/neglect for now). The child is an infant and currently in foster care. My friend put in the work and was approved by children’s services to be a foster parent, but they won’t place the child with her. And now they are saying that the child’s current foster family is interested in adopting him.

An adoptive parent actually answers – Fight for that baby! Family first always! She needs to email and contact daily. Copy every person’s email she can put on a email. Don’t be overly aggressive but stern. Every time I see this it makes me so mad. Prayers the right thing is done.

Someone who was in foster care as a youth note – At least in my state, she could file a motion to intervene. Our children’s court judge ALWAYS places kids with approved family.

Another writes – Most likely state law and Child Protective Services policy both prioritize biological connections. Find the statues and policies (handbook should be online, or at least it is in my state) and have her cite them in emails to the worker and supervisors. She may need to get her own attorney to enter the case but if she can’t afford that, I would go to the court house and see if there is anything she can file herself to enter the case or petition for custody and get in front of the judge asap. Idk if it would help to offer to maintain a relationship with the foster family (doesn’t have to be long term, but don’t specify lol) to ease the transition.

Another has questions – She needs to contact the state ombudsman and get them involved. Who said no? Contact their supervisor. Supervisor said no, go up the ladder. Is she in the same state as the nephew?

Another shares – Same state/country – different state/county? We had a similar situation with my “great/grand-nephew”, but also had ICPC (different state) placement to get through. The Social Worker for our state explained it to us that they are legally required to consider Family First placement. He was moved from a non-family placement to us at around 10 months. Sadly, baby’s mom and dad (my cousin) are unable or unwilling to parent the baby at this time, at least being placed with us we will foster that relationship in the future for him to connect/reconnect with his parents.

We were told multiple times things like this:

“that baby’s family (non relatives) has already been picked out”

Your involvement/help is not needed or welcome here

It is “all but signed off on for him to be adopted (at 3 months old)”

“maybe you can get the next one”

We persisted, because we wanted the social worker/agency to know there was a family placement option for him, should they choose it. We are currently foster parents/placement for him.

The Goal Is Reunification

Officially it is. However, too many foster parents do it as a means of adopting a child in a market with limited availability. As one former foster care youth notes – “I keep telling everyone reunification is lip service and the younger kids never get reunited.”

The New Yorker has an article out in collaboration with ProPublica – When Foster Parents Don’t Want to Give Back the Baby by Eli Hager. The subtitle reads – In many states, lawyers are pushing a new legal strategy that forces biological parents to compete for custody of their children.

In this story, a typical couple who’s infant ends up in foster care, actually decided to do the “hard work” to get their baby returned to them (the infant had been placed with foster parents). The couple had met every one of the judge’s requirements, and then some. They’d tested negative on more than thirty consecutive drug screens between them, including hair-follicle tests that indicated how long they’d been clean. They had continued to visit their son weekly, even when due to the pandemic that meant Zoom. The father took a job as a maintenance man for the county, installing plumbing in low-income housing and mowing the fairgrounds. The mother quit working in a bar and began delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service plus manning the deli counter at a grocery store on her days off. They spent much of what they earned replacing carpets, repainting walls, and fogging air ducts to remove any lingering trace of meth from their one-story house. They had completed parenting lessons and were in therapy, getting support for their sobriety and learning how to be better partners to each other. In other words, the foster-care system, whose goal under federal law is to be temporary, in service of a family reuniting, seemed to be working.

Then, after being sober for 6 months, another requirement was added – an expert evaluation of how well they interacted with their son. What they didn’t know was that they would be competing for him. His foster parents, hoping to adopt him, had just weeks earlier embraced an increasingly popular legal strategy, known as foster-parent intervening, that significantly improved their odds of winning the child.

The background is this – it has become harder and harder to adopt a child, especially an infant, in the United States. Adoptions from abroad plummeted from twenty-three thousand in 2004 to fifteen hundred last year, largely owing to stricter policies in Asia and elsewhere, and to a 2008 Hague Convention treaty designed to encourage adoptions within the country of origin and to reduce child trafficking. Domestically, as the stigma of single motherhood continues to wane, fewer young moms are voluntarily giving up their babies, and private adoption has, as a result, turned into an expensive waiting game. Fostering to adopt is now Plan C, but it, too, can be a long process, because the law requires that nearly all birth parents be given a chance before their rights are terminated. Intervening has emerged as a way for aspiring adopters to move things along and have more of a say in whether the birth family should be reunified.

