Never Seems To Improve

The image is just for LOLs. The reality is poverty is not at all a laughing matter nor is it usually simply laziness on the part of the recipients.

This honest comment inspired this blog today – I’m a nurse but my primary experience is in the community with families, and case management. The issue with a lot of Social Services is that the income cut offs are way too low. Even if my husband and I were working minimum wage jobs, we would make too much to qualify for WIC, Food Stamps, Head Start, or daycare vouchers here in Florida. They need to be helping families before the are in total poverty with no way to claw themselves out. The working class needs support too. This was my situation growing up and it never improved because it couldn’t.

Another shares – We make very little over the cap for the childcare assistance so I could work to be able to afford more of our bills. It is extremely difficult trying to explain to people that if I worked a job we would lose money. Because if I worked a job that would make enough money to impact our financial status, my student loans would want $300 a month, my son would have to go to daycare which is $500 a week, and I can’t find a job that works with my schedule because my son has to see two specialists every week. And if I worked the opposite shift that my husband works, so that he could watch our son, but I would never see my kid.

Yet someone else notes – I got a small raise, I think it was 50 cents, that caused me to lose my food stamps. I’m in a better financial space now but I’ll never forget all the struggles I had to go through.

Another shares – There is about a 9 year wait to get HUD housing where I live. My retirement income is from a rental house. I chose a family who had a Section 8 voucher. Landlords need to consider – if the tenant loses their job, Section 8 will cover more. There are all kinds of rules for the tenant. The top amount of the voucher was actually more than I was asking for rent.

From someone else – Food stamps require you to be working some amount of hours (I think it’s 20hrs/week) and you cannot get away from that requirement, unless you are disabled and have special permissions granted by the DHS officer on your case. Medicaid is a tragedy in my region. Finding a doctor isn’t the worst thing, but good luck finding a dentist. Housing is a disaster. The only “landlords” who accept it are slumlords. No idea how long the waitlist is here.

If you don’t think the deck is stacked against the poor, you probably aren’t trying to stay alive through the system.

Unexpected Breakdown

The challenges of trying to help in an impossible situation from today’s story.

I signed up to foster teens and older kids. Had an emergency placement as my 1st. Teen was essentially homeless – no family would take her. She would have spent the night on Div of Family and Child Services’ (DFCS) floor or in a hotel. This type situation is pretty much what I envisioned as far as the kind of placements I would get.

She did well a few weeks. I treated her like a visiting niece. Introduced her to family and kids her age. Took her places. Got her all food she wanted from grocery store. She cooks and likes a lot of ingredients. Did normal things I’d do with any teen relative, watched movies, played with dog she loved, got her nails done. She wants to age out and be in an LINK>Independent Living Program. I asked for a DFCS meeting to discuss options according to her wishes.

Some of her family refused contact with her. They could/would not foster her for certain reasons. It was not a financial issue – all her family had money. I don’t have their contact info. Per her suggestion, I made friends via phone with her other extended family who live several hours away. We got along great.

DFCS, for legal reasons, had many restrictions placed on her. I will not get into those. I am not looking to adopt. She’s in serious legal trouble. I have to abide by the rules. Due to the strict restrictions, she had a huge mental occurrence from that. She is smart but has mental health diagnoses that will make anything like this worse. The restrictions were not from any self harm or violence towards others, but still very serious.

DFCS removed her from my home, due to her mental issues, and they said she needs a group home or a strict experienced therapeutic home. I agree because she was very mentally ill. Had she been my biological teen, I’d have put her in lots of therapy and maybe sent her to a reputable overnight summer camp, if she wanted to go. DFCS would not grant permission for her to do either, based on her legal situations.

Her personality was outgoing, she loved doing activities like in certain kinds of teen summer camps. I did not sign her up for any, as I didn’t know how long she’d be with me. She has some extended family who might have changed their mind and taken her in. That would have been great.

I asked DFCS from day one for a recommendation of mental health therapy for her. The teen actually also asked for it herself – many times. Long story shorter, I could not get it for her – DFCS said they were working on it. It took a month to get a call back just to set up an appointment. On that day, by sheer coincidence, she had her big crisis/breakdown. It was so bad – they did not give me an option as to whether to terminate the placement or not. Her issue was from the DFCS situation she was in.

Now, I’m really wishing I had gone against DFCS and personally tried even harder get her the mental health therapy faster, even though they said to wait for their referral to call.

One good thing is I got her a job. I think she still has it but I will not be able to go by to check. I gave her a small allowance and she only had to clean her areas in the house. She smiled a lot but also cried a lot.

Div of Family and Child Services in my area has a policy that non-kin fosters can not contact a child, if a placemat is disrupted. I understand. I’ll never see or hear from her again. After her breakdown, she said she hates everyone, she named them by name. Extended family, me, even pets she used to love.

My question: I’m wondering if there’s anything else I could have done to help her. Mental health assistance sooner, I guess. But without DFCS ? They would not help, until it was too late.

I did not know she was that bad off mentally. The breakdown was unexpected. She was great otherwise, only the kinds of minor issues many teens have. They won’t let her come back to me, even though she liked it ok here. The breakdown she had was unfortunately severe.

