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Hi! My name is TJ and I have been a foster parent for almost 4 years. I have been through the good times, the heartbreaks, the let-downs, the smiles, the tears, and the fears...
This is my first post... I have been doing a lot of reading on the forum, and because of what I have read, I feel the need to remind everyone of something...
When we took those classes and decided to open our homes and hearts to these children, we put our hearts on the line. The overwhelming truth of the matter is that although we love these children as our own, they are not our children.
If you want a child that is yours to keep, it is best to go straight adoption. Then you will receive a child whose parental rights have been terminated. But when you are a foster parent... and yes, even a fost adopt parent, you have to face the reality that regardless as to what the parents past transgressions may be, these are their children. It's almost unfair to the kids to cry and despair about the possibility of them being returned to their bio family (whether it be mom, dad, or any other bio family member). At the end of the day, those of us who are foster parents are there to love, nurture, and take care of these children until they are returned to their bio family. Regardless as to what their mom/dad has done, whether or not an aunt/grandma/uncle/cousin has been there or shown interest or not, those people are their family and they deserve the right to raise those children just as much as you feel that it is your right.
If it is your goal to extend your family through foster care, I am not trying to sway you, but the awesome reality of it is that you need to be prepared for the day most likely when the children are returned to their family.
It is a serious and painful job. Please do not take it lightly.
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Committed Soul, I do think we will have contact with the biofamilies of future kiddos we foster, generally speaking it is encouraged and its something we're very open to doing. However, it is with good reason that we are not supposed to have contact with our current kids' bioparents. And I certainly respect the caseworker's decision to limit and document all the contact we do have. If the case goes to reunification, we will be asking to PLEASE be allowed to have conversation with the bios as it will be in the best interest of our kids at that point.
hkolln
Your statement was very closed minded towards family. I wonder why that is?
committedsoul
I'm originally from Newark, NJ and I have had to let kids go to bio homes that had roaches and rats and where I knew there were some questionable family members.
It sounds great to have relationships with the bfamilies and be able to have contact after reunification, but my (admittedly limited) experience with bfamilies is that they aren't the kind of people I want to associate with, a couple have seemed okay, and now that I think of it those were bparents of purely-foster kids, but most have had scary psychological, behavior and addiction problems. The kids I've had that were in the fost-adopt category have the families that a person wouldn't want contact with.
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Boulderbabe
I work well with bio families and support them getting the kids back if they can address the issues that brought the kids into care. But there is no way on planet earth I'd support letting a kid go into a home where there were roaches and rats! And as for questionable family members----if those family members are drug users, child molesters, or people with a history of violent behavior, there's no way I would support a child going anywhere where those people were.
Sorry, but I think there's a baseline for reunification, and the situations you describe don't meet it.
posted by hkollnYour statement was very closed minded towards family. I wonder why that is? I know we all see things through the lens of our own experience. So here is my personal reason for being opposed to family placements, and I'm sure this isn't totally unique. My son came to me because there was no-one suitable in the family willing and able to take on his special needs. His younger brother and sister DID go to family. And what family has been doing is allowing the bio mother to have free, unsupervised contact whenever she wants. The family they are with are good, caring, loving people - but on this issue they really don't have the best judgement. And since they are relatives of HER they are consistently bad mouthing the bio dad. This upsets the heck out of my son, that they are going to grow up with a very one sided view, and that they are continuously being influenced by a person he regards as dangerous (and he's right, in my opinion). Not to mention how much it hurts that family 'wanted' the little ones but dont' "want" HIM. Family placements CAN be the absolute WORST thing, because they sometimes do not allow the child a clean break from all the ugliness they have experienced.
Boulderbabe
I'm not closed-minded against family members. But I have seen too many kids placed with relatives that were really questionable to be totally in favor of relative placements. I have also seen too many kids ripped out of homes where they had been for months or years and where they were really attached, just so they could be sent to some distant relative they'd never seen before. A family connection is great. But it is not the most important thing in considering a child's best interests, and it shouldn't trump the child's interest in stability or psychological well-being. Genetics is not everything.
Guys...it's a heated topic and that's fine:)
Key points to remember please...
1. Keep the generalizations out and speak directly from your experience.
2. Everyone's personal experience within the system is different, as we all know. So what one of us experiences or does isn't necessarily what others would do. Maybe try to see points of view from everyone's experience not just your own.
Keep posting respectfully, Thanks!
stevenstwin
posted by hkolln
Your statement was very closed minded towards family. I wonder why that is?
I know we all see things through the lens of our own experience. So here is my personal reason for being opposed to family placements, and I'm sure this isn't totally unique. My son came to me because there was no-one suitable in the family willing and able to take on his special needs. His younger brother and sister DID go to family. And what family has been doing is allowing the bio mother to have free, unsupervised contact whenever she wants. The family they are with are good, caring, loving people - but on this issue they really don't have the best judgement. And since they are relatives of HER they are consistently bad mouthing the bio dad. This upsets the heck out of my son, that they are going to grow up with a very one sided view, and that they are continuously being influenced by a person he regards as dangerous (and he's right, in my opinion). Not to mention how much it hurts that family 'wanted' the little ones but dont' "want" HIM. Family placements CAN be the absolute WORST thing, because they sometimes do not allow the child a clean break from all the ugliness they have experienced.
