New Foster Rules I Love

It’s a rarity that I come home from a foster care training feeling like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I am walking on air. In fact, I’m fairly certain that has never happened, not once in the past 5 years. Generally I feel irritated that the meeting was inutile or like there is no hope ever for anyone in foster care. So, you can understand why this new feeling is one I’m having a hard time letting go. We had a mandatory training last night and while I could talk about how unprepared the staff was due to the fact that they themselves are just piecing together this information and were informed last Wednesday they must train all their foster families before the end of the year and I could point out that the federal laws took effect in September 2014 and the Keystone state got an extension to train foster families by this past September and STILL didn’t have their act together until now – I’d rather focus on HOW GREAT THIS NEWS IS!!!! Finally, the powers that be listened to the people affected by their shoddy decisions and they did something positive to change it. Apparently, numerous foster children and former foster children spent countless hours presenting their lived stories to representatives and courts stating how restricting the foster care rules are and how it negatively affected their lives as children and into adulthood. And while nothing can be done for these foster kids and former foster kids, they wanted the future to be better. And, Congress, the courts and the states LISTENED! And they agreed that the rules were punitive towards the very children the system was trying to help. Thus, the change. Drum roll please!!!

 

Foster parents no longer have to ask permission to get a child a haircut.

Foster parents can decide to allow a foster child to get their driver’s license.

Foster parents can allow children to sleep over at a friend’s house.

Foster parents can allow a trusted friend or family member to baby-sit without the red tape of background checks and home inspections.

Foster parents can allow a child to attend school functions, even over-night functions and things in a different state (just not out of the country).

Foster parents can take kids on over-night trips and not need special permission.

Foster parents can allow and even encourage a child to get a job or volunteer outside the home.

Foster parents can allow other people to transport the children to things like sports practice, dance class, a friend’s house, carpooling, etc.

In short, foster children are now allowed to be treated as children and not having to follow “special” rules that make them out themselves as foster kids when asked to participate in “normal” activities for kids their age. Foster parents are being allowed to actually parent these kids and not rely on case workers and the courts to make every decision regarding their lives. Foster parents are actually being trusted to parent now! As one foster dad said last night, “it’s like we’ve graduated from elementary school to high school.” I agree and I embrace this freedom whole heartedly! Not only embrace it, but I can’t wait to start exercising it! Thinking that I am free to find my own child care, rather than rely on respite, has me nearly giddy. I don’t think even I realized just how oppressive it was to lose my personal support system and need to rely on only foster families and case workers to watch the kids for me when I needed to do something or wanted a break. To think that I can, at my own free will, ask someone I know and trust to baby-sit has me dancing in the streets! Often times the responsibility for foster care seems overwhelming to me and I feel like I simply can’t go on. With this news, I feel like foster care became much easier (not in helping the kids deal with trauma or in what they have endured – that won’t ever be an easy thing) because much of bureaucracy is simply gone. Think about it this way – case workers will be spending less time worrying about finding respite for foster families freeing their time to concentrate more on their cases. Judges and court officials will be less hassled by requests for vacation trips to the shore, children needing haircuts, or approving backgrounds for everyone who might ever be involved in the child’s life. So, hopefully this means things can move along at a faster pace (for the important decisions and also for things like when Primero needed surgery and his mother was in jail and couldn’t provide consent). I think we should have a party to celebrate!

Yesterday was a very busy day for me. Prior to the evening training, I was on TV as an (almost) adoptive parent talking about National Adoption month and what it’s like to foster-adopt. This was my third time on the local TV station and my second time this year with CHOR. Afterwards the CHOR staff took me and the other couple out to lunch and it was nice to talk, share pictures, and discuss the positive and negative parts of adopting from the foster care system. The foster care supervisor was glad the marketing director was there to hear our stories and she was particularly glad I shared my story about adopting Primero. It was a nice break from work in a very busy day.

Unfortunately, yesterday was not all positive. I had a meeting with Chica Marie’s therapist before the evening therapy because she made the recommendation for Chica Marie to get mobile therapy, something more intensive than the Theraplay she had been receiving. This comes after disturbing behaviors have been on-going and escalating at daycare. Chica Marie is by far the most difficult child I have living with me right now. I won’t say she’s the most difficult over all because there are two other girls who would win that distinction, but in the house now, she is the one that keeps me up at night (now that Love Bug consistently sleeps at night). I worry that I’m not doing enough for her or that my parenting style doesn’t work for her or that she won’t ever get “better,” or she’ll get worse when she starts school. I worry that perhaps I don’t give her enough attention or not the kind of attention she needs or that I don’t love her enough. The mobile therapist will be spending 4 hours a week with Chica Marie, most of this at the daycare since that is where the behaviors are more prevalent. I hope this helps because she is on the cusp of being tossed from daycare and I know that won’t help her situation and it will cause anxiety for poor Love Bug.

This afternoon I had to take my lunch break at CHOR to sign the updated version of my family profile. As the adoption case worker was walking me out, she mentioned that my former family worker had a sibling group of 3 that she so wished she could have placed with me because she knew it would work with me. In the end, the resource family decided to keep them, but it was weird to think the family worker even dreamt of my name. I was certain I was tucked away as a done deal with the three kids I have. I joked with the adoption case worker, “if only I had a bigger place!” and left it at that, but how strange!