Intervenors can file motions, enter evidence, and call and cross-examine witnesses to argue that a child would be better off staying with them permanently, even if the birth parents—or other family members, such as grandparents—have fulfilled all their legal obligations to provide the child with a safe home. Regarding our unfortunate couple, the evaluator who is a social worker reported “Neither parent has the kind of relationship with (their son) that will help him feel safe in a new situation.” The mother was bewildered when she read the report. Didn’t the evaluator understand how hard it is to bond with a baby you’ve only been allowed to see a few hours a week. Why was the baby’s eye contact with her described as lacking “affective involvement”? She also opposed the baby being returned to his parents on the grounds that the foster-parent intervenors had reported that he pitched fits and struggled to eat and sleep after seeing them.

It turned out this social worker had a long-standing independent agenda: helping foster parents succeed in intervening and permanently claiming the children they care for. No wonder some people feel the system is rigged against them. Relying heavily on this expert assessment, the county moved to permanently terminate the parents parental rights. In the 1950’s, the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby posited that being separated from a maternal figure in the first years of life warps a child’s future ability to form close relationships. The the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded that kids who grow up with their birth family or kin are less likely than those who are adopted or are raised in non-kinship foster care to experience long-term separation trauma, behavioral and mental-health problems, and questions of identity. It’s not acceptable in most family courts to explicitly argue that, if you have more material (financial) advantages to provide for a child, you should get to adopt him or her.

Ultimately, even though the couple had complied with their treatment plans, the filing concluded, their son had been in foster care for three years and needed “the permanence that only adoption can afford him.” However, his parents fought back. They filed an Open Records Act request, and soon received dozens of invoices. In all, their tiny, unaffluent county had spent more than three hundred and ten thousand dollars on their son’s case. An internal investigation found improprieties in the handling of the case. The trial was cancelled, and, the county finally dropped its case. Then, his mother joined other birth families in testifying in favor of new state legislation that would give biological relatives more priority in foster-care cases and prevent foster parents from intervening, until they had cared for a child for a year. In August, that law went into effect.

There are a lot more details in the article, if you are further interested. PS it is possible to get around the paywall with a bit of persistence and read the article in full.

It Often Is About The Money

A kinship adoptee shares – I met a lady the other day who mentioned she was a foster parent. I asked her why she decided to become a foster parent (it’s something I’ve always wanted to do) and she said – because her mother-in-law it and told her California is giving bonuses right now as an incentive for people to do it. That was it, she didn’t give any other singular reason… like wanting to help a child?? So. mostly this is a rant because I was shocked that someone would just openly admit this – like it was totally okay, but also.. what would you say to her ? I was at work, so I would have to keep it professional, therefore I just didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t get me a write up, at the very least. Any suggestions for the future ? I could see myself being in this situation again.

On woman, a former foster parent herself, replied – So, money means more than the best interest of a child ? This breaks my heart. One of my best friend is a foster parent. I am learning from her. I wanted to do it because of my own childhood. I had no one. Not a single person. These are REAL humans. My friend went through a brutal previous foster situation. She had to testify on her own defense after they made false statements. Currently, she has one child in her care. She will take a small break from teens because of how much she has gone through this year. I see how hard it is.

There seems to be a consensus that – if you’re making money being a foster parent, you aren’t doing it right. Which matches what I know about it and what the abuses I am aware of have involved. Someone said – at least she’s honest? Hundreds of foster care homes out here are lying and saying it’s for the kids, but keep their homes maxed out and never buy the kids anything. The foster parents retain most of the money. A former foster care child added – As sad as it is, as long as she doesn’t abuse them, that’s still a bit of a win. A lot of people take in kids just to abuse them.

One transracial adoptee notes – Why do you assume the children are NOT being abused ? Even ignoring the fact that foster youth and adoptees are statistically more likely to be abused, this is a person who *in their own words* is only in it for the money. That’s exactly the type of person who is MORE dangerous. Their concern isn’t the child, it’s the paycheck.

One foster parent shares – my bank account is suffering but the kids are happy ! That’s what matters to us. That’s what all kids do to your bank account. They’re expensive ! They need to see how the world works and have life experiences. So many of these kids haven’t even been out to eat ! How are they supposed to know what to strive for and how to order off a menu ? We do not have our own biological, genetic children, but the foster kids in our care – go on vacation, baseball games, eat out, get Halloween costumes, they’ve been to Hawaii with us and theme parks, they get nice clothes like everybody else. I’m not saying this for any praise or acknowledgement, but so that maybe somebody who is clueless, could see how it should be. I could list a million things but it’s silly because it’s not special, it’s just caring for a child, that we’re caring for, that lives in our home.

