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Hello!! I frequent the Foster Care thread and always get amazing feedback from other foster parents. The situation we are in now though, is more complex....
We've had our foster kids for over a year now. TPR pretrial was last week and trial is scheduled for Aug. As emotional and nerve wracking that is, (We will most definately want to adopt the kids) we were thrown for another loop.
At Pretrial it was discovered that biomom is pregnant....She says with twins.
After the shock, DH and I start asking questions..How far along? Is this confirmed? Is there a safety plan set up for the babies? Is the father involved? Is she receiving prenatal care? ect..
Not only did we not get answers (not too suprising) but the CW's acted like they weren't even going to really do anything to find out.
Is this typical? She has 2 kids who she is in the process of being terminated rights with. I can kind of understand them that not being an automatic removal. (kind of!) BUT to not even have a plan? To not even question the logistics?
As far as they know, bio is still just "couch surfing". She never has a working phone either, so they usually have no way to contact her. How are they going to "keep tabs" on her?
Another thing to consider is that Foster-Care contract was outbid by another agency (we ARE happy about that!) BUT...We are starting to wonder if the switch is keeping everyone too busy to really get to the bottom of this.
Any insight and/or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!
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It's possible that there's really nothing they can do until the babies are born. I know in one of my cases the CW seemed like she was blowing things off, but then later told me that she called all the surrounding area CPS offices so they could notify all the hospitals to call them if she showed up in labor. The CWs I've had all seem to keep things pretty much under wraps with FPs.
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We have a very similar situation. Our AD H is 8 and was an only child to her birth mother, as far as we or the SW knew. Birth mom has been in and out of jail/prison for theft, prostitution, drugs, assault and battery, etc. (It's all public record and I do keep tabs on her this way just to know where she is). We just found out that she is due with a baby in December. OF course we don't share all of this with H. But if she ever wants to look for her birth mom as an adult I'd like to have some idea of where to start looking.
Our foster daughter, M, whom we're going to adopt, hopefully very soon, has a 10 month old little brother. He was living with birth mom up until he was recently removed and placed in foster care 2 months ago. He was living with birth mom as the TPR trial occurred and even after the courts ruled to terminate rights. Here each child is a separate case and what happens to one does not necessarily happen to another. We always ask our SW to let us know what she can about bio siblings, as we want to encourage our girls to at least know their siblings. That's difficult for the SW to do because once our daughter's adoption is complete and closed, there is no way for the SW to know that we have a sibling that was once in the system.