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Admiralty Flag posted:Sorry for dumping on this thread. I didn't know about this thread (though I should have guessed there was one because we're all Olds now) until I just found it. But I feel a little better unburdening myself to others who have an idea of the difficulties in this. I can't help directly, but I understand the guilt. We have only taken in newborns (and a handful of toddlers for a week respite or temporary care) so we haven't had to deal with the violent fits you describe. That was one decision my husband and I made, since we already had bio kids in the house, to only take in newborns or very small babies. It was a purely selfish move, we didn't want the potential for violence or acting out on our kids from foster kids who have already experienced that level of trauma. Our latest foster placement's mother got pregnant literally as soon as she could after our foster daughter's birth, so there was a baby brother in the mix much earlier than anyone expected. My husband and I didn't agree on if we would take him in, as we already had 4 kids total. I felt such immense guilt, having heard all the stories of siblings lost in the system and such, that I insisted we take him in. I am an stay-at-home mom and I convinced myself handing 5 small kids, ages 6 and under, was totally doable. But he didn't come to us as a newborn, he was 4 months old with all kinds of issues from being with the bio parents for so long. He needed a helmet, he was HUGE (massive head, massive belly, no tummy time so he was a little lump of constantly hungry baby), he had thrush, he had digestive issues because the bio family was feeding him solids and fruit juice and stuff, he had major sleep issues (the bio family didn't have a crib, he slept in a carseat on the couch which is why he needed a helmet for his flat head) - he just needed a LOT of care. And I had to admit after a week of caring for him, I was not prepared mentally or physically. And it wasn't fair to anyone else in the household, I had a responsibility to them too to be the best person I could be and give them proper attention as well. So we had him removed and placed with another family, an amazing family. Now the siblings have regular playdates, they go to each others' birthdays, and everyone is committed to keeping these kids in each others' lives. Not only in fairness to the children, but I think in small part to alleviate the massive guilt I feel about the situation, that I wasn't "strong" enough to keep the kids together. Being a foster parent means we are already emotional people, we feel empathy and love for strangers and do our very best for them. And when we can't be the end-all, be-all solution for their problems, we are likely to feel that immense guilt that comes with being an empathetic person. My only advice is to provide a lifeline and provide information for the new foster family, gauge their interest in your being a part of his life, and doing the absolute best you can under the circumstances to be there for him. If they are cool with you being in his life still, maybe take him bowling or do random fun stuff like a fun uncle or aunt would. Go to birthday celebrations and bring gifts. As much as you and his new foster family (and he, of course) feel comfortable with. As foster parents we are lighthouses in the middle of the storm, we are solid ground in an otherwise shaky world, and even if you can't keep him in your care the presence in his life could provide a small sense of stability he might otherwise not find.
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Feb 11, 2019 21:59
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:32 |
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So I have a question on what to say to my cousin, who became a foster parent about 6 months ago. She never approached fostering with an intent to adopt, and was pretty lax about the ages/sexes of the kids she took in. There were some sibling sets, some kids acted out, and she has had a rotating cast of kids over these past 6 months. But one little girl who was placed with her stood out for whatever reason, and my cousin intended to adopt her. We all know the folly of wishing something like that. The little girl is 6 years old with tons of relatives, and her biological father and mother both appealed when the parental reunification services were terminated and she was (potentially) on track for the parental rights to be terminated and be eligible for adoption. It was messy, but I was nothing but supportive of her hopes to adopt her. And then something happened with some of the other kids in her care. Some accusations were made, and I guess those kids had their day in court recently and their accusations were heard and the determination was to remove the 6 year old from her care. I have no idea what the accusations were, if they are true or false, or what legal right my cousin might have to fight for the little girl. I guess I mostly needed to vent, if I was her and had my hopes set on adopting I would have stopped taking in other kids and focused solely on her case. I don't really know what to say to her about it, our own foster/adopt stories have been pretty uneventful and cleancut. She has just a few days left with this little girl, who will likely be moved to a different foster home. Will she even have the ability to stay in touch with the little girl? Does she have any rights to remain in contact whatsoever, or is it all up to the caseworker? I suspect if there are abuse charges towards my cousin, they wouldn't allow contact, but then why wait 7 days to remove her from her care? I guess any advice on what to say, or if I should say anything at all, would be much appreciated. We don't live close or anything, all our communication has been via text save an in-person lunch a few weeks ago with her and her foster kids when they were in town. Fostering has been the common thread that brought us together as family members. I have to wonder if after this experience she is done with fostering, which would be a bummer.
