Tell Me About File-Reading

Any Moves: Former Fosters Names, kids etc. School Documents: behavioral issues, grades, evals etc Therapy notes: scan for items that pop out Special Reports: CWs file incidents when something BIG happens- like a death in the foster family, or a trip to the emergency room etc. Orginal case notes: So you have an idea of why there was no RU, and the orginal reasons for coming into care in detail so you can deeply understand your kids hurt. With sibs...its going to be a LONG file I bet. I speant about 3-4 hours going through it for my 1 child, and she had notes about 2 of her 3 sibs in the file as well. You can't photo copy, but you can take a note book and write down notes. Don't foregt to write down the bparents names and last known adresses and socials. The "redacting" was horrible in my dd's file. I have LOTS of peoples personals. Take a box of tissues. Its really really hard to read what your childs life has been like up to this point. ((hugs))

That's part of my fear, is that there will be so much paper that I'll miss something big.The notebook is a good idea. I will do that. Thank you.

You will miss stuff. Its too immense not too. But you will get copies of the file after finalizing, and you can re-read it over the course of a month then. Thats what I did. The indepth look really clarified a few points, but for the most part- I already knew my kid. You'll know yours too, the file will just shine lights in the corners of the roots of some behaivors. Other things you will NEVER know. R talked regularly about the "bad car accident" she was in. EVERYONE denies this ever happened. But her description never faulters. Shes never forgotten a bit of the story. She describes it with alarming detail. I will never "know" what really happened. And in the end- its NOW that matters most.

I'm not sure what state you are in, but I adopted from Kansas. I could take notes, but no copies, and the file was not passed on to me after adoption. There were three children mixed together, and they had about 12 law-type binders of information. It may have been social workers note, binders 1, 2, 3. I tried to get all the background I could. My dd's bmom voluntarily TPR'd so they had her fill out a medical history sheet. I took all of her medical history for her bfamily. I wrote down all the SSNs and Names and aliases for her bfamily members. I wrote down all the health information I could find. I read as many as I could of the therapy reports. I spent 8 hours straight...no bathroom break, no lunch trying to get it all done. After I started visiting with my dd, I called and asked for another day. Still not enough. This time, I had specifics: I wanted to know if she was a drug baby because she thought she was. I also wanted to find some stories (visit notes) about her birth mom to tell to her. On the second read, I found the medical records from her birth. It gives me a good birth story to tell her. Mom arrived at the hospital at 11pm, started pushing at 7:00 a.m. and dd arrived at 7:44 am. From those bits, I am able to make up a "when you were born story." So...things like that. It's overwhelming. I had to have someone in the room with me at all times. I didn't want them to talk to me unless I had a question. I wanted to get all I could in that time. DD told me that they told her that when she is 18, she can go read her file. No one told me, but it makes sense. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Chloroxsis - I'm in KS and we're adopting in-state. I'm glad to know that you were able to ask for more time. That makes me feel better about not getting everything in a couple of hours. My husband will be there, so we can tag-team on some stuff, but I want to see everything.Thanks for these suggestions. It's very helpful.

I agree with what the others have said. Any early on info that you can find is great such as developmental history. Any relative names. I am not sure about Kansas but here in MN (I am CPS) our court reports hold alot of information as to the reunification process. If any of the parent evals are in there (not sure they always will be) on the first run thru get first paragraph (usually some family history) than skip to the summary/diagnosis chart and the recommendations. That will provide you with alot of information. Case plans will also have alot of information in them. If you are aware of the workers ever looking out of state there should be ICPC records in there and they can provide alot of info on relatives. My daughter had a brand new worker and nothing was taken out of her file --- it was all sent to me. I have parent evals, paternity results, AND the ICPC paperwork for several relatives out of state. I would say only about 1/2 of the file was redacted. Also, look for any pictures that may have been thrown in the file for safe keeping. I would ask to have those if the children are placed. I would also keep in mind - speaking from a worker perspective just because one worker gave a family a second shot at looking at the file doesn't mean yours will. AND just because one worker wouldn't give the family the file after adoption doesn't mean that yours won't....

I asked yesterday about coming back to read more, and they said that would be OK. Thank goodness, because they only brought one of the kids' files out to us and it was more than a foot thick. We were able to make some notes and got through quite a bit of it, but not all.Thanks so much for the suggestions you've all made. I wouldn't have found as much as I did without your help.

Make sure you have a time line of all of their placements. My daughter is unclear of all the places she's lived and how long she was there, etc. I was glad to find a list.