Someone else confirms – same. I’ve had to go into my savings account more than once for the children in my care.

Yet another person says – Firstly, most foster parents are worried about that check, abusive or not. There’s probably even foster parents who really care about the kids from the bottom of their hearts but live for that check and wouldn’t be a foster parent without it. Secondly, I’m not assuming they won’t be abused by that foster parent. If she’s made it clear she views housing random kids as something that’s transactional, that is better than those intentionally abusive fosters homes who up the “kind and loving” front but go out of their way to be monsters behind closed doors. If people create a false persona of being genuinely good, then it’s harder for any allegations against them to hold weight, which is why its a common tactic for many abusive foster parents. In today’s story, that specific foster parent put all her cards on the table, indicating what kind of person/foster parent she is. There are many foster homes, where the foster parents don’t care what the kids do – as long as they don’t cause too many problems. That is still bad, but it’s a lot better than some of the worst forms of abuse, which are all too common in foster homes. I’m not saying its right but sometimes there’s lesser evils even with a shit situation and that’s just the reality of it

More Than 27 Placements

Another story from The Guardian – this one about the Scottish care system. LINK>‘This book kept me alive’: Jenni Fagan on writing a memoir of her childhood in care. Some excerpts –

“The government take me from place to place. They pay people to keep me. Each new person opens a door like a bird’s wing and I have to go into their nest. Then they close the door. It could be good, or it could be something else. Some people have eyes with nothing behind them. They are nowhere people.”

“Each of the women in all of the houses that I go to live in is called a mother. It doesn’t make them all the same. They are often like each other but all of them put on a face for when people are there and then there is another one when the others are gone.”

“The sky is usually grey, and the sea is grey or black or dark blue, and people’s skin is pretty grey and their minds are grey and we live in this freezing-cold rainy grey country called Scotland.”

“She calls the government. – You have to come and get ‘it’, now! I am not called by name here now. I am called ‘it’. She strings words together with hot rage. They must send a car to come get me quick, or else. The social worker says I’ve moved over ten times now.”

“Twenty years ago I began writing this memoir as a suicide note. I was trying to sum up my life in one small letter. After I had written The End, I locked it in a flight case and vowed never to look at it again, or discuss its contents with anyone. With that one act that note turned into a book that kept me alive.”

“On the day the Freedom of Information Act came in, I picked up the phone at 9am. It took me 24 years to get my social work files. I picked up a vast heavy load of them. Hundreds, thousands of pages, most redacted in black lest they validate something that would allow me to sue them. I had lived in so many placements, had multiple name changes, foster families, adoptions, children’s homes and hostels. I had been through more as a child raised by the state than I ever thought possible to get my head around. I had never got to have my say, legally, or otherwise. I suffered from lifelong brainwashing telling me I was the issue. I’ve never met an abuser who owned what they did, or a system that wanted to be accountable.”

“This is a story about a girl who found her way to books and found in a world of words the only place I ever actually belonged. I didn’t have any family I’d ever met that I could remember and so I turned to culture and asked it to raise me, to teach me, to – in my most isolated moments – let me have somewhere to rest, and return, and belong.”

Now I must offer back my own. My lighthouse on a distant shore.

Boundary Issues

My husband has always been a “king of my castle, captain of my ship” kind of man (which understandably has caused some issues between us). After our oldest son was born, my husband’s parents (who were our next door neighbors) came over every afternoon to help me out, so I could attend to some of the work that depends on me for our home based business. Eventually, he simply could not tolerate them being around so much but put the burden on me to tell them. Fortunately, I could break it to them gently.

The man in today’s story, reminded me of that, but thankfully, my husband was not raised so hard core. Here’s the background (not my own story) – My husband grew up in a family with corporal punishment – where if you didn’t respect your elders there was a big problem. We did tons of therapy and it helped a lot but it just never got us to where there wasn’t a major fight at least once a week or two, that ended with breaking things or running away (which I don’t hold against my foster son one bit but it is what it is). There was also a “territorial-ness” between the two of them, which I hate but I understand it because I’ve seen it with other people who were staying at my house. Like my husband wants to come home and have his space and suddenly the house feels too small. Not a big deal at all, short term, but it wears on you after a long while. She claims – These are all so stupid, which is why its so hard for us to not want to try to help out… (a former foster son that has been in their home). This foster son has not experienced stability. He is now 14 years old and so, it is unlikely he’ll be adopted (though currently there is an attempt that may fail). It is more likely he will age out in foster care.