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Mar 14, 2019 07:34
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Kodilynn posted:We also found out last night that there are 0 foster homes open in our entire county. We're the only ones who can take emergency placements in a very large radius which blew our minds. The placements they did find for the 3 littles were 90 miles away and needed time to sort them out with emergency approvals. The entire retention issue for finding foster parents in our state is 100% lack of available state resources when most adults work and can't just quit for kids full time unfortunately. This is what completely and totally blows my mind about the system - it is so hostile to current lifestyle realities that it is nearly impossible for people to become foster parents. I am a throwback, a stay-at-home mom and we survive on my husband's income. I was available to drive to all the random appointments, and visitations, and handle home visits, and all the other crap that comes with being foster parents. On top of all the regular stuff that you need to do with small children. There is so little support, so little resources, that when I try to talk to people about our journey and maybe inspire someone to take it on they just shut down when they hear how much work it is. And then, not to get too political, when I hear about adoption agencies turning away same-sex couples or atheists or whatever and I just think there are so few homes for kids already why are we creating even more hurdles for kids to find forever homes?! I wish all those resources were at the ready and the logistical problems so many people have were dealt with in a common sense way to make people more open to the foster/adoption journey. I sometimes wonder if this might be my "thing" after my littlest one is in school and I have a few hours a day to myself again. Advocating for more federal and state funding, though I would have no idea where to begin...
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Apr 20, 2019 06:55
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(I have posted about our story in the thread before, so apologies if this is a rerun for y'all) I grew up an only child with an alcoholic father and a co-dependent mother who worked full-time. I was left in the day-to-day care of my drunk dad, who was on/off the wagon for my entire childhood. Frankly, DCFS should have taken me away a few times but I survived and escaped. When I got married and discussed having children, I made it very clear to my husband that I wanted to foster/adopt to help kids in a similar situation to my own. And I wanted lots of kids, because I remember the loneliness of being an only child. We had two bio kids, and then agreed to foster/adopt. We asked for infants, to not disrupt the birth order and for our kids to all grow up together with the same memories and experiences. We took in my son at 11 days old, straight from the NICU, and my bio daughter was a little over a year while my bio son was 3. It was tough, having 3 little ones, but they only really started asking about his bio family or different colored skin when he was around 4. Because he has been with us since birth, they simply don't know any better. It's like I gave birth to him without the gestation. Same with my little girl, we're just waiting on her adoption finalization. We took her home from the hospital and she's now 2. She's only known us as family, her bio family stopped doing visits over a year ago. It really all depends on how you approach fostering. We never called our placements "brother" or "sister" because they could be taken at any moment and I didn't want to promise that kind of relationship to my kids to have it severed without notice or cause, so we call them "friends" instead. We watched that kind of trauma with some old friends, their daughter called every placement brother or sister and all were eventually reunited with bio family. She eventually asked her parents when she would be removed, since all her siblings were gone. We talked about how their bio families were sick and need help raising our friends. And when we adopt we say we are able to grow up with them forever. It's messy, and they still aren't old enough to question everything, but we are starting to hear questions about where the bio families are and stuff. We'll just roll with it as it comes, and I do hope to reach out to the bio family someday for them to have relationships. This is a pretty open group, we talk about all aspects of the process and can help if you have further questions. I am endlessly frustrated at the way people dismiss the idea of fostering without a second thought, but I understand how difficult this whole thing can be. When poo poo gets rough, I just think of these poor kids and how they literally have no control over their situations.
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Apr 25, 2019 19:41
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Mocking Bird posted:Those events are weird as gently caress but it sounds like you did your best to acknowledge and be authentic about it, which is what I always tell families I work with My friend, former CSW who now works in private adoption for older kids, would often take a day before and a day after those events to mentally prepare then decompress. I can only imagine what a toll those events take, especially for kids who have never experienced it before. We have 4 little ones in a very full house right now, but eventually as my kids grow up and move out I hope I am in a position to either foster again or adopt older kids. On our current adoption journey, apparently there is some kind of "backlog" in the state (maybe from the government shutdown?) so we don't have a finalization date yet. Which is hilarious, we signed the adoption placement papers back on August 31st. Fingers crossed we finalize soon! We're in a weird grey area, no longer a certified foster family but not yet legal adoptive parents. I don't like this uncertainty, I just want it to be done for everyone's peace of mind.
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May 7, 2019 06:49
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Heads up - there's a documentary on the Los Angeles County foster care system on HBO tonight. It's called FOSTER, and it's exactly as hard to watch as you think. I hope it inspires a few people to learn about foster care, there are only so many foster homes and our numbers are dwindling.
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May 8, 2019 04:27
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So over a year after bio parents lost their parental rights, we finally have a finalization date! June 10th she will officially, legally be our daughter! In other news, her bio little brother went to court today with their foster parents. I warned them of the slow pace of the system, how not to get their hopes up, to assume the worst and celebrate the best...and they still went into court today expecting everything to go their way. There were classic "notification issues" and their termination of parental rights hearing was pushed back 6 weeks. Obviously, they are devastated, but I had to remind them that little dude goes home with them today and he is safe, secure and on track to be theirs forever.