Trying to make sense of it. Could I have helped a little more somehow ? It was all unfair, how things happened, especially the lack of mental health assistance – after she had asked for it herself.

blogger’s note – this is how the system is. If anyone reading this is contemplating being a part of it, this is the kind of situation you may be getting yourself into.

Double Whammy

An adoptee writes – “My birthday was a few days ago, and with Mother’s Day this weekend, there are a lot of complicated emotions flying around.”

Some background from the adoptee – I was adopted at birth by my aunt (my genetic mom’s sister) and uncle, and moved several states away. I was given a new name, new Birth Certificate, the whole works. My adoptive parents had been trying for a baby, and since my original mom didn’t have the resources (job, place of her own) they asked to adopt me. A month after I was born, my adoptive parents ended up pregnant with my brother. My sister followed a year later. I do not look like anyone in my adoptive family and I never felt like I fit in or belonged. I was treated way differently than my siblings. My adoptive mother passed away when I was 19. Since then, I’ve had a mediocre relationship with my adoptive dad, barely there communication with my brother, and my sister won’t acknowledge my existence.

I was a rebellious, angry teen, and my issues carried over into adulthood. I caused my family a lot of pain, but had no idea that any of my issues were likely caused by trauma. That said, I take responsibility for my decisions, own up to them, and have repaired relationships where possible. Still, I have lived most of my life filled with shame and thinking I am defective and a bad person regarding some of the choices I’ve made.

After years of therapy for depression and anxiety, a wonderful therapist suggested that my lifelong issues could be a result of adoption trauma. I brushed her off, saying “My adoption happened a long time ago. I’ve dealt with it. I’m fine.” And she gently replied, “No, I don’t think you are.” And so it was, that I started coming out of the fog five years ago, right around the time I turned 40.

I have always known who my mother was, but never got to know her and have only met her three times. The first was when I was 3. She visited with her new husband so that she could come clean about her “past.” The second was when I was 15. I was in the throes of angsty adolescence and started having issues around my identity. The whole purpose of my visit was to talk to her openly about my adoption, but…although her husband knew I was her daughter, she would not acknowledge that I was his sister to my half brother, who was 10 years old at the time. I had to tiptoe around for a week while he called me “cousin.” More shame. The last time I saw her was at my adoptive mother’s funeral, almost 26 years ago. We talk here and there, mostly on Facebook, but I literally don’t feel anything for her. She still talks of giving me up as being “the best thing” for me, without acknowledging the harm. I realize she was in an impossible situation, but just to have her see me, acknowledge the hurt I experienced and continue to deal with, would mean so much.

The Legal Rights Of Siblings

This from someone with experience – If you are adopting a child or children in who have siblings being adopted into other homes, make sure you have a quality attorney, NOT one of the ones that are contracted with through the state. Know the laws in your state in regards to sibling rights post adoption. Your attorney needs to go over this in great detail. Sibling separation agreements, continued contact agreements, etc are just RECOMMENDATIONS and not legally binding, unless they are worded in a certain way. This means that even though they are telling you these things will have to be agreed to and take place in order to adopt, any adoptive parent can choose to cut contact without punishment – at any time – and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Don’t be like me. Don’t think that just because the agreements are there and someone is verbally telling you this has to be done is going to mean that it will prove legally binding. It may not. Don’t be ignorant like me. KNOW THE LAWS. Have an attorney who is well versed in these matters. And make sure that continued sibling contact is legally required and can be enforced. I learned a valuable lesson about this, but it may be too late and sadly at the expense of 3 children who shouldn’t have to be denied contact. 3 children who will carry scars and wounds because of my ignorance in this area. I don’t know – what the fuck was I thinking ? But undeniably, I fucked up. I preach and preach about us being educated and I failed to educate myself in regard what may possibly be the most important aspect of adoption. Don’t be like me. Don’t fuck this up. Make sure your kids and their siblings if they have been separated by adoption have legal rights to remain in contact with each other. Please. Don’t put your kids and their siblings in the situation my stupidity put mine in.

The truth is the best intentions in adoption often fall through. Adoptive parents can just say “it is not in best interests of our child” and get judge and court order to close contact. A common tactic is to move so far away, it’s no longer feasible to have physical contact. Even in the case of agreed to open adoptions, the intentions are often not followed through. Then, there is the less visible problem – if an adoptive parent does not want contact, the child is placed into an impossible situation. The child has to choose between loyalty to their adoptive parents or to their separated siblings – it’s a no win situation. When I became a non-custodial mother and my daughter was older, I provided her with a calling card so that she could call me at no charge, when doing so was not going to complicate her life with a step-mother and half and step siblings. She was in control.

These kids are human beings and should have the right to maintain contact with their siblings, at the very least, after adoption. It is increasingly known that genetic connections are better for the child than the loss of them.

Another woman shares her experiences –

I have played this game for 25 years with my daughter’s adoptive parents. I would suggest not pushing back at them at full force. The more you push the more they will close down. Tt’s not about twiddling your thumbs ….. it’s about playing the long game. Sigh. And I understand this as regards my daughter. It was very hard to be an absentee mother but now that she is in her mid-forties and her step-mother died quite a few years ago now, I am grateful I have managed to retain a good relationship, a loving relationship, with her. She often mourns her mom who died. I would never ever criticize the woman who raised her. That is totally misguided for anyone caught on the outside.