She wanted to know – if I’m not willing to commit to helping him all the way and adopting him, am I just leading him on by trying to be there for him and causing more trauma ? She asked – For former foster youths, what would you want ? Did any of you benefit from having a role like that in your life and what did it look like ? She also notes that this boy and his biological dad are still close and we definitely would let them continue their relationship, while he’s with us (of course).

(blogger’s note – I would add that setting boundaries with teens is NEVER easy.)

Some responses – Why can’t your husband get along with him ? My biological teens and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything and there are some outbursts but we talk and work it out… The original poster commented – great question. I think its very difficult to have patience for any teenager, but if you birth them or adopt them, you have to deal with it.

She was asked – why doesn’t your husband get along with him ? The woman replied – they requested placement for him in June or July and they said it would only be until the end of summer. That he wouldn’t be starting school with us. (blogger’s note – not certain that is actually an answer to this question.) Someone else came in to clarify and chastise – He wasn’t good “enough” for your husband and now has been adopted. It sounds like he may be having difficulties with his adoptive parents. He and your husband butt heads (putting it nicely) which ends up in loud clashes and things breaking in the house. That’s traumatic in and of itself.

You say things aren’t going well and the adoption may “fall through.” How convenient for foster parents and adoptive parents to just throw away their foster child/adoptive child. Instead of working on their issues. Just throw the child away. This makes my blood freaking BOIL! Parents don’t usually do this with their biological children.

How on earth are you helping this child, when he’s been rejected by your family already ? Why can’t the child just move in with their biological dad ? You are not the right fit for this child. If his adoptive parents aren’t willing to do the work, and your family wasn’t willing to do the work, AND he has a good relationship with his biological dad, why wouldn’t THAT be the goal – instead of sending him back to your home, where you already rejected him before AND he clashes with your husband “at least once a week”?!!!

Do this child a favor and WALK AWAY. You’re not the right fit for him. This post infuriated me. Why continue to triangulate his relationships ? I’m seeing RED, when I read your responses. Don’t come here and expect absolution. This poor kid!!!!!

The original poster’s response was – he was in another home that closed before us. His dad was on his last month of his program and doing great.

The response to that was – if his dad is doing so good, why isn’t the child with him ?!? I understand that it’s not your fault – it’s what the system does – but grrrrr – IF PARENTS ARE DOING GOOD, THEN RETURN THEM TO THEIR PARENTS!!!! The whole point of foster care is to love these kids, until they can go home. Yes, it will absolutely cause more trauma, bouncing around like a ping pong.

Someone else noted – Teens can be tough, whether they are biological, adoptive, foster, etc. That doesn’t mean you give up. You should have learned in training that every move is trauma. You are stringing this kid along, who needs someone in his corner, who will help him. You admit that your husband is fighting him. Kids and parents are going to argue (particularly teens), but this sounds well outside the realm of “normal” and by your description, it sounds like your husband is the one triggering most of it. If you can’t handle normal teenage behavior (disobedience is normal), you have no place to try to take this young man back into your home.

Bottom line from someone else – as someone who had to stay months at a time with kin who didn’t want me in their space, let me just say that I’d rather sleep anywhere else safe, than in a space I am unwanted. The feeling of being unwanted is horrid. Don’t invite him into your home, if your husband values his space more than this child.

A Missouri Crisis

The Missouri Independent declares it LINK>Truly A Crisis dated June 20 2023. No idea how many other states have similar issues.

Of the 13,183 foster children in the custody of the Missouri Children’s Division at the end of April, 52 were housed in medical facilities and 258 were housed in mental health facilities. At the end of April 2022, there were 72 foster children in medical facilities and 92 in mental health facilities.

The Department of Mental Health also has difficulty finding residential support providers. It has 704 clients who are developmentally disabled waiting for a residential placement, with the more than three dozen housed in hospitals considered among the most critical for placement.

“Unfortunately, right now, hospitals are a place where both residential facilities and in some cases, therapeutic foster families — or you know, or families in general — will bring their children because they don’t feel adept at caring for the child,” said Michelle Schafer, regional vice president for behavioral health at SSM. “There are usually significant behavioral components to the situation.”

All of Missouri’s hospital systems have served this function at one point or another in the last year, and the number of children in limbo has been growing. Foster children living in hospitals or other temporary locations for long periods isn’t just a Missouri problem. Many states are finding it difficult to recruit foster parents, especially in rural areas, KFF Health News reported this week.

