My friend Cindy, who has adopted 38 children from the foster care system, asked if she could reprint the last blog entry regarding my feelings about the current state of the foster care system. She has had several comments about that, one especially moving from her daughter Yolie and as I was planning on expanding the thougths anyway, now seems to be a good time.
In changing the foster care/adoption system, here are a few more of my thoughts/ideas:
Instead of adoption, allow children that cannot return home to stay in long term, "permanent" (meaning no moving from foster home to foster home) foster care until they reach adulthood. Allow the child to retain their name and identity and possible phone/letter contact with birth families if this is appropriate. My vision is basically what I am doing now with a few twists- my kids wouldnt have to consider me and my husband their "mom" and "dad" but instead two people who love them and want to protect them. As a "long term" foster parent it would be my GOAL to keep them until they could either return home or get out on their own, and if it is the latter, we continue to help and guide them for the rest of their lives if this is what they want. I think if it appears that a child cannot return home by their teen years that the option then be given to them if they want the long term foster parent to adopt them. Then it becomes the child's choice and not something being forced upon them. This is where I see Yolie's situation and a few of our older children's situation falling in line. Our second oldest adopted daughter has no desire to return to her birth family and is completely bonded and loyal to us. Yet with all that, she completely agrees with what I have posted. She thinks this would have made her youth easier (she is a young woman now). These kids (4 in particular- 2 of whom have caused us great pain) are extremely thankful for the fact that they did not have to grow up in the nightmare they were living in but they still love their parents and have every intent of returning to atleast tell them they love them and forgive them.
Another difference in this system would be that foster parents would have an out if need be. For children that are violent to other children or the parents, there needs to be a recourse for the parents other than being charged with abandonment by the social services system if a child is brought to either them or the justice system (we have first hand experience with this).
Third, long term foster parents should be highly screened, highly trained and well paid. Children coming from this kind of background are very destructive, they steal, they need lots of expensive therapies, interventions and even medications. Also, the long term foster relationship doesnt stop at 18, most of these kids need the help of the family until well into their young adulthood, in the case of mental retardation, forever.
Finally, respite is a huge need. I feel like I am on a sinking, exhausted ship most of the time but I cannot risk my RAD kids making up lies about us or stealing from friends if I were to ask someone to just take them for a little while..
Anyway, these are just some more of my thoughts on this issue. I welcome yours...
I found you through Cindy's sight. We have 4 adopted via the state. I agree that the system is broken. I think that your solution throws the baby out with the bath,however. I say this with my youngest son currently placed in a JJ facility for felonious assault.(me) He turns 13 tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteIt is the 3 who we always wondered if they should have been removed from their birth parents who are doing well. It is the son who should have been removed 3 yrs prior to the actual removal that wants to kill everyone involved. Perhaps permanent foster care would have worked better for him.Who would be advocating for him,though? Foster parent's hands are tied in so many ways. He may resent us,but we can at least try and get him the best help we can. At least our son experiences unconditional love-even if he rejects it.
Where would my other 3 be if we hadn't adopted them? Their foster parents were collecting a paycheck. They had no emotional investment in our kids. They didn't care if they learned to read or ride a bike. We do.
I have no answers. Our one son should not have been placed in a family with other children. He is very violent. We were lied to by cps. But,he is here now....
I have no answers. I just know that being adopted is better than a $1000 check and a handshake at age 18. We may not be the family our children wish they had-but we are their family. That has to count for something when all is said and done.
Lindy
( http://lenell.wordpress.com/)
The foster care system is indeed broken though I think what is broken varies from State to State. I am in a State where they firmly believe in reunification at all costs. In my job, I see the endless cycle of abuse and neglect as children enter foster care only to be reunited with their abusive parents, before being removed and then reunited again – a dance that goes on over and over. Seeing the cycle of abuse, neglect and reunification and then seeing these children become parents whose children are then placed into foster care, I am a bit cynical that leaving the children in these abusive environments is in their best interest. My State is actually very cautious when removing children from a harmful situation and always errs on the side of the parents. There have been way too many stories of children who had come to the attention of CPS who end up dying or suffering irreparable harm at the hands of their bio parents because CPS felt the reports were unsubstantiated. My State spends hundreds of millions of dollars trying to provide services to the bio parents, but I think loving and protecting a child is something instinctively human. If a someone does not have these traits, I am not sure any class can instill them in a person who sexually abuses their child, burns them with cigarette butts, physically abuses them so that they carry lifelong scars, starves them or locks them in closets.
ReplyDeleteI do know there is a terrible disparity between the resources the offending parents get and the support services foster and adoptive parents get. When I asked the two social workers involved in our children’s adoption if there were resources for attachment issues should they arise, they were totally clueless about what I was talking about! And I was the layman who was just trying to ensure I knew where to go should this issue and they are supposed to be the adoption experts! I am still young on the journey of adopting from foster care, so my perspective might change!
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