Foster Care Stories

Hi Stephanie, Where do I start. 1. Foster parents have no input when it comes to court decisions about the kids in their care. 2. Case Workers will (no offense) lie, manipulate and even exclude any information about a case if it gets in the way of RU. 3. The agency is about Parent Protective Services NOT Child Protective Services. 4. The agency will RU children with birthparents over and over again...and if that birthparent has had their rights terminated on children they have had in the past, the agency will STILL RU them with their younger children. 5. Case Workers will do whatever they can to get Foster Parents to do their job for them. (again, no offense) 6. There is no such thing as Concurrent Planning, Legal Risk Placements, Adoptive Placements or Foster to Adopt. It's all just straight foster care that most often ends out in RU back to a deadbeat parent. If you're lucky, the child will come back into care and MAYBE have their parents rights terminated the second time around. 7. All CW's talk about is "What is in the best interest of the child" but their actions are about what is in the best interest of the birthparent. 8. Birthparents are given RU plans and are told they have to "work their plan" to get their children back. In reality, they only have to work part of or some of their plan and LOOK like they are interested in getting their kids back and the court will RU them. I could go on and on Stephanie about how broken our Child Welfare System is. It is this forum that we all go to to vent and seek advice and comfort while we watch the "System" return the children we care for to the unchanged hands of the birthparents who harmed, neglected, starved, abandoned, drug addicted and abused them.

Hi Stephanie, I am currently doing kinship fostering. Fostering was not something I wanted to do, but I was kind of thrown into it. I would have to say I have to agree with many of the thing 'BoysParents' points out. Especially points 1, 3 and 5. At what point is CPS going to start doing what's best for the children and not the parents? I am dealing with bios I am related to and clearly are manipulating the system and dragging their poor children through it with them. They do the bare minimum, lie and manipulate and the system still keeps just helping them... My nephew who is 3 and finally starting to understand and I have to watch him go through this process, wetting his pants, biting, crying...and only on visit nights, all because he doesn't get it! My 6 year old niece has night terrors and can't understand why she may get to stay or may have to go back. It's been 9 months. At what point do we cut off the parents and say come back if/when you really want to do it, but until then quit dragging your kids through this. My next concern is CW/SW's in general. We have had I believe 4 at this point, not to mention the other random ones who deal with different stuff here and there. I feel I rarely get phone calls back and at times I definitely feel like i am doing their job. The simplest tasks don't get completed and it makes it soooooo hard to continue doing fostering. I would love to keep my niece and nephew if it came to it, or I would love their parents to actually get it together and they go back, but parents who truly want there kids figure it out, why does the process have to be so long? It's almost like they try to make it difficult and drag it on so long the FP's want to give up. I am sure there is more...but I will stop there. :-)

I would agree that in some the ways to system could be improved. As a foster mother my suggestion to make it better for the foster parents and the children is to remember that great foster parents really love and attach to those kids, the children attach as well. When it's time to say goodbye please give us some notice. I know that sometimes you don't have a choice you have to do what the court says. If a placement goes home quickly pick them up for the parents. When my last placement left it was really hard and our social worker picked the child up to take her back to her mom. That was really helpful. I am still fostering and am happy to do it. I guess my sugestion is to remember the foster parents feelings. We love those kids like they are ours and saying goodbye to them can be as hard as saying goodbye to your biological child.