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May 23, 2019 02:32
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Today we finalized our adoption of our foster daughter! We went to Chuck E Cheese after, because she loves that place, and her bio little brother was able to join us. His foster family is waiting on the termination of parental rights for him so they can proceed to adopt, it's their first rodeo and they are so wound up about it. I try to tell them to relax and enjoy every day with him, but sometimes you just have to let people feel their feelings. No one ever really relaxed when someone told them to "just relax" about anything. Hang in there, other foster families! With both of our adoptions, our children were born meth-positive and were temporary placements. Both are happy, healthy, and each took over 2 years to progress from placement to adoption. It can happen, even if it feels like it never will.
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Jun 11, 2019 08:55
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We finalized our 2-year old daughter's adoption in April, we celebrated her bio brother's 2nd birthday last weekend...and we just found out her second little brother was born earlier this week. The other foster family has been keeping tabs on the bio parents through public records and such, and they never got any indication the bio mother was pregnant again. I was never notified by DCFS of the birth, they were never notified, and through some investigative work on our end tonight we learned DCFS picked up the baby from the hospital yesterday and he's in a placement right now. And neither of us ever got one phone call. THIS is why I advise people to always keep a friendly line of communication open with the bio family. A random text from bio grandma informed me of the "happy" news, otherwise I may never have known he was born. We aren't clear if he is a full sibling or not to the two other children, but it doesn't really matter. He's their brother and we now are going to do our very best to make sure they are all in each other's lives. If this keeps up, it will be a full-time job juggling the contacts and schedules of all these kids. I am not really sure how I feel, emotionally. I am happy we know about him, and I hope he is happy and healthy and in a safe place to thrive, but it's just another notch on the statistical belt for this woman and she's in her early 20s. We may be dealing with this for decades. I am not sure if I am emotionally or physically ready for that, but it's not about me. It's about my daughter. And she deserves to know her bio family, no matter what.
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Nov 16, 2019 10:16
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We adopted our foster daughter last April, and just today we learned her full bio little brother was finally adopted by his foster family. We've been having visitations with him, we are fully committed to having these kids in each others' lives for as long as we are able, and we stay in touch regularly. They are less than a year apart in age and we all live in the same big city. There was another sibling, born last fall - the bio mom's 3rd in 3 years to be taken into the system. Apparently he was born without a finger or an extra finger or something, and he also only has one kidney. We've not been kept in the loop thanks to a broken system, I never even knew who to ask or if it was my place to pry. We don't even know if he's a full sibling or half. Considering how close we are trying to keep the other full siblings we really want to try to get this little brother into the mix. Apparently, with the one kidney he is considered medically fragile, and for some reason he is being placed with the bio family. The same bio family that were unable to care for the other siblings, who have never passed a home inspection and actively resisted all efforts by DCFS to locate bio mom for meetings or comply with DCFS orders. So of course my mom-hackles get raised, and I am worried loving sick for this little boy. If they couldn't care for two perfectly healthy little kids, how the hell are they able to care for one with medical needs? Tonight I got contact info for the child's lawyer, and I really want to press to get as much information as possible. Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this to glean the most information I can? I don't think there's any way in hell I can take in this sibling, I already have 4 at home so properly caring for a medically fragile kid scares the crap out of me. But he is her family and he deserves to be taken care of, it's not his fault he is in this situation, so I hope to help as best I can. Is it really as simple as not being able to find a long-term foster family who can take in a medically fragile kid, so they return him to the bio family and cross their fingers?
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Jul 8, 2020 07:51
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VorpalBunny posted:Tonight I got contact info for the child's lawyer, and I really want to press to get as much information as possible. Just a quick update, I finally made contact with the lawyer assigned to the baby's case. It turns out DCFS is doing their usual reunification process of vetting the bio family. The family failed it with our daughter, they failed it with her brother, and they will likely fail this as well. I know much of the baby's case is confidential, so the laywer could not verify if the foster family is also interested in being the adoptive family or what his specific medical condition is. But she did confirm there are medical issues at play and she gave me the name and contact number for a social worker attached to the case. Please understand, I am not reveling in the bio family's misery. There is simply a long history of domestic violence and literal kidnapping, and as this baby is medically fragile I question the bio family's ability to care for him. If they have truly gotten their stuff together and follow DCFS guidelines, then I am 100% on board with family visitations with them and everything. But they literally kidnapped our daughter's bio brother and held him out of DCFS' reach for a month before DCFS was able to recover him. When we took him in he had thrush, a mis-shaped head due to sleeping in a carseat on a couch instead of a crib, and he had major digestive issues because he was 2 months old and being fed solids. I have the number for the baby's DCFS social worker and left her a message, and will follow up every few days until we make contact. We had a zoom playdate with the other adopted brother, and the family mentioned the bio mom is back in jail and placed somewhere with medical facilities. They get all this information from public searchable databases, but we don't know if she needs medical care for rehab/detox or if she's pregnant again. Or both. I guess we'll find out in a few months with a surprise text from the bio grandma, if it's the latter! The roller coaster ride continues...
