foster-kids

How cool! Randi interviewed me about fostering and adopting, and it’s up.

One year gotcha anniversary. We love you Fifi!

update: I hope I’m using the “gotcha day” correctly. She came to live with us one year ago. For several weeks ahead of that time, we had visits with her and her foster family, and disussions with the Powers that Be. The adoption will be final (soon, I hope) and maybe I can fill in her backstory, so to speak.

Meanwhile, have I ever said why we call her Fifi? (not her real name)

He walked into the room, looking old and tired. But also gentle.

“I just want to see my boy. For a minute. To make sure he’s alright.”

Our eyes met. I relaxed, and stepped away from the hospital bed. The tiny child lit up at the sight of his grandfather. A familiar face for the first time in who knows how long.

But maybe I’m skipping ahead in my story?

- Got insomnia? Click here ->

When I was in high school, Pat Benatar had the hit song. We used to sing it, with relish, because we were angst-ridden teenagers that thought for some reason the world owed us something, that we were somehow special in our feeling messed up. We imagined we were hurt somehow.

They cry in the dark, so you can’t see their tears
They hide in the light, so you can’t see their fears
Forgive and forget, all the while
Love and pain become one and the same
In the eyes of a wounded child

Now, over the years, I have grown a little. (you, in the back? Shut. UP. I have too.) I understand that there is a serious problem of parents not protecting their children. Or of actually harming their children. Often, the reasons are complex. Is there ever a single, defining moment when a parent decides it is okay to beat up their child? Or worse?

I’m sure many of you have read of the Plano, TX mom that cut her child’s arms off. The child died a short time later. Why would somebody do this? Because they are depressed? Was she ‘on something’? Was she corrupted by watching too much television? This was her baby, her third child.

Now, as awful as that is. As horrible as it is to try and grasp a mom that would do this, would even think of doing this, I don’t think this will stop it from happening again. As much as you and I recoil at the news, there are other parents that it will not reach. The woman’s husband does not understand why they took away his kids. Although the night before this happened, his wife referenced a Biblical scripture and told him she wanted to ‘give her children to God.’ This didn’t bother him, much, but then for some reason he had the day care center call to check on her the next day, and they called 911.

See? There is no way I can grasp this kind of behavior. I can be all intellectual and say there were chemical imbalances in the brain, or ’special circumstances’ and maybe dad thought his scripture quoting wife meant something else when she said she wanted to give the kids to god. I dunno. CPS says he didn’t protect his infant, so they took his older kids as a precaution. Odds are good he’ll get them back, but not before a thorough investigation (since the spotlight is now upon the case).

My oldest came to live here because his mom was deemed “at risk” of neglect or abuse. Her husband had left her and remarried, she had a history of mental problems, and she seemed unable to care for the child - had no formula, wouldn’t take him for doctor’s appointments, not dressing him appropriately for winter weather, etc. The agency watched her through the pregnancy to make sure she had adequate health care, and then visited frequently (every few days) after the baby was born to check on them. He spent many weeks at an aunt’s house, and after mom got him back, a couple of weeks later they pulled him, and he was on his way to my house after a stop at Wal-mart for diapers and formula. He was twelve weeks old.

The difference from the woman in Plano is CPS stayed on the case for my son. In Plano, In January when the baby was just six days old, her mom left her home alone in the apartment, and CPS found out, and they opened a case. After seven months they decided she did not ‘pose a risk’ to her children. Oops.

I don’t want to blame this failure on budget cuts, but have you seen the case load at Family Services lately? I have, and it ain’t pretty.

Note: regarding the current state of Texas family services, there is a great article at the Fort Worth Star Telegram that just touches on it. You can find it here, but you have to sign up (it’s free!) or e-mail me and I’ll send you the text. This isn’t a science article, or even investigative journalism, it’s talking to some of the advocates for child safety with some numbers about our system. For example, the average case load for a worker is now 61. Child advocates nationwide recommend about 12. Five or six years ago it was 27 here in texas. Also, funding has been cut and almost all of the preventive programs (things that try and help parents BEFORE they become abusive) have been cut entirely. If I were political, I’d remind you that this is the same legislature that supports George Bush so highly and exactly what he wants to do to our federal programs, but I’m not so I won’t.

I sometimes make posts talking about the upcoming adoption of our little girl, or past adoptions (if you’re having trouble keeping count, we’ve adopted two and are now in the midst of our third)

To keep it straight, here is an example of some of the steps we (usually) go through:

• Foster placement (we are foster parents, after all).
• Time spent with child in care, while mom and/or dad try and get permission to have child returned. This is usually how a case turns out. In our state they are supposed to resolve a case within a year, but this and usually is extended another six months. If they do NOT go back home or to another relative we go to…
• Termination of Parental Rights (or termination, for short). This happened last month for our little girl. This happens in court and the parents have the option of a jury trial and are given legal representation if they can’t afford their own. This can drag on and on or it can go quickly, depending on many factors.
• Adoption staffing: where agency workers sit down and look at the adoption file, asign the case to an adoption worker (instead of a foster care worker where it had been), choose a family for the child, and other things. In most cases the family is already chosen (it was in the case of our little girl, but that was an exception). Often if the foster family that has cared for the child wants to adopt they get the green light but not always. In our case this happened this week, so this is where we are at as of today.
• Adoption worker updates files. The case files are de-identified (all references to names or specific addresses/phone numbers are removed from the case files. This can take a while. When we adopted our second son, the stack of paper was eight inches thick!) Our home study is updated (workers visit the home to make sure it is OK, check that all animals are vacinated, health dept and fire dept says OK, they interview family members, etc.) An Adoption Readiness Study is done for the child (where they identify any behavioral or medical problems, habits, favorites, etc.) In our case the ARS is redundant since we know much more about the child than the agency, but if she were going somewhere else this would be important and we would be a biig part of getting this done.
  This is the process ahead of us and is why I say if we’re lucky it’ll be done by Thanksgiving (that’s only two months) or Christmas (three months). It has taken as little as two months and as much as five to get all of these steps done with our other children.
• Child needs a physical and dental visit, probably a psychological evaluation (depending on their age and needs). My first didn’t need a pysch since he was under 18 months, my second did (and also had ECI program for about a year to work on speech development), we’ll see if we get our little girl past the Paperwork Monster before she turns 18 months (December)
• Parents get a physical to make sure we can handle it.
• Parents hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork and represent them on the Big Day in Court. Everything is pretty standard (thanks to word processing) and the lawyer can do everything in just a few hours. This includes filing for a new birth certificate, etc.
• When all is in order, the state adoption case is sent to our attorney, he sets up a court date with the county family court. Our lawyer must be there in court, so coordination is the key. At this point everything should be finished.
• The big day! We get to go to court, the judge reads the petition, we promise to love, honor, and cherish forever, and just like that, it’s all over. Then we eat.

Not much to it, is there?