My Ebenezer

It’s so easy to hear a story on the news about a foster family and something that went wrong and just sit back and shake our heads. A local news station did a story a while back about the atrocities taking place in one particular foster family. I’m not talking about abuse and neglect, I’m talking about not following procedures and “allowing” something to happen under your roof. Really, it’s neither here nor there.

Here’s what you won’t hear on the local news station about foster parenting. All of what I’m about to tell you comes from reading real case files (not Stella’s) and talking with real foster parents and case workers. It is not a “true” story but is an accurate representation of what happens.

What the foster parent is told by the caseworker:

Missy is a 13 year old caucasion female. She has been in two other foster homes and has been in care for one year. She is basic level of care and does not require special medical care. She does receive therapy twice a month and has a monthly visit with her parents and siblings.

What the caseworker knows:

Missy has been in and out of foster care for the last 5 years. Missy has allegedly “s@xually touched” a child a few years younger than her. She often steals from her caregivers and has been picked up a few times for shoplifting but never been charged. If Missy is not placed in a foster home today, she will be moved to a horrible shelter where she will have only a cot for sleeping. If she tells perspective foster parents everything she knows about Missy, they will never accept the placement.

The reality:

Missy is placed with a foster family with 3 other girls - a 16 year old, an 8 year old and a three year old. After an initial “honeymoon” period, Missy begins to act out. She propositions one of the foster father’s friends, is caught having s@x with a boy in the library at school and then perpetrates on the 8 year old. The foster parents are blamed for not being more diligent with rules and boundaries. Missy endures yet another move.

While you may be thinking that the foster parent should, in fact, have been more diligent, stop and consider everything else the foster parents are dealing with. There are four foster children in the home. Each child has at least one 1-2 hour visit with family once or twice a month. (sometimes more depending on age and where they are in the process) Let’s call that six meetings. The CPS office where the meetings are held are all in different locations so none of the visits can be scheduled at the same times. Oh, and they have to be during regular business hours. And it takes you 30 minutes or more to drive to the CPS office. Think of it as 6 mornings taken up with visits out of 20 business days in one month.

That’s just the visits. Each of the older girls should be in therapy at least twice a month. So that’s 8 hours if it is individual therapy and only 4 if it is group therapy. Again, between driving there and back that is another 2 mornings or afternoons of those 20 days gone. And then there are the PPT meetings. Every 3 months, each child or sibling group has a staffing where all interested parties get together to talk about the case and foster parents are strongly encouraged to attend. They usually last about 2 hours. OH yeah, and then there’s court. That happens about every 3 months as well. For each child. And that can take a whole day. Then you have doctor’s appointments - not including if any child happens to be sick. There are all kinds of appointments and such that have to be kept for these kids.

Oh wait, we forgot one small detail. 3 of your 4 kids are in school from 8-3 every day so appointments have to try to be scheduled after school. The last thing these kids need is to be missing more school. And did I mention the monthly visits from caseworkers? Each child has his/her own caseworker who should be coming to visit the kids in your home once a month. And every quarter you have to have a major visit to review all guidelines and make sure you are following all procedures. And while you are doing ALL of that, feed, clothe, transport and most of all love and parent these kids as though they were your own. And be sure to get your 30 hours of training in every year. And if thermometer you are required to have in your refrigerator happens to break and the caseworker notices it, you’re going to get written up.

Oh, and there is one more thing. If one of these kids you are caring for doesn’t like your rules or a decision you make, he/she can call his/her caseworker and gripe and complain and may even talk the caseworker into speaking to you about it. And, if they get really mad at you, they can tell their caseworker that you beat them with a belt which would result in a full fledged investigation on you and your family.

Oh, and another thing. the three older kids are robbing you blind. Your home has turned into a place where you have to lock up anything you want to keep. Neighbors? Yeah, they don’t talk to you anymore because your kids keep stealing things from their kids. Or lying. Or bullying.

Tell you what. If you like the job description go ahead and sign up. The pay is excellent. You’ll get a whopping $8 - $12 a day for each child in your care, depending on where you live.