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Jul 28, 2020 23:59
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VorpalBunny posted:The roller coaster ride continues... I figured I would continue to post about our situation, since maybe it will help people in similar situations or provide an anecdote for someone. The social worker reached out to me today and we discussed the baby's case at length. Where the lawyer was held to confidentiality issues, the social worker clearly was not as she was very free with the information she shared with me. I started out by introducing myself and had to immediately correct her information as she thought I had adopted both bio siblings. I also offered to fill her in on some backstory for the bio family, and she confessed she had NO INFORMATION on the bio family so far. She had no history of the family with DCFS, had no idea of their prior actions or anything. I felt a little scummy telling her everything we have experienced with this family. While it's important to convey the facts, I didn't want to be the person to derail any progress they might have made in the past year or so. But, I had to be honest and made clear I have no ill will toward the family. At the end of the conversation, she thanked me for all the information and promised to put me in touch with the foster family (who have apparently had the baby since he was discharged from the hospital) so we can connect with them. She also confirmed bio mom has had no contact with her, so cannot verify if she is in rehab or pregnant (or both!). I wish I could say it shocked me that she had no idea the history of the bio family and hadn't reached out to either us or the other adoptive family to set up visitation between the siblings or anything. It is a fundamentally broken system, with overworked social workers and insufficient resources and arbitrary rules. I will say I am pretty happy to have gotten this far, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel in getting these kids together.
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Jul 30, 2020 00:05
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I just read an article on the LA Foster system that they are desperately seeking beds for the unaccompanied migrant youth coming over the border. We haven't been certified in LA County in over 2 years, since we adopted our littlest rugrat, and technically we are full with 4 kids in 2 bedrooms. BUT my husband and I are willing to reopen our home for temporary shelter for anyone who needs a bed. Is anyone here based in Los Angeles who can verify the call for beds, and help us figure out if emergency certification is a thing? We'd hate to waste months going through training again, the house is essentially as it was left 2 years ago. Locks are on cabinets, we'd have to lock the knives away again, and we'd have to move a bunch of toys to put in new bunk beds or cribs or whatever. But, we are willing to do it. So, how can we help? I put feelers out to our old contacts at the foster agency, as well as our most recent County social worker, but with Covid protocols people aren't in their offices and I don't know who to call. Thanks in advance for any help y'all can give!
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Mar 24, 2021 22:11
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Mocking Bird posted:Do you speak Spanish? Because that's usually who they are desperately seeking in those circumstances. I did not know that, about the 4 kids in a room bit! I have 4 already so I could take in 2 more, but yeah it's the training that would suck to have to do all over again. I hope there's some kind of emergency authorization thing they can do, all that paperwork takes so much time. I get why it's important, the car review and the doctor's records and all that. If this is truly an emergency, I'm hoping they will bypass that stuff and do an in-home inspection for temporary status. I reached out to DCFS, our old private agency, and two other private agencies. They all pointed me in circles, but one place apparently has been doing these kinds of cases with the county so I hope they get back to me tomorrow. With everyone I spoke to today, I said I didn't want to start the foster certification process all over again but that if there was an emergency service I could offer then keep us in mind. We just don't have the time or resources to be full-time long-term foster parents, but I can't just stand by and do nothing. None of these social workers saw any alarm bells or heard of any massive influx of new kids, which made me a little angry for falling for hysterical media coverage but also grateful to put our names out into the world. Maybe HHS will resolve everything quickly?  And no, I don't speak Spanish but my kids are all in a DI program and could translate a bit if needed.
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Mar 25, 2021 04:28
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:32 |
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Thread got quiet. We haven't been foster parents aka resource families for a few years, but I happened to chat with a County Social Worker here in Los Angeles and what she told me was very sobering. You know how everyone went out and adopted dogs during the pandemic and then when they started going back into the office the dogs have all been turned into shelters and there is an overwhelming numbers of dogs back in the shelter system? Yeah, it's happening with foster care as well. She is seeing a shocking amount of turnover, sometimes for the smallest, most minor behavioral issues. One family asked for a child to be rehomed because he wasn't "grateful" enough. She trained these people, she has worked with them through the pandemic, she cries all the time and is on the verge of quitting because of this behavior from foster families. I was stunned, but then I realized the pandemic really has brought out the worst in people somehow and maybe she was experiencing that in a very unfortunate way.
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Nov 8, 2021 08:18
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