For the Department of Mental Health, one of the biggest issues is community providers are struggling with staffing issues. “We lost about 50% of our residential beds, because we had a workforce shortage, which then sort of turned this cycle into a situation where we had a lot of kids, and we had no place for them to go,” Schafer said.

Senator Elaine Gannon sponsored legislation that passed which directs the Mental Health and Social Services departments to study and report on the impact of hospitalizing foster children and Department of Mental Health clients “without medical justification because appropriate post discharge placement options are unavailable,” and how to end it. “This doesn’t happen,” Gannon recalled thinking. “They don’t leave somebody in a hospital for six months, a year or even a month because they don’t have anywhere to send them. I can’t really believe that. Well, let me tell you, it’s the truth, and it is happening, and it’s happening everywhere.”

“That’s not a good setting either for the child or the young adult who’s in that situation. They need social supports, they need connections to communities, that a hospital just can’t provide.” said Brian Kinkade, vice president of children’s health and Medicaid advocacy at the Missouri Hospital Association. “Hospitals are not designed or staffed to provide housing for foster children and adults with developmental disabilities or behavior issues that do not need treatment for acute conditions,” Kinkade said.

“What we’ve decided to do instead is come together in what is truly a crisis and say, ‘You know, we’re all going to recognize that it is a failed system, that deinstitutionalization is failing right now. And we’re all going to lean in and be committed to doing our part to make it better,’” Schafer said.

Missouri puts children into foster care at nearly twice the national average rate, according to the LINK>National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. And part of the process of rebuilding the division is focusing on preventing removal in the first place. “If you put services on the front end to prevent those things from getting to a place where a child had to be removed, that’s a much better expenditure of money,” Children’s Division Director Darryl Missey said during a January budget hearing. Each child in foster care costs the state around $25,000 per year. Traditional foster families receive a maintenance stipend of $450 to $630 a month.

The point, Mary Chant, chief executive of Missouri Coalition for Children said, is to break down jurisdictional barriers where people disclaim authority, leaving people in limbo. “Those things may be true, but none of those things help us figure anything out,” Chant said. “Our first question has to be: What is it that the child’s family needs? And what do we need to do to get them that?”

With everyone at the table agreeing Missouri’s systems are in crisis, the first step was to get past blame, Schafer said. “Blame has no place in this,” she said. “It is literally all collaboration and partnership as we are committed to do this work, and up to it including having legislative support.”

Thanks to Terry West over at LINK>Indivisible Rural Progressives of the Eighth District and LINK>Jess Piper on TikTok for awareness.

Yet Another One

Chanel with her maternal grandmother, Aana Arlene

On the heels of the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the ICWA, comes awareness of yet another case. In this one, the white foster parents refuse to honor the Alaska indigenous roots of this child, Chanel.

Chanel’s biological mother, Kristen Ballot-Huntington, was murdered by her mother’s partner and the girl’s father, Eric Rustad. LINK>Sentencing Details.

In social media posts, her foster father refers to her as “little Native baby” and even Mowgli, after the Jungle Book character raised by wolves. Such remarks perpetuate harmful stereotypes and demonstrate a profound lack of understanding and respect, attitudes that put Chanel’s entire identity as a Native child at risk of erasure. She deserves the opportunity to grow up with a strong sense of self, pride in her cultural heritage, and a connection to her community. Her foster parents are keeping Chanel separated from her grandmother and brother, depriving her of the nurturing relationships that are crucial for her emotional well-being and overall development.

You can help prioritize Chanel’s best interests, cultural heritage, and emotional well-being by facilitating her reunification with her grandmother, Aana Arlene. Please sign the petition to the Selawik Tribal Court LINK>Bring Chanel Home. I’m signing because I care about native children’s right to be raised within their indigenous community.

Foster Care Reform

Discussion topic from my all things adoption (and foster care because they are very much intertwined) – Being a foster caregiver means you are contributing to a flawed and broken system. It makes you part of the problem.

Foster carers don’t like to hear that, they prefer to feel they are saviors. They will use terms like they are a “soft place for these kids to land while their parents work on the issues that got them there” or they just want to be a “place these kids feel safe and loved”. They want to “make a difference” in these kids lives because that feels all warm and cozy and is the perfect look at me social media moment.

Lovely sentiments..I’ll say good intentions as well, but they are only that..lovely sentiments that mean nothing when you have a corrupt, controlling, biased system watching over you. Your hands are tied.