Reform work currently taking place in the state of Ohio seeks to establish the lawful connection for siblings in foster care. There is more work that needs to be done, so that the right to maintaining a connection isn’t terminated, if an adoption occurs.

Here is the view from a person who became separated – I read my sibling agreement contract. I was supposed to see three of my older siblings (the ones I lived in the house with before foster care) 3 times a year. I have no clue how it fell apart, but I never saw my siblings again – until I found my biological family at 17. We were all able to get together once last year after 15 years apart. Then again, I read the open adoption contract too and that also fell apart. I was supposed to know my family but it seems like nobody cared enough.

Charging Parents For Foster Care

I remember when I divorced my first husband, the issue of child support came up in court. I had heard horror stories about unending conflict in child support issues. I wanted none of it. My ex had already told me he would never pay child support. I believed him. His attitude was if I wanted his support for our child I had to stay married to him. In a weird turn of events, after leaving my daughter temporarily with her paternal grandmother for care while I tested myself to see if I was even able to drive an 18-wheel truck cross-country, my daughter ended up being raised by her dad. Eventually, he re-married and she grew up in a yours, mine and ours family when they had a child together and she had already brought a child with her to the marriage. I didn’t want to interfere in what I considered a good situation for my daughter – mindful of the old biblical story and the baby the kind almost cut in half to satisfy two women both claiming the child as their own. Only recently, after over 40 years of believing this fantasy, my daughter told me it wasn’t such a good situation growing up there. My heart still grieves to know that.

This is a bit of a digression but not really because today I have learned that when children are taken by the state and placed in foster care, the original parents become liable for child support to cover the costs of their children being placed into foster care. It seems that everything this government does is stacked against families and intent on keeping people enslaved to poverty regardless of how hard they try to improve their lives. Even though I lost much in not raising my daughter, I do not regret forgoing the constant conflict of fighting for child support. I don’t know what the best answer is as regards responsibility – I suppose better human beings but sometimes the deck really is stacked against people in general. It is so sad.

Most families in the child protective services system also interact with the child support enforcement system. A potentially important effect of child support enforcement on the duration of out-of-home foster care placement. Requiring parents to pay support to offset the costs of foster care results in delays of a child’s reunification with a parent or other permanent placement. While this is a short-sighted and unintended effect, longer stays in foster care are expensive for taxpayers. Without a doubt, extended placements in foster care has consequences on a child’s well-being. When the policies and the fundamental objectives of public systems are viewed in limited perspective and inconsistently coordinated we all suffer.

The child protective services (CPS) system can be seen as a safety net of last resort. While removing children from their parents’ care is an extreme intervention, recent estimates suggest that in the US 6% of all children and 12% of black children will have experienced out-of-home care by the time they reach the age of 18. Most children and families with CPS involvement also interact with other social service systems that can have very different goals and models of administration and financing. This lack of coordination often leads to substantial, though unintended, negative consequences for both for the families involved and the taxpayers who pay for these services.

The scope of the child support enforcement system is generally limited to establishing and enforcing nonresident parents’ financial obligations to their children. In contrast, the CPS system is responsible for assuring child safety, permanency and well-being, so its scope and responsibilities extend well beyond financial resources. The scarcity of studies regarding CPS-child support interactions may reflect important differences in their policies and the goals of these programs or a limited recognition of the potential importance of their interaction, but research in this area has been hampered by the limited availability of relevant survey data and the technical challenges associated with the analysis of administrative data from separately managed systems.

Requiring parents to pay support results in a longer foster care spell and it definitely decreases the economic resources a separated parent needs to achieve the conditions CPS sets forth for reunification. This would indicate that this policy is fiscally counterproductive. And the reality is that there are low levels of collection and additional costs in seeking to enforce these child support payments.

Most children enter foster care due to neglect, rather than abuse, with low income an important risk factor for parents losing custody of their children. Safely and quickly reunifying families is an important priority and it will reduce both disruption to children and the public costs of foster care. I know personally how difficult it can be to be a single mother. When I rejected child support as a very young woman, I was overly confident about my ability to provide for my self and my child.

The truth is children living in single-parent families are over-represented in the CPS system. Child support can play a particularly critical role in the income packages of low-income single-parent families. Some evidence suggests that increased child support may reduce the risk of child welfare involvement. Historically, the government has often retained child support payments from low-income families receiving cash assistance to offset welfare costs, but in recent years policies have changed to allow more child support to be passed through to resident parents receiving assistance—making welfare and child support complements, rather than substitutes.

The change in policy to prioritize economic support to families over cost-recovery for government has not been extended to children in foster care. Federal guidance and state policies generally call for child support orders to offset government costs, rather than directly benefit children, when children are placed out of home. Federal policy calls for child support previously directed from nonresident to resident parents to be redirected to the state, and, for those that do not have orders, new orders are established for both pre-placement resident and nonresident parents to cover the costs of foster care incurred by the state.