The foster kids are great. If I only had to deal with the kids, and not the kids that run CPS, I would be a foster parent forever...:arrow: Most of this will be negative because that is where I am right now: 1)Bio Parents who have money can buy their kids back. I ahve no doubt that $$ has exchanged hands in some form. If foster child comes from a family with money, middle class or higher, CPS will believe the parents and send the kid back because parents like this couldn't possible abuse their child like those lowlife drug users. Our teen FD made the call and yet was returned to an abusive house. If she had been a few years older and married, everyone would have been jumping through hoops to help her get out of an abusive relationship, but because it was a parent, they sent her back. 2)CPS/judges do not believe that emotional abuse is as bad as physical abuse.So if they don't see bruises, it must not be abuse. 3)CPS will allow the parents to make all sorts of accusations against the foster family and do nothing to stop them. They will however be on your doorstep asap if a parent makes an accusation even over the most innocent things that are legal under fostercare rules. 4)Parents can work their plan and get their kids back even if they have done it all before and continue to engage in the same type of behavior that caused removal in the first place. This is because the plan has nothing to do with actually trying to teach or re-train a parent in the correct ways of positive parenting. Just jump through this hoop and we'll be ok. 5)Case workers/social workers come out of college with a degree and yet have no idea what it is like to be a parent.They are clueless about what it takes to parent a regular child, let alone one that comes from a chaotic dysfunctional family. This is because the college cirriculum they study has nothing to do with reality. 6)The entire system is based on the fase premise that re-unification is always in the best interest of the child and no matter what, a parent should get chance after chance because there is a blood relation. The court system functions on this premise as well. Giving a parent year after year to get it right is an insanity that causes permanent damage to a child and should not be tolerated any more. If a parent can not get themselves together in 6 months or less, then they do not have the ability to parent. The end. Terminate and allow the child to be in a family that cares. 7)When a child enters foster care, that child should not be moved to a relative just because there is a relative. It is better to wait until the permancy plan is made and worked out.(my DD was moved 4 times in one year. From age 6 months -18 months)This goes back to stopping the endless time allowed for working a plan. 8) as a foster parent I have so many restritions and rules to follow that it is getting to the point where I am becoming a prisoner in my home and can not allow my foster chidlren to be a child. I must bewith them constantly and if anything happens I am at fault.The same is not true of the parents, who can do whatever and live in filth and still the child is snet back home. 9) Nobody cares what my opinion is about the development of the foster child. I am not to get attached because it isn't my child. I am not asked to make statements to the judge. Apparently my job is to feed, cltohe, house and otherwiseact the parent, but not be one. 10)If I didn't have these forums, I would have stopped being a foster parent a long time ago. It is the only place where toher people know what I am talking about when I post, and the only place where I can vent. 11) States need/must step up more in the foster care arena. There will always be crappy parents and kids who need to be removed. More resources need to be given to those of us who take these children in. More offical support from the dept. where we are treated as an important part of the team and not as simply the babysitter of the month.

Perfectly said Caddo! The length of these RU plans is rediculous! In CA the BP is supposed to be given 18 months of services TOPS. If that 18 months of services comes up and the BP only did part of their plan, they just simply RU and that's it. The CA foster system, juvenile court system and most of the "services" they provide are a JOKE. The therapists they use are in the pocket of the county and ommit information from their reports that might likely hinder RU. They print what the CWs tell them to print.

Very well said Caddo! Relatively new to fost/adopt and just had our first placement. I'd be pleased to talk to the original poster offline so pm me if interested. That being said, my thoughts:The foster care system is built around several false premises or flawed concepts:1) You can "parent" a child without being attached to a child2) RU is always best for the child3) Any relative is better than a "non-relative caregiver"4) Actions are taken in the best interests of the childAs a foster parent it infuriates me that the entire system is designed to protect the rights of the birth parents at the expense of everyone else involved - the foster parents, relatives, and the child. At least here in CA it should be called the Department of Parental Rights and Protection. It seems ridiculous to me that they ask so much of foster parents - share your heart, home, head, upend your life, risk your life in some cases, expose your children to potential negative influences, etc. and then the state treats you like crap. The state says share your heart but we reserve the right to crush it w/o warning. Open your home but we reserve the right to mislead you. Be a good parent but don't care too much because your just a babysitter.We've been certified for about 6 months now and I'm shocked at the way foster parents are used and abused. Every time I see an ad saying from DCFS say 'we need loving homes!' I almost laugh. They wouldn't need them if they treated foster parents with an ounce of respect, love, appreciation, honesty and dignity. Ironically the same thing they're asking us to provide for foster kids.

I am waiting for the person who started this forum to respond to what we've posted. I would be curious to see what an actualy CW has to argue on these points.