How can you better help kids other than being a foster caregiver and taking your instructions from a corrupt system? What specific changes need to be made in child welfare for it to even be remotely something someone should consider aligning themselves with?

Some of the thoughts on this –

Becoming a CASA advocate. It’s free, and the classes are typically offered 2-3 times a year. Connecting with kids through programs like Boys and Girls Club, Big Brother Big Sister. Reaching out to vulnerable families and offering help directly to them.

The biggest change is that the resources given to fosterers need to be redirected to families in need and family preservation as a whole. Poverty should never be a cause for removal.

One notes – the system needs to look for more kin. This idea that only the next of kin can take children supports the system not putting any effort into keeping kids with family. Half the time they don’t even look for family. They say they do, but they don’t.

It should go without saying but still it must be emphasized that nobody wants kids in an unsafe situation (even though Child Protective Services regularly leaves children in awful situations). And I’m sure there are instances where a trained non-relative’s residence is the best place to support the child. But those services must be disconnected from the foster system as we know it.

From a social worker in the field of family preservation – the continued participation of foster parents is propping up the system. I work in a system with many examples of how easy it is to eliminate the need for fostering. Kinship care is one – here, kinship is defined according to Indigenous cultures, which is any person involved in the child’s life, culture, or community. Family preservation programming is another, either through social supports coming into the home or the family moving into a residential facility with all needed supports in place. Another option is supported living placements for youth; they live independently in their own apartment with support workers and services integrated as needed.

Stop viewing being poor as a moral fault or think it automatically makes you a bad parent.

A former foster parent writes – I stopped being a foster parent when I realized how little support and care the parents received. I think it was actually a social worker than made me realize it when she said you and every other foster parent are no different than the parents. You could easily be in their same situation. I think more foster parents need to realize they are no different and start thinking about what they would want if they were in the same situation.

Personally if my kids were removed I would want full access to them, their healthcare, their school records and sports. I would want for them to be returned as quickly possible. That being said I am clueless and ignorant on how to help and how to support these families. I feel like the biggest problem in our area is drugs. Other than carrying Narcan, I don’t know how else to support help these families staying together. To which, someone else suggested – You can get involved with your local women’s shelter, Domestic Violence Shelters, etc – that is a start.

Yet another notes – there are some areas that are beginning amazing programs that foster whole families, either in home or out of home. LINK>Saving Our Sisters is a great place to start, volunteering as a sister on the ground. I love that you understand and empathize with parents. That’s rare and appreciated.

Another option is helping with food pantries and clothing pantries. Personally, I refuse to have anything to do with goodwill or salvation army because they are beyond problematic. LINK>The Trevor Project is another wonderful organization to get involved with to help at risk LGBTQ youth. Churches are also a great place to reach out to. Many of them have programs that help the community, but always need help.

There are courses you can take through Red Cross that offer Infant CPR and Child Care Certifications. Go into online community pages and explain that you are a former fosterer and you have infant CPR training (basically put out your credentials) and offer to help with child care.

I could go on and on but there is always another way to address social problems beyond tearing genetically related, biological families apart.

With No Real Oversight

From a Kinship Foster Parent –

For 14 months, a mom and baby were separated. The Dept of Health and Human Services, the supervising agency, the state attorney and the Guardian Ad Litem were all horrible. They were all constantly unprepared for court. The judge didn’t hold them accountable. It was all “well I didn’t get any reports from X, so I have nothing to report, and I don’t agree with motions in favor of mom, as I don’t know if she is making any progress.” Not to mention that court was often pushed back by weeks to months for various reasons but not by the mom’s fault, but on the court’s side of things.

They were also very inconsiderate of our ethnic practices, which are not uncommon, such as we live in multi-generational homes and new parents aren’t expected to have a job. All of the baby needs are essentially taken care of at the baby shower for up to 1-2 years of that child’s life.

There are just a lot of awful things the state did and I’m unsure of where to report these things aside from the FCRO (Foster Care Review Office), who were just like “Meh. We can’t take any action as case is still open,” but I wonder where we can start. Who is ensuring that these people are being compliant?

Comments –

From an adoptee – These interactions ALONE should be enough to get this case closed. How could you be so unprofessional, when literally dealing with someone’s life ? If there is a concern that the involved agencies will mess with guardianship plans or reunification, then lawyer up. It is incredibly difficult to navigate the system without education, and those agencies know that and use that to their advantage. Sadly, most state agencies have no real oversight. Again, they know this and use that to their advantage.