The worst thing about foster care from the perspective of
the foster parent (or maybe just this foster parent), is the bureaucracy.
Important decisions are left to overworked, under-informed, powers that be who
don’t really have a child’s best interest in mind when making decisions. They
are disconnected, hardly knowing a child’s name, and hampered by rules set to
preserve adult (parent) rights at the expense of a child’s rights. No one
believes the system works. Everyone agrees there is room for improvement. No
one does anything about it. Last year we were informed about new rules that
lessened restrictions on children in foster care and gave more governing power
to foster parents. Foster parents are now allowed to decide if their foster
child can sleep over at a friend’s house, without getting background checks for
everyone in the house. Non-foster parents can provide child care, including
older siblings, which does make my life a tad easier. We don’t need specific
permission to get a child’s haircut, which paved the way for Love Bug’s first
trim last year and the two subsequent cuts. We can give permission for children
to travel with sports teams, marching bands, and other clubs on overnight
trips. And, we can take the children on out-of-state vacations without having
court permission. Of course, we still need to tell case workers we are doing
these things and they still have the power to put the kibosh on things they
don’t approve. The only thing that still requires jumping through the same old
hoops is anything medical related. Therein lies my current frustrations.
The beginning of April Love Bug fell and broke his front tooth.
Luckily, I already had an appointment for him scheduled with the dentist to
talk about stopping his finger sucking. When the dentist observed his tooth she
said it needed to be pulled because it was broken and loose and at great risk
for infection. Since she was the professional, I took her word and scheduled
his tooth extraction with her office, advising them we would need special
permission because Love Bug is a foster child. I knew from experience these
things take time, so I allowed a week for preparation. That was about as long
as the dentist would allow him to go with his broken tooth and as soon as she
could squeeze him into her schedule. Love Bug needed to be put to sleep to have
his tooth pulled because he was too young to allow the dentist to do it with a
few Novocain shots. I notified our case worker, foolishly thinking this would
be simple. I was wrong. But, here’s the thing. We are talking about a baby. He
wasn’t yet 2 years old and he had an accident, something traumatic for him. The
professional handling his case (his dentist) determined the course of action,
but people who are hindered by asinine rules threw in roadblocks and tried to
delay his treatment. Never mind the child was uncomfortable and in pain. His
biological mother, who he had not seen in over 10 months, still had parental
rights and needed to approve his tooth extraction. In no other world but foster
care does that make sense! And, it might not be so bad, if she were easily
reachable, but she was not. Similar to when Primero was in need of surgery, the
case workers had to scramble to get a judge to sign an order allowing the
medical professionals to do their jobs. Ridiculous!
Sadly, that was not the only time we faced an impediment to
medical care for Love Bug.
This poor child went from dental accident, to dental accident. His second
dental emergency was certainly more urgent than the first one. This tooth was
not broken, because the dentist had capped it to prevent it from breaking.
Instead, when he flung himself into a chair, the tooth was jammed up into his
gum with the root almost coming out where the other missing front tooth had been.
There is no denying Love Bug was in pain. Nothing comforted him, nothing
soothed him. He was miserable and let’s be real, who wouldn’t be? I shudder
just writing about it, let alone living it! And, I had already determined I was
going to approve the oral surgeon to remove his tooth, to hell with protocol.
There was no way I was going to make this baby WAIT for comfort a moment longer
for someone to get permission. That was cruel and unusual punishment, which
even criminals don’t have to endure. Fortunately, the county case worker was
able to reach bio mom and she gave consent.
The newest medical issue we’ve been facing has been approval
for Chica Marie to begin a new medication to help with her behaviors. What she
had been taking seems to help her behaviors marginally while at daycare but not
one iota at home. This was observed when she was briefly off her medication and
her TSS worker and daycare staff were questioning what was going on because she
was nearly unmanageable. She was prescribed the new meds just before the 4th
of July because I remember thinking the email was going to sit for a little bit
with the holiday weekend. A few days passed before I heard anything and then
the CHOR case worker contacted me regarding her conversation with bio mom. Initially,
the CHOR case worker had spoken to bio mom but was unable to secure her consent
because bio mom was worried about over-medicating her daughter. Bio mom asked
to have a conference call with me but then became unreachable and so the call
never happened. Since her consent was not given the CHOR case worker turned to
the county case worker to obtain consent through the courts. About a week ago
the CHOR case worker sent an email to follow up on permission to begin the new medication
and cc’ed me on the email. The county case worker said she was never given the
prescription forms, so I immediately scanned and emailed them to her. Earlier
this week I sent an email to see where things were at and alluded to there
being difficulties in the home and the case worker responded by saying, “Go
ahead and start the meds. If the judge doesn’t approve it, I’ll take the heat.”
Is that supposed to make me feel bad or guilty? Because it doesn’t. Due to my
schedule and the pharmacy hours, I haven’t been able to pick up her medication,
but it has been filled and she will be starting on it this weekend.
I was speaking to Chica Marie’s mobile therapist when she
was over last night and she was recounting how many times she has tried to talk
to the county case worker and how frustrating it has been. She mentioned that
she was speaking to another therapist who has worked for Children and Youth
Services in a different county and she was appalled at how things were handled
in this case. The mobile therapist stated she felt the county case worker was
being neglectful because of her lack of communication or sporadic communication
and inability to take care of certain things in a timely manner. We discussed
how many times the county case worker had made plans to come out to my house
and then didn’t show up or cancelled the visit. As we talked about it, I
realized just how often the schedule/reschedule cycle has happened and just how
few times it resulted in an actual face-to-face visit. TPR was initially
scheduled for June 13th but didn’t happen for unknown reasons. It
has now been rescheduled for September. The children had a permanency hearing
in June, which was rescheduled from May. They have another one in November and
hopefully by that point TPR will have actually occurred. During a WIC
presentation at work, I had joked with a friend that Love Bug might be off WIC
before he’s adopted, but now that is a lot less funny. If their case follows
the same trajectory as Primero’s, we have roughly a 9 month wait from TPR to
adoption. That puts us into June of next year when Love Bug will be turning 3
and will have been in care for nearly 3 years and not had visits for 2 years.
How insane is that?! Yet, case workers wonder why they can’t find good foster
families? And, I haven’t even mentioned how hard it has become to get respite. I
have a tough kid and my case worker tells me I’m a saint, but I can’t get a
break, a breather to recuperate. Really, who would sign up for this?!
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