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Sorry for my bluntness on the title, but it is really how I feel
Please, please, please If you are a foster parent/caseworker/etc don't treat the children's lifebooks like what we have all heard about/seen their clohting and belongings (in a trash bag)
Even as I was working with so many people on-line to create lifebooks, and even some local foster parents, our foster-to-adopt girls adoption caseworker insisted that she wanted to do it herself.
Well she came to 'present' them to the girls this week.
what is wrong with them:
On the children's level - she didn't take ANY time to tell their store, where they had lived, gone to school, anything - only picture of the prior foster home with the address labeled but not even that it was a foster home and when they lived there!
On a mom and scrapbooker level - the pages that were used were construction paper that was three hole punched. (majority of construction paper is not acid free, page protector sheets really don't cost much at all)
a few pictures where put in - but aren't labeled
a large packet of papers were xeroxed about feeling and such - but she couldn't even copy them straight!
and so much more, no family info, no sibling info, not even pictures of biodads (one of which she has visited 4 times - couldn't bother to snap a picture!?!?!?)
According to the worker these books are suppossedly 'done' however many of the pictures weren't even adhered they were in the front pocket of the 3 ring binder used for the lifebook.
I don't expect people to spend hours and hours working on these individual pages to make them graphic art pieces. But please remember that this is all these children have of their life before adoption.
Stepping down and trying to calm down
Diane
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I would LOVE to make a lifebook for my 3 fost-adopt kids, as was suggested in my PRIDE class, and there were even some xeroxed pages suggesting how it would look. BUT, will my agency let me see their file? No. Do they have a single picture of any of their previous placements, of birth parents, of their siblings? No. Do my children have any real timeline in their heads as to where they were when and with whom? No. All in the name of confidentiality. So much for the Foster Parent Law, and so much for the Adoption Act! I did go over their heads, and hope to get some movement on this without suing them. SO annoying! It is just amazing me to me how little respect the system shows foster children, and foster parents. How on earth am I to meet their needs effectively without this basic information? It really is absurd. I cannot imagine a worker taking the time to do so much as a page of a lifebook, honestly. Which is really such a sad statement.
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Oh yeah the confidentiality BS! Did any social worker/ legislator that thinks that is a good idea when then the child ask what the bio parent looks like and the foster care/adoptive parent has no clue hold the child as they cry????
My oldest foster daughter (8) has lived in 11 different places - TO HER COUNT! ! ! Heaven knows how many the real count is. I STILL don't have an 'offical' timeline from the workers though.
The thing that sucks is that I know there are workers who do know how to do this right and are actively working to do so. My agency (private non-profit that contracts with the state) has a gal who spends almost all of her time 'preparing' kids for adoption and she does the lifebooks with the kids, takes the time to research pictures etc.
Unfortuantely the county that our girls are with doesn't want our private agency doing the 'prep'
I am interested in any 'creative' ways of getting older pictures of kids . . . I did call our older dtrs school to see if there were any pictures available in her file, they said no, there were none (if they were there they weren't sure if they could copy them for me - but they were kind enough to start by seeing if they were available).
90% of our local schools use the same portrait studio for school pics, I am thinking I may try a few calls to see if they have anyway of getting the old pics.
I was appalled at reading what happened to you! I'm working on a book for my foster kids right now. As for their before Jan 10th when they came to live with us....we know very very very little! We are their first foster home and its their first time in the system. Their bmom has had little to no contact with the SW and bdad is in prison. The only memory they mention is dad's arrest. That one memory seems to have overridden anything else in their past. So I've just done the pages of life post 1/10. We had a birthday party for one, Chuck E Cheese, various exciting moments. Although doing 4 books at a time is definitely time consuming. I know if they leave w/o much notice, they won't have equal books.
As for writing about when they came here, I've got it down in my journal, but I'm not sure how much to put in their books yet. I know that if they go home, their bparents will NOT want those things in there. They'd keep the picture stuff I'm sure. Its highly possible they will stay with us forever, so then I would add more stuff.
What do you suggest for foster parents?!
Shannon