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These days so much of our lives involve social media and the internet. As foster parents, how does it work? With all the confidentiality issues, how much do you share while still keeping the FKs history private? Especially for those doing foster to adopt, and possibly adopting that child, just how much are they really a part of your family? If you have bios, you post pics on FB and share their funny stories with family and friends. Can you do that with your FKs? I don't mean sharing in-depth details, or even real names, but what about family photos and that sort of thing? Hubby and I live away from all of our family, and would like to share the experiences with our FKs with close family and friends. We have very few local friends, so the possibility of anyone knowing our FKs will be very small. How do you all handle this?
:coffee: Java Nut (44)
:happydance: Danc'in DH(31)
:evilgrin: Crusty DS(25)
:rockband: Baby Girl DD(24), Critter GS(7), Monkey GS(4)
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A general rule is that as Foster Parents we can not publicly share details of our children, nothing that will identify them. If you share pictures you will have to blur their faces or only use pictures that do not show their faces - from behind or when they are behind objects.
I share with those who do not live close through Shutterfly - posting pictures and maybe videos a couple of times a month.
I can't wait for the adoption to be final so that I can share my precious STBAD with the world.
So I would imagine this is left up to the state or even individual agency to decide as I do not recall amendments to the Child Protection Law covering online and social media. I agree with what is stated above. If there is a desire to share, only do so with a solution that involves layered security. This would mean more than just sharing a link with friends to a photo site. Maybe making them login so that you can control access to specific people.
The bottom line is, you don't share pictures via facebook. If you take a group shot, blur out his/her face, and then post that to fb.
I do share funny stories via facebook that happen with my fks, but not related to their cases or anything. I usually use the first initial of their first name, even though 90% of my fb friends know his full name.
For us, now that TPR has occurred and we are just waiting out an appeal, I use his new first name on fb, and have shared more since TPR happened.
I'm friends with a family who fosters for a different agency. She routinely posts pics of her foster kiddos and has told me that she has permission from bio mom and is friends with bio mom on facebook. The point of posting the pics is for bio mom to be able to see what's up with the kiddos. She never tags the bio mom in the pictures though. She doesn't post their names and rarely refers to the fact that she fosters. I'm guessing she has some facebook friends that scratch their heads about all that.
I thought that was kind of odd and probably not something our agency would let you do, but whatever!
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We are fostering to adopt (still in pre-placement visit stage right now) and our agency is fine with us sharing pictures via email to friends and family who are not local. On social media we can't show her face or identifying features. We are told this will probably change once she is placed with us even before the adoption is final. It is a different scenario since she is not a traditional foster (ie. with the goal of RU) and since her bio family is not local and therefor not likely to come across the photos.
