Encompass Adoptees

Thanks to a mention by a friend, I learned about LINK>Encompass Adoptees. I had not heard of them before and so I wanted to share the awareness. This is what they write about their mission – Encompass provides resources and services for individuals of all ages with adoptive, foster, kinship care, (AFK) or similar adverse childhood experiences, as well as their families. Encompass has recently expanded to include services for donor conceived people (DCP) with the understanding that DCP have started to speak about having some similar and overlapping issues related to their donor parent. Our goal is to help create bridges to encourage awareness, facilitate discussion, provide educational resources, and build community among individuals with these experiences, within families, and throughout the local Columbus area.

Regarding their logo, they write – The whydah bird is one of several birds that always lay their eggs in another bird’s nest. Since the whydah does not raise its own young, we have chosen this element of nature as a symbol of adoption and foster care for our organization. Adoption is a difficult thing to put an image to. Encompass Adoptees makes every attempt to honor and acknowledge the adoptees who are adults as well as those who are children. Therefore, we chose an image that would not reflect the adopted person as an eternal child.

They also write that their commitment is to “lived experience” is a unique feature of Encompass: we offer programming designed by those with lived experience (adoption, foster care, kinship care for those with lived experience). This approach is evident in our programming, resources, and outreach efforts. While we seek to honor adult AFKD voices in key leadership positions and programs, we also believe that in order to best serve them, we must include the voices of as many constellation members as possible. Additional services for other constellation members, such as spouses, siblings, extended relatives, and professionals, are some we hope to include as we grow.

Unpacking The Trauma

It feels like a kind of critical mass when I go looking for an image to fit a theme for my blog here and many of them are identified as coming from this blog. Therefore, it was a bit difficult to find something else but I did find the one for today at a site I was not previously familiar with called – Forbidden Family. The site’s author is Doris Michol Sippel who was adopted as Joan Mary Wheeler and writes as LEGITIMATEBASTARD. She is also an American civil rights activist fighting for the freedom of 7 to 10 million domestic-and-foreign-born adopted and donor-conceived people. Doris promotes family preservation, kinship care, and custodial guardianship as better alternatives to adoption. blogger’s note – I agree with Doris’ preferred alternatives.

In my all things adoption group I read this morning, about that group – We understand that “NOT ALL” people should be with their biological family. We understand that there are times where adoption has to happen. However, what a lot of people fail to understand is the WHOLE point of that group is about UNPACKING the TRAUMA of adoption. It’s NOT about the unicorn, rainbow & butterflies aspect of adoption. There are TONS of groups where anyone can brag about how amazing your adoption is and why you love it, but that’s not what the group I belong to is for.

Sometimes the lines get blurred.

In that group, we don’t need post after post telling us why adoption is needed or why it can be a good thing. We aren’t ignorant. We understand there are bad people in the world who don’t need children nor want them. This doesn’t need to be said, because it’s known, it’s common sense. That’s not what we are in the group to discuss. When a commenter switches the narrative to the one they want it to be, it takes away from the focus that is the group’s purpose.

One adoptee notes – *Sometimes* adoption genuinely is the best option. And it will STILL come with trauma, because trauma is inherent to adoption EVEN if, or BECAUSE, it is necessary. I’ve never understood why adoptive parents get so defensive, when this is brought up. It’s not even a personal attack or criticism. You could be the best adoptive parent in the world. Your child’s adoption could have been 100% necessary. You can have a strong bond and a great life together. And trauma can and will live alongside that.

blogger’s note – I am the first to admit that I would absolutely not even exist but for the adoption of both of my parents. It wasn’t until I learned the truth of their early life stories and then, found the group I lean so heavily on to write a blog every day, that I understood that I too was “in the fog” of believing that adoption was the most normal thing in the world. It is NOT. This has been quite to paradox for me to unpack late in life.

Kinship Care Providers

Kinship care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close family friends (often referred to as fictive kin). Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it helps maintain the children’s connections with their families, increases stability, and overall minimizes the trauma of family separation.