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stevenstwin
posted by hkollnFamily placements CAN be the absolute WORST thing, because they sometimes do not allow the child a clean break from all the ugliness they have experienced.
This is a very interesting thread. Here's my take. I've been lucky to only work with one birth family. All 3 of my kids are related. When I accepted placement #2, I told the birth mom, when do you plan on getting him back? She told me right away. I was glad, because I really want this woman to get her life straight. She's my pumpkin's b-mom. She was close to getting Bubba back and she had a relapse. She began working her case plan again, and gave birth to Sissy. Things were looking like RU was going to happen and again, she had a relapse. The last replase was more than she could take, and she took off. Now I have all 3 kids (1 adopted, 2 foster-adopt) and we're heading to TPR. If she had gotten herself together, I would have handed back the kids. I would have cried myself silly, but I would have done it. She doesn't have any family, so I don't have to worry about people popping out of the woodwork. I have asked this woman for a letter to her oldest child (my pumpkin) so that when she's older I can help her find her b-mom. She hasn't provided it. I asked her to become a good mom for her other 2 kids. She hasn't. These are not my fault, so when I think ill of her, it is with cause. I will love these kids as if they are my own until a judge tells me to give them back to her. Until and unless that happens, I will continue to love them as my own.
vegaschristina
This is a very interesting thread. Here's my take. I've been lucky to only work with one birth family. All 3 of my kids are related. When I accepted placement #2, I told the birth mom, when do you plan on getting him back? She told me right away. I was glad, because I really want this woman to get her life straight. She's my pumpkin's b-mom. She was close to getting Bubba back and she had a relapse. She began working her case plan again, and gave birth to Sissy. Things were looking like RU was going to happen and again, she had a relapse. The last replase was more than she could take, and she took off. Now I have all 3 kids (1 adopted, 2 foster-adopt) and we're heading to TPR. If she had gotten herself together, I would have handed back the kids. I would have cried myself silly, but I would have done it. She doesn't have any family, so I don't have to worry about people popping out of the woodwork. I have asked this woman for a letter to her oldest child (my pumpkin) so that when she's older I can help her find her b-mom. She hasn't provided it. I asked her to become a good mom for her other 2 kids. She hasn't. These are not my fault, so when I think ill of her, it is with cause. I will love these kids as if they are my own until a judge tells me to give them back to her. Until and unless that happens, I will continue to love them as my own.
vegaschristina
This is a very interesting thread. Here's my take.
I've been lucky to only work with one birth family. All 3 of my kids are related. When I accepted placement #2, I told the birth mom, when do you plan on getting him back? She told me right away. I was glad, because I really want this woman to get her life straight. She's my pumpkin's b-mom.
She was close to getting Bubba back and she had a relapse. She began working her case plan again, and gave birth to Sissy. Things were looking like RU was going to happen and again, she had a relapse. The last replase was more than she could take, and she took off. Now I have all 3 kids (1 adopted, 2 foster-adopt) and we're heading to TPR. If she had gotten herself together, I would have handed back the kids. I would have cried myself silly, but I would have done it. She doesn't have any family, so I don't have to worry about people popping out of the woodwork.
I have asked this woman for a letter to her oldest child (my pumpkin) so that when she's older I can help her find her b-mom. She hasn't provided it. I asked her to become a good mom for her other 2 kids. She hasn't.
These are not my fault, so when I think ill of her, it is with cause. I will love these kids as if they are my own until a judge tells me to give them back to her. Until and unless that happens, I will continue to love them as my own.
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Hi all,
This is such an interesting thread. I'm a little bit shocked about the posters who have been told they are not allowed to have any contact with the biological parents. Where I foster, they have a program that actively encourages the development of strong relationships between foster and biological families. They require facilitated foster/bio communication within 5 days of placement. They encourage the foster families to develop personal ties with bio families, and to remain active in their lives after children are reunited. All the players (social worker, attorneys, parents, therapists) are encouraged and, in many cases, required, to work to develop these bonds. When I showed up for FP training, I had no intention of fostering, just adoption-only cases where TPR had already occurred. This program actually changed my mind.
There is such a huge difference between feeling like an outsider waiting for someone else to determine your fate, and being someone who is empowered to change it. I encourage you all to talk to your agencies about changing the way they look at foster and biological family relationships if you have been told not to talk to bio families. I think you might be able to change many lives in a very positive way.
I don't take it lightly, but I do claim them as my 'own'. WHY? because our agency asked us to intro them as ' my new son/daughter'. identifying a child as a 'foster child' can set them up for more abuse because it tends to make them a target, people realize they are 'weaker' and easier to 'get to' in some ways.