kinship vs foster placement?

I *kinda* understand it... it sounds like the way they are looking at it, a placement is a placement is a placement.. regardless if it's kin or not. Does it make a difference if the relative is not a ward of the state? For example, your sister is in the hospital and your niece comes to stay with you indefinitely. Would THAT be considered a placement since CPS is not involved? IMO it's most likely because CPS is officially involved.

I actually think they were looking out for your best interest as family placements do not get the foster care stipend or many of the other benefits for foster kids and parents. Of course they probably have the incentive of getting their payments as well, but overall I think you are much better off having the placement in your licensed capacity.

I think you're right...about the money part. I told my mom that tonight. I don't think it's for our best interest but for theirs. When we were getting placed with the sibling group we have now they were upset because it was a "back door placement" and our agency TOLD me "We don't normally support these placements because we, as an agency, make less money. If they are TPRd on and red flagged and you are chosen we get alot more money." We don't care about the money. Because of what they are saying we almost didn't get to take KiKi home. Because of what they are saying we won't be able to take in KiKi's little brother when he's released because we are max'd out on our license. Also, we asked for respite for "Jelly Belly" while we go on vacation for a week. She CAN NOT sit in a car seat for a long period of time. More than 15-20 minutes she is FREAKING out. She screams bloody murder, stiffens up, NOTHING can console her. We are driving out of state. It's normally a 6 hour drive but with a 15 passenger van FULL of kids I'm pretty sure it will more like an 8+ hour drive. We asked for respite so Jelly Belly wasn't miserable for the ride. You know what our agency told us? "Call the pediatrician and ask her to be medicated for the trip. It will be detrimental for her to feel like she's the "bad" kid and couldn't go on vacation" What?!?! Drug her instead?? She's 16 months old, delayed, so...maybe 10 months old mentally, emotionally, physically, and she's going to think she's "BAD" for being put in respite? It must be better to torture her and the other children for 8 hours, or even BETTER to drug her so she'll sleep! Mind you...we've been foster parents for 3 years and used respite ONCE this past July for the day for our son's adoption. Our two foster sons at the time were in respite. The oldest had SEVERE sensory processing and sensory seeking disorders so to take him to a court hearing, photos in the mall after, and out to dinner was too much. They made us put the baby in respite because we were putting the older brother in respite. After telling me to drug Jelly Belly our licensing worker says they would only pay for half the time in respite anyways and we would have to pay the rest, up front, before they would even put us on the respite list. Ohhh...and there are 3 other families on the list so there's very little chance we will find respite seeing as we leave for vacation in 10 days. So yea...they didn't tell us NO....but pretty much told us no. Sorry for the ranting...totally OT I know but my agency has me SO frustrated and I don't know who to call and confirm what they say!

In my area, I would rather be a foster parent than a kinship provider. I have spoken with many kinship providers in my time as a pre-service trainer and I find that they are expected to do a lot more with a lot less support. Both financial support and worker support. It just feels like they are expected to do a lot more with the birth parents and arranging their own services than I am with my foster kids.

That was certainly my experience doing kinship care. The SW told mom - without consulting me first - that it was up to me how often and when she saw the kids (since I had to supervise) which put a tremendous burden on me to either do more than I felt able to keep the peace or be the bad guy by saying no. The SW actually told mom she could see the kids every day if that was ok with me. Really?! Not that I had 1) a life, 2) a job, 3) tremendous pressures (appts, school across town w/no transportation, the usual FP stress) and 4) a strained relationship with mom. :grr: Eventually we did go through the SW for visitation but I never had the SW or DCF to play the bad guy role. The SW put too much on me from the start and any attempts I made to pull back and get DCF support came across as me being unsupportive and/or making things harder for them; in reality I was only asking for the same support that their non-kinship FPs received. On a positive note I did receive the same stipend as my state reimburses equally for kinship and traditional care.

How many kids does your license allow? In my state, you can't have more than 5 foster kids for a total of no more than 6 kids in the home. I wonder if you're beyond the limit, and you can't have foster any more kids because of that. The CW may be thinking it doesn't matter because you're "kin" to Kiki; perhaps if you had a large family of biological kids they could place one kinship foster kid with you. But your agency is reminding the CW that it doesn't matter -- if Kiki is in state custody, the rules apply, and your home is maxed out. Your agency may be saying if you take in more kids than your license allows, you could lose your license, out of regard for the other kids' well-being once the limit is passed.

[FONT="Georgia"]From everything I understand here in my area...we are currently licensed for 2 kids, 3 years old and under...we are going to be changing that to 3 kids 6 or 7 and under soon. Anyway...according to the licensor, any bio kids I had in that age range counted towards the limit...so no more than 2 kids under the age of 3 living in the home unless we get the license changed, regardless of relation.[/FONT]

In my state there are no limits...that I know of...of number of children in the home. Max is 5 foster children. You can only have 4 children under the age of 6 per adult. So, in our home, we have to have 2 adults at all times. We had our license to 4 foster children before KiKi came into care. In order to have her in our home our agency said we had to amend and up our license first to 5 and she couldn't come home with us before our license was approved. CPS said he could place her as kinship but our agency said no...she would have to be placed as foster. She ended up talking to the founder of our agency who said yes KiKi could come home with us and they could put the amendment in and retro it to that day. SO...that all worked out. As for how much longer KiKi will be here...I don't know. My husband wants to call tomorrow and have her moved :-( No fault to hers of course but the family is expecting so much out of us that it's burning us out already. Mom requested to her attorney that once KiKi's baby brother is able to be moved (he's medically fragile right now) she wants him placed in our home (we're max'd out so not going to happen). There are family on HER side that wants the kids but BD doesn't want them to go there. There are family member's on HIS side that want the kids but BM doesn't want them to go there. They want us to have both the kids and if for SOME reason they don't work the caseplan then they will decide (months to a year down the road) what family member would adopt the kids. For one....this was going to be a short term placement until maternal GM could pass her homestudy. (Her son, who is a felon, lives with her). Now they're saying they want them to stay with us for the duration of the case plan 6-15 months and if they can't get them back then they go to family. OK....we don't want to long term foster to just give the kids up to family that they could've gone to the whole time. We've decided we're not putting our kids through the loss of fostering anymore. The current group that we have that should be going to adoption is a "slam dunk" case. They moved IN as a preadoptive placement. Now all of a sudden the judge ordered CPS to relook into three different family members that all originally failed the homestudy. I can't have our kids go through more loss. OR...if we adopt our current sibling group we'll have 10 kids...young...we don't want to have two more if we were able to adopt. Hubby thinks it's best just to cut ties now before KiKi gets more attached to living with us and before our kids get more attached to her. Maybe the parents will take this more seriously if she's in a regular foster home. They don't seem to care much she's gone because we're like glorified babysitters. BD and grandma can see her ANYTIME they want to and BM can see her up to 4 hours...every day! Where in all this are we supposed to have a life?

It definitely sounds like you're experiencing the boundary issues that come with kinship case. :-( Can the worker help you set up more official boundaries, something more akin to a regular foster home?((hugs)) This can't be easy! :-(

To hopefulandwatching November 17th Just wanted to say Congrats!

While it doesn't work in all cases, I have seen this very move (from relative or family friend to unknown foster) really kick the parents into gear. Especially when they go from pretty much unlimited access to visits once a week (or less).