LINK>ChildWelfare.gov has a page related to this. Resources on changing family dynamics, financial and legal supports, and permanency. A page reviews State laws and policies that allow a family member or other person with close ties to a child who has been placed in out-of-home care to become that’s child’s permanent guardian.

Guardianship has emerged as a permanency option for a child who has been placed in out-of-home care as it creates a legal relationship between a child and caregiver that is intended to be permanent and self-sustaining and can provide a permanent family for the child without the necessity of terminating the parents’ parental rights. A guardian’s rights and duties, approving a guardianship home, modifying or revoking a guardianship, and kinship guardianship assistance are among the issues addressed.

There is a section that shares stories and advice from caregivers and birth parents who have experienced kinship care on the importance of maintaining boundaries, managing family dynamics, building trust, positive parenting and communication, and securing support.

How To Go About Transitioning

So here’s the background and the story –

I am the foster parent for two young children (ages 2 and 3) throughout the last year and a half. Termination of parental rights is set for April. I have a good relationship with their mother and I’m able to facilitate her visits with the kids even though the agency would say no (don’t tell anyone). Their fathers are not in the picture of their own choosing. Their mom now lives about an hour from me. She is originally from California and I’m in Kansas. Their mom has family (an aunt) in California who would take the children in, if the mom’s rights are terminated. This aunt tried to obtain possession of the children, when they were first taken into foster care. At that time the goal was reunification with their mom. Therefore, the agency didn’t want to move them that far away from their mom.

Their mom wants to do whatever is best for her kids and has said she is fine with them living either with me or with the aunt, if she can’t get custody of her children. So here’s my question, would the kids be better off living with their biological family, even though they’ve never met their aunt and would have to move away from their mom or with me, the place they know as home currently and where they can still be around their mom?

I love them and would definitely keep them – if I need to – but I don’t want to do that, if it is in any way putting myself above them. They have had a lot of trauma, from being moved around a lot in foster care, before they came to me and they really struggle with being away from me, even for short periods. That has always made me worry about them with regard to having to move again, but I’ve thought maybe I could go with them and stay in California for a week or so, if they do move and we could do a transition – to make this change less of a traumatic issue. Is that enough? Also, they are bi-racial and I am mostly white. Though one does have Native American and I do as well, they are dark skinned, where as I am not.

I have heard through the caseworker that the aunt has adopted other children within her family – so I’m going on the assumption that it’s a stable home with some trauma background.

Another woman, who is both an adoptive and a foster parent replies –

Long term, yes, it will be better for them to be with their family. Genetic and racial mirrors are both vitally important. They are very little, so while it may be a hard transition, they will be okay. I would see if you can start video chats with the family in California now, so that the kids can get familiar with them. But absolutely, you need to make the child welfare workers aware that you want the aunt to adopt. They need to start the ICPC process now – if this hasn’t happened already because it can take several months to complete. And the sooner these kids can get to the aunt the better.

The ICPC is The Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. The purpose of ICPC is to ensure that children placed out of their home state receive the same protections and services that would be provided if they remained in their home state.

Regrets When Things Change

So today’s story goes like this – I had a baby June 30 was going to place her for adoption with a relative in Texas. Decided I’m no longer going to place for adoption and told her I was coming to get her. (Cause according to our agreement I can request the return of my child at any time) It was a agreement for non parent adult caregiver. Well she basically sent me a text saying no and wasn’t going to give her to me didn’t think it’s in the best interest. And was going to file a restraining order And somehow I was lying to her and she feels like I used her. I had originally asked her to take baby cause I wanted her to stay in the family. I hired attorney but I’m just scared and worried cause I’ve never been to court for anything and I don’t know what to expect and some how they have “I’m not able to properly care for her” but I take care of my other kids every day. So I just don’t understand and didn’t it expect it to be like now a custody battle. (She has a lot more support and money then me as she knows I’m a single mom.)

She adds – Everything was fine till I told her I wanted to parent. Actually at first everything was fine with me coming to get her, my relative was mad/hurt but wasn’t putting up a fight. Then come last Wednesday, I got a text saying NO and I wasn’t in the best interest of my own baby and some how I lied to her this whole time and had other people tell her I can’t care for her etc.

