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I've been a lurker on this board forever and this is my first post.
I need some advice.
We have had FC in our home, mostly little babies that we know that family is on the way to take them, they have been with us for a variety of weeks and months. I am happy to have taken care of these children knowing that family is there for them.
Earlier this year, our agency asked us to take in a child a little older than our profile -- he is a toddler(we had only wanted nine months and younger). We were told that there was family working on their home study, etc and it would only be for a while.
Well, now we know that was a total misrepresentation of his situation. No family of his could come close to passing a home study, aunts, uncles themselves had lost their own children to FC .... and biodad is deceased. There is only his biomom, with an arrest record of close to 30 arrests for mostly drugs and other various felonies. Our FS is part of a sibling group not living with us. Biomom is now is in residential drug treatment program for at least three to six months. Her case plan is for drug treatment ... job security (LOL what kind of job is she going to get as a felon??? and parenting classes) Instead of jail time she gets probation and drug treatment (which of course our taxes are paying for) I am livid at our criminal justice system for letting someone like this walk the streets she has been a drug dealer/manufacture and user for at least a decade if not longer. She has skirted the system by moving around alot from state to state.
We found out that she was in jail, as there was a scheduled visit with the FS and his siblings. Bio mom did not show since she was in jail. We asked the CW what happens if she gets a long sentence, does TPR happen, what could happen... we just wanted to know. CW said that she would not know anything til the next court meeting. We left it at that.
Well... guess the CW thought we were being too involved and.....
Our SW from our agency called us and said that we are NOT allowed to know anything about the bio mom and to not try and figure out her whereabouts, etc etc and to emphasize the goal is to reunify the biomom and her kids.
We are really growing attached to this little one and have really bonded with him. If (big IF) there would be a TPR, we would love to adopt him.
SW wants to come for a visit and "talk" with us.
I am a little worried as she might want to remove him from our home. We are NOT doing anything to impede biomom.... we are just taking care of this child in the way he truly deserves.
Any suggestions as to how to handle this next visit?
I am almost ready to just tell her to give him back to his druggie mommy and let them deal with the consequences of that and fork over mega bucks to adopt.
I wanted to make a difference as a foster parent, instead we are being treated like we have done something wrong.
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We are very, very involved in what goes on this lives of our two foster childrens' parents. I would not say you were out of line. You didn't ask details related to mom, but related to your son. If you are reprimanded, perhaps you can ask her exactly what you are allowed to inquire about and simply explain you love your foster son and just want to know a timelline of the different possibilities that could happen. If they try to move him, I don't think they have grounds and you can appeal his removal. Your child has rights and should only be in care a certain number of months. Educate yourself on the laws specific to your state and use your CHILD'S rights as the "ammunition" for your questions of your cw. Good luck.
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You seem to know an awful lot about the family, both the bparents and their relatives, as well as the arrest records, etc. How did you find out that information, if it was from the CW then why would the CW talk to the SW? If you have been investigating the family on your own, then perhaps that is what is bothering the CW.
When I adopted my daughter I was allowed to look through her file and request copies of paperwork I found interesting, but I was not allowed to have any copies of homestudies of family members. So there are apparently some privacy rules in place regarding the families of the children. Other than the homestudy info I don't know what is allowed or not allowed.
Everything was given to us in his casefile, the entire family history that was taken by the CW. This is the "version" of his life by the CW as well as prior records of Social Services involvement with his family.
Everytime there is an addition to his casefile, we have to add it to this binder.
Every record for a doctor's appointment or a school note all goes in there.
We were told that we needed to read through this by our agency. They said it would give us the "story" of our FS life.
We found out about the arrest from the CW, she told us she was in jail and did not attend his latest visit.
In our state we can look up anyone in the county jail. This is public record and anyone could search the county website for this information. It gave us basic details of her arrest and subsequent plea bargain.
Was it wrong for me to look her up? Maybe a little freaky to check it out? But not wrong.
Again, we are just looking our for our FS and what is best for him. If the state feels otherwise, then we will have to abide by that. His bio mom has until the end of the year to work her plan. She has only begun this and NOT due to any action on her part, she got arrested and placed into drug rehab. I do not think she would of done rehab voluntarily. She was being very non compliant for four months.
I hate feeling powerless.
IMHO, knowing as much as possible about the situation our FS came from helps us be better parents to him--and the state is required to tell us everything they know. (We're pre-adoptive foster parents and attended a disclosure meeting before we got our FS where we got a binder similar to what you describe.) I also believe that, if we are able to adopt our FS, someday he is going to want to know why he's not with his birthfamily and I want to be able to answer that question with solid, written evidence. So we keep copies of EVERYTHING we get and everything we find on our own.
It sounds like you are doing exactly what you should be doing-- but perhaps there is something else going on in the case that the worker isn't sharing...
suzyq18
I wanted to make a difference as a foster parent, instead we are being treated like we have done something wrong.
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