Obviously, the descriptions above deal mostly with older foster kids. But it is a very sad reality in our society. Some people say that foster parents shouldn’t be allowed to have more than one or two kids. I think that is a great idea. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people willling to be foster parents to even cover all of the kids who are currently in care - much less the ones who are above and beyond the two per house we imagine in an ideal world.

I can’t imagine too many people signing up for that job and sticking with it for the pay. It’s a passion. It’s a service. It’s a sacrifice. It’s a mission field. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

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I just heard another “bad report” on a foster family in our area and the agency monitoring them. It really ticks me off when I see a news report quoting violations and not giving ALL the information. I’m not saying the current situation is right or wrong, I don’t know because I don’t have all the facts. Here’s what I do know: A “violation” of standard care or whatever they call it can be anything from a non-working smoke detector in a bedroom to not reporting se#ual abuse. So saying there have been 17 violations really doesn’t tell me anything.

UGgh. It just ticks me off. It seems foster parents have a bad rap most of the time, anyway. What the news doesn’t report about are the thousands of children who are being loved and cared for in loving foster homes. In homes that help them heal. In homes that prepare them to return to their birthfamilies or move on to adoptive families. In homes where they are loved even when they falsely accuse their caregivers of abuse, steal from their caregivers, verbally and sometimes physcially attack their caregivers.

It’s true that some foster parents suck. Just like some parents suck. Just like some of every “type” of person sucks. But I think if you looked at all of them, you’d find that most are good homes. Most have good hearts. Most have pure motives.

It’s not easy to allow the state to invade the most private aspects of your life - and that’s what foster parents do every day. Are you a parent? Are there days when you just really don’t like your kids? Imagine being a foster parent whose goal is not adoption - imagine parenting a very difficult, very traumatized child or teen - how many days out of the week do you think you’d “feel love” for that child? And yet you continue. You continue, I guess, because you know that at that moment you are all the hope that child has.

And then here comes the local news station reporting on what a crappy job foster parents are doing. CPS is doing a crappy job - but I don’t believe it’s their fault. They are so seriously under-funded it’s not even funny. So whose fault is that? Who decides where the taxpayer’s money goes?

As long as I’m ranting here, let me branch off into another arena. While there aren’t enough of our tax dollars to give abused and neglected children the support and protection they really need - there seem to be plenty of our tax dollars to provide health care to drug addicts. I have nothing against free healthcare to people who truly need it - people who can’t work, people who really don’t have other options. But when I see drug addicts getting free medical care at hospitals it really pisses me off. I know addiction is a disease and I know people don’t really “choose” to become addicts - but they do choose to remain that way. IMO. And, evidently, if you have a job and lead a productive and socially responsible life you have to pay out the wazooo for deductibles, co-pays and premiums. Want to avoid all that hassle? Quit your job; claim some emotional problem to keep from getting another one and start shooting up and we’ll pay your medical bills for you.

Now that’s what I call a health plan.

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It was a several years ago when I first heard about Child Advocates. I gave it some thought but decided I wasn’t ready to really commit to it.

I’m ready now. Or at least I think I am. Children in foster care have a very special place in my heart, for obvious reasons. We’re not ready to take in more foster children at this point, but this is a great alternative for people who really want to make a difference.

“Volunteers serve children involved in the juvenile court system once appointed to a child’s case by a juvenile court judge. This means that our volunteers have the legal status of “guardians ad litem”, giving them the power to affect real change in the life of a child. Once appointed by a juvenile court judge, our Court Appointed Advocate volunteers begin a process of information gathering with the goal of guiding abused children out of the foster care system, identifying the child’s needs and ensuring rehabilitative services. They act as a communications link between the child and the juvenile courts. Volunteers gather all the pertinent information about their child’s case and make recommendations to the judge based on that information. “

This is what I’m talking about. Where case workers are generally assigned anywhere from 20-60 cases at any given time, it’s my understanding that CASA workers are only assigned one or two at a time, allowing the opportunity to really focus on the child at hand.

I’m going to an orientation meeting today and hoping that I will be as excited about it when I get home.

Thus, a new journey begins.

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