I actually believe she just doesn’t want to give her back and she trying to scare me to back off, thinking something going to happen to my other kids, if I don’t win my baby back or something. She blocked me from everything she trying to let the time frame past to where I can’t do anything and my rights can be taken away.

One woman in the group replied – I wish we could start a list of people who would take a baby temporarily, no paperwork to help moms out. I’ve done it before, had a baby for 90 days while mama got the help she needed and handed her the baby back. No Department of Children and Families involvement and when people asked – I would say I’m helping a mom keep her baby. I’m learning that sometimes moms feel they cannot parent at that moment and just need some time and can parent once help is given etc.

Another woman chimed in – I would love to be a fictive kin “grandma” to help young women get on there feet. My kids are young adults and helping families connect with resources is what I do for employment. Occasional baby snuggles or getting to see happy families would be an extra bonus (my work is done over phone/internet).

Someone added – If you only signed a temporary guardianship the law is on your side.

If you are unfamiliar with a Texas Authorization Agreement for Nonparent Relative or Voluntary Caregiver, this law allows any adult caregiver to be authorized to provide TEMPORARY CARE for a child.

Failure by the voluntary adult caregiver to return the child to the parent immediately on request may have criminal and civil consequences.

So further advice is this – Copy your signed agreement and show up at the local police department the lady lives in and tell them she’s refusing to give you your kid and based on what you signed you have every right to get your child back. They may say it’s a civil matter BUT this document should show them regardless you have the rights to get your baby.

The woman replies – I called her police, they won’t help.

The other woman providing advice (and I agree, it is VERY IMPORTANT to make a STRONG CASE of demand at this point !!) – Honey – SHOW UP. Physical presence means a little more. Print this document. Type a paper or hand write it if necessary saying you hear by REVOKE all authorization previously given. Show the police. Ask them to make a copy and open a file. Dress appropriately and speak respectfully and calmly to the officers and chances are – if they see this document – they should aid in getting her back.

Someone else added – Did you try to file a kidnapping report using your document ?

She was told this situation is not considered a kidnapping.

She counters – My copy of the agreement is not signed by a judge. She was supposed to file her copy.

Yet another person notes – If she didn’t file it in her county, she has even less legally to stand on in this situation.

The distraught mother adds – I called her county clerk or court and they said they didn’t see anything but that the lady didn’t know much about this form. The woman in possession of her daughter said it has to be revoked by a judge. The mother wants to know – how do you get something revoked, if it was never filed ?

Supportive responses come – The court clerk would most likely be looking this up by the person’s name. If there’s nothing filed, there’s nothing for them to find under their name.

I think there is a very high likelihood they’re lying to you about it having to be revoked by a judge in order to make it feel too difficult and insurmountable to have kiddo returned to you.

Frankly, I think they’re lying to you about all sorts of stuff. I’m so sorry. This is entirely bullshit.

Be very careful about who you trust to help you care for your children. Even with the best intentions and “protections” too much is at stake to take chances with someone so precious.

Systemic Constraints

Foster care is a system full of constraints. There are the legal ones and the social ones and the physical ones. Regardless of good intentions, anyone choosing to be a foster parent will have to recognize, acknowledge, work within, make the system fit their actual circumstances and do the best they can without ever being able to end the constraints. It is fraught with problems.

The foster care system is simply corrupt. As a foster parent, you can’t change it from the inside. There are those that would love to just burn it all down but it is too overwhelming and entrenched to make any difference. Better to acknowledge as a foster parent that you are not special nor are you are privileged enough to change anything.

No matter what you do, if you have a corrupt social worker, they can and will do whatever they want to. A parent should not have to fight Child Protective Services or the Department of Human Services to regain custody of their own kids. Foster caregivers should not have to fight these same large bureaucratic agencies. Those seeking a kinship solution for their young family members should not have to fight the system. But all of these do and often fail to achieve success.

One foster parent recently shared her own perspective informed by direct experience – These agencies had an premeditated, well executed plan in place, before they even let her know what was happening. They made it where she, the agency she works through and the kids’ parents have no way to stop the forward trajectory of that plan expected to culminate in adoption. And she has tried and pulled out all the stops in defense of this family.

