Just another weekend?
Posted Oct 29th 2007by Ebenezer
What did you do this weekend? Hang out with your family? Spend time with some dear friends? Maybe help your kids with school work? Maybe you still take classes and you had to catch up with your own school work? Stella moved to her NINTH placement in 10 months. She is fifteen years old.
Do you remember high school? I mean, do you really remember? The insecurities, the desire to just fit in, the difficulty in knowing who your friends really were?
School started about two months ago. That is approximately 8 weeks. Stella has been to 3 different schools, 3 different placements, 3 different sets of rules, friends, etc…. She is now at her fourth placement (just since school started) and will be starting her FOURTH school. She’s already started over four times and hasn’t even made it through the second six weeks.
While we went on with life as normal, Stella was making this latest move. She is devestated right now and emotionally exhausted. Please continue to pray for her and for her new foster mom.
In the meantime, two family members have decided that CPS is not meeting Stella’s needs (DUH) and each has seperately asked to start the process of getting custody of Stella. There is a very good chance that one of these family members will be a good placement for her – the other I’m not too sure about. I mean, after giving up and refusing to accept responsibility for a child, it’s difficult for me to send that child back to you. Not that it is my decision – I have no power, only influence. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few weeks. Just please pray for the whole situation and also for wisdom and discernment for me and for the CPS caseworker.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Stella into a permanent home before Christmas? Maybe there is still a chance.
Sadly, Stella represents only one of a number of kids just like her in care. Most of them without an advocate working on their behalf. The thing is, as a volunteer advocate, I’m no miracle worker – I don’t do anything extraordinary. I’m just there. For each placement, for each transition, for each anything, I am there. I’m cheering her on, listening to her and loving her the best I can. But mainly, I’m just there. Her caseworker will change. Her placements will change. Her schools will change. Her doctors will change. Her therapists will change. Her volunteer Child Advocate will stay the same. I gather information and coordinate all the new service providers. I follow up to make sure she is getting therapy and seeing doctors and so on. Tomorrow morning, I’ll make calls to try and get her registered at a new school – a process that can sometimes take days for workers to get to. When you move to 4 different schools in the first two months, missing days each time as you wait for registration information to change hands can lead to missing weeks of school and failing. And the last thing any teenager in foster care needs is to get another grade behind. As it stands now, Stella will not graduate high school before she turns 18; once she turns 18, she will no longer be able to be in foster care.
I could go on and on and on. But it’s late and I’m tired and you are probably tired of hearing me complain. If you want to help, pray. If you want to contribute to Child Advocates so that more kids can have a consistent person advocating for them, you can do that here. It doesn’t take much to make a difference.
Maybe you’ve been reading about Stella for a while and you’ve decided you’d like to get more information about becoming and advocate yourself. Child Advocates is a national organization so I’m sure there is one close to you. Graceyail me or leave me a comment if you want help finding out more about how you can become a volunteer. Hey, if I don’t meet my fundraising goal of $5000 for the marathon, but I get even one more person to become an advocate, I’ll consider my venture a huge success.