She now has a plan to show up at the court house with these 4 kids and their parents in order to try to beg and plead with the judge to intervene. She acknowledges that at this point, the judge is the only one that can stop the removal of these children from their parents and the permanent termination of those parents’ rights to their own offspring.

She explains the damage she saw when she took the children to visit their parents. The expectation was for a long afternoon filled with swimming, music, cooking and fun. Yet the devastation in the parents overwhelmed the prospect of a joyful occasion. All she saw in the parents’ eyes were tears, sadness, worry, defeat, anger, hopelessness and confusion. These emotions infected the children. The mom, dad and brothers spent most of their time together crying off and on. These children face that permanent end to their natural familial relationships in only a couple of days. It weighed heavily on every one in the family.

It is a helpless, angry, sad, worried, and defeated feeling. This foster mom had to drive by the local Department of Human Services in her way back out of town after this visit. She admits to having felt so distraught that if she had had a lighter and some gasoline, she would have been tempted to burned the place to the ground.

She judges that none of this okay but that this is the foster care system – corruption, an abuse of power and the application of a kind of oppression that traumatizes the children and their parents. As a foster parent, she experiences a lack of support and compassion from the system. It is her feeling that they don’t care about families. She believes monetary issues based on a for profit adoption model are what matters in this case.

Admittedly, this is the story of a poor family with 10 children. The issue here is with the 4 youngest who are babies or toddlers. This age group of children is easy to place for adoption because there is more demand to adopt babies than a supply of such children.

Her feelings are such that she warns people thinking about becoming foster parents to just don’t. Do not be part of the problem. She warns that if you are, then you are participating in a corrupt system that intentionally tears families apart. Not to be deluded into thinking you will be one of the “good ones” who is going to change anything. The system doesn’t care about the foster parent and they have no power within it. The system will trample on a foster parent, just like it tramples on everyone else.

If there were no foster homes and child welfare agencies, then there would be billions of $$ available to create family supports for everything from abuse to addiction and everything in between. There would be no harm and resources would be plentifully available for struggling parents.

Need convincing monetary issues are involved in people becoming foster parents ?

Let’s suggest a realistic figure of $77/day/child for foster parents. $77 times 30 days = $2,121/month/kid. If there are 3 kids being fostered that is $6,363/month total. If the foster care lasts for a year then that is $76,356. And it isn’t unusual for a foster home to house as many as 6 kids for a year, netting these people $152,712 for that year. It is easy to see that providing foster care can be considered a good way to make one’s living. And this calculation doesn’t even begin to factor in the money the whole adoption industry makes providing children to hopeful adoptive parents.

The number of child welfare workers known to lie to kids and their parents, or withhold information from them, in the effort to prevent a reunification within the natural family, is appalling to those with direct knowledge. This is a system that needs to change but for which any change seems impossible to achieve.

An Abuse Of Power

The problem does not only happen in the United States and abusive Social Workers go back to the very beginning. A documentary in 2019 depicted social workers’ repeatedly attempting to seize a Maori baby from its mother shortly after birth.

A new report has accused the New Zealand government’s child services agency with inhumane practices over the removal of children from Indigenous families. There are currently 5 investigations underway.

The report details what families describe as racial profiling, widespread fear among Māori families that their children will be taken away, and abuses of power by social workers. It details incidents in which armed police, with dogs, were sent to seize babies from their families. It is the first report in decades actually conducted by the Māori into a system in which Māori are vastly over-represented.

Sadly, these women’s babies have been taken into custody over the degree of cleanliness in their homes, over their past records even though they have changed their behavior, and due to any gang affiliations in their former partners.

The report has also accused the agency of not allowing extended Māori families to care for children – an established cultural practice – when relatives thought that was the best option.

Māori children make up about 65% of children in state care – the Māori people only comprise 16.5% of New Zealand’s population. Māori leaders hope in their meetings with Jacinda Ardern to now allow Māori communities to now develop their own solutions to care for their children.

Young and Foolish

There is a raging debate in an adoption group I belong to over what it is like to be young and foolish causing one not to be a good mother. Part of the debate has to do with how much time it could take for a 21 yr old, unsupported and drug addicted, partying mother to get her act together. Fortunately, the baby in question that was taken by Child Protective Services is currently in place with a relative who has worked hard to keep the child in contact with the mother and wants to maintain family care for the infant so that the child can know the child’s grandmother, great-grandmother and other extended family.

I wasn’t a good mother when I was in my early twenties. I gave birth at 19 and was divorced by age 23. My marriage had involved drug use. My perspective was still wild and free and partying. I did manage to hold down a job and pay rent but I struggled financially, often going to my mom for inadequate $20 handouts and had an ex-husband who refused to pay child support because he believed I would just party on that money. He never seemed to give any consideration to the cost of child care, pediatricians, much less food and clothing.

So, in desperation I took my child to her paternal grandmother (not expecting my parents to approve of my plan to head out on an 18-wheel truck in order to make some real money). Eventually, her father remarried a woman with a child and they conceived another child together. This ended my plan to come back and continue to raise my daughter because I could not give her the family he could and I was still struggling financially.

I am totally in favor of maintaining family ties when a young mother isn’t mature enough or financially sound enough to support her child. Adoption by strangers should ALWAYS be the absolute last resort. Eventually, I matured. I married a man when I was 33 and we went on to have two sons together. I truly had felt like a failure at parenting. I was simply too young and too unsupported to have done better. I know now that was the truth of it.

The Fallacy of Temporary Care

My maternal grandmother and I both share a sad fact – we sought temporary care for our daughter – only to see that need for financial support and an inability to provide adequately for the basic needs of our child turn into a permanent situation.

My grandmother walked into a trap when in total desperation she took my mom to Porter Leath Orphanage for temporary care. That is a staff member of the orphanage holding my mom in the photo above. Georgia Tann got her hooks into my mom and was never going to let her go until she was placed with a repeat, paying customer.

In my case, I took my daughter to her paternal grandmother for temporary care while I tried to boost my financial foundation. However, her dad remarried a woman with a child and then they had another child together. I was not inclined to interrupt a situation that I could not better in my own circumstances.

Do I regret leaving her ? Absolutely. I knew nothing about the trauma separating a child from their natural mother causes. My parents were both adoptees – that meant they had been separated from their own mothers. I simply lacked the knowledge or understanding to know that I might be causing any kind of harm to the child I loved more than anyone else in the world.

The reality is – for both my maternal grandmother and for my own self – we lost physical (in my grandmother’s case – legal) custody of our children. Nothing changes reality but I can and do share what I have learned about the implications.

Separation Anxiety

Reading about the childcare crisis in America has me reliving my own experiences in the early 1970s as a young mother. The situation is not new. A lot of research into the effects of separating very young children from their mother is now available.

This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.

Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites — the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and — especially in young children — wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.

“The effect is catastrophic,” said Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School. “There’s so much research on this that if people paid attention at all to the science, they would never do this.”

And yet, in many families, whether due to low income, a single parent household or other factors, children as young as infants must be cared for by some person other than their parents, whether the couple is fortunate enough to afford a nanny or commercial childcare is the only choice. In the luckiest families, there is a grandmother or aunt who is able, willing and loving to step in.

Suggestions for managing anxiety are to allow at least some preparation time before the necessary separation. One is to listen to your child’s words of fear. I remember one family style daycare I had placed my daughter within. She loved it – at first. Then, she started exhibiting upset around going there. One morning after dropping her off and going to work, it troubled me so much that I went back to check on her. Through the door with a window on top, I could see her being bullied by an older child and there were no adults in sight to intervene. I removed her right then and found a private home, a woman with a child who wanted a companion for her only child. My daughter was never better cared for than when she was in that situation.

A few other suggestions include sharing with the child where it is you are going. Better yet, allow them to visit your workplace so they have a realistic idea of the circumstances and the lack of other children in that place. Build in your child a realistic expectation of when you will return, how long you will be gone and when possible an exact time the child can expect you to re-appear.

Give a hug but be pragmatic about the necessity that you will have to leave for awhile. Be gentle and calm, but clear and focused.