But it isn't All as Bad as Some May Think...
I decided I needed to write something about the terrible stigma of foster care today. I was just reading an ad about protecting your children if something should ever happen to you, and it kept saying do this or else your children will end up in FOSTER CARE as if they would be guaranteed to be abused and neglected there, instead of being cared for and kept safe until a family member was found to take your children. I also watch all those Law & Order shows, CSI shows, you know. Quite often the theme seems to be about the abuse children receive once they are in foster care. On one of the shows, one of the police detectives made a comment something like, "I'll go talk to my friend, a survivor of foster care."
I realize where the stigma came from. I know that in the past, way back in the past if you must know, the foster care system was horrendous. Kids were abused, worked to death, kept "only for the money" by some. But that was then. The foster care system has come a long way in the last 30 years! Homes are monitored and regulated, foster parents have extensive background checks, yearly. Training, up front and ongoing, is required. We go to conferences, support groups, meetings, many of us are involved in the training of new foster parents. We have mentoring systems, and constant contact with the department, counselors, PSR workers, schools, doctors, and the birth family. I'm not saying some bad seeds don't slip through the cracks, but the vast majority of foster parents are good people trying to do good things for other people in our communities.
I can say I know this first hand because not only do I have constant contact with other foster families through conferences, and because I am a foster parent trainer, but because I contact each foster family in my region every year. I spend time talking to them and learning about the things their foster children do, enjoy, and want to do. For people to know the things I ask means they spend quality time with their kids, and care about them. You see, my mom and I organize and run the giving trees every year at Christmas to help foster families get gifts for their kids. But we don't just arbitrarily ask for toys and games, we ask for specific items the kids need and want. To do that, I have to spend a lot of time on the phone with our families. You might be surprised at the time everyone involved takes to make sure all our kids have good Christmas's and enjoy their holidays as much as they can given the fact that they aren't allowed to be with their birth families.
See, another misconception some people have of foster families is that they want to keep all the kids they take in. Don't take that the wrong way, we do love our kids, and we do want to keep them safe and cared for. But we work with the department and with the birth families, because our primary goal is to reunify kids with their birth families. I have relationships with almost all of my kids' birth families, and if I don't, it's only because it wouldn't be safe. I mentor birth parents when needed, and I share their children's lives with them until the kids can go home. And this is true of nearly all our foster families. The training curriculum we use in Idaho, and that is actually used in a large number of states across the US, requires that all foster parents be open to working with the birth families. It trains new foster parents on how we try to reunify before any other option is considered. And because foster parents have to go through 27 hours of this training before being licensed, it weeds out most people who would not conform to this type of foster parenting.
There's more I could say, but this post is getting too long. I'd be happy to answer questions or have a conversation with anyone who wants to know more about what I do. My biggest need to write this post, though, was to get across the idea that while yes, foster care is not an ideal way to raise children, it isn't necessarily the worst either. Foster parents don't do it for the money, they don't enslave the children, they don't abuse and neglect. The people you hear about who are so evil are the exception, not the rule. And you'll find those same exceptions in every aspect of life where you find children...in schools, daycares, clubs, sports...deranged people find ways to get through the cracks everywhere. But you don't hate all teachers or coaches because of it do you? Have good thoughts about foster parents because you probably already know several, and they just don't advertise that that's what they do.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
"My Blankie is Crying Too!"
"I'm Sad At You"
It was a pretty typical morning at the Angel Retreat. We have at least four children in our home who were affected by drugs and alcohol exposure in the womb. (I say "at least" because there is one whom we don't have enough information about to know if she was exposed or not.) So on any given day, well, actually, every day, there are certain behaviours being displayed by at least one of these children. But sometimes, the things they say while having these behaviours are humorous, and I think being able to laugh at these things is what keeps us sane.
It makes me think of an episode we had with Annie earlier this year. Annie has a hard time with her closet. See, she and our 10-year-old share a room we originally had set up for 4 teenagers, and in this room we added on a fairly large walk-in closet. Sometimes I think the space is just too overwhelming for Annie. We keep hoping they'll place two more elementary age girls with us to share that room, but for now we have to live with Annie being lost in her closet. She used to be such a neat freak! Her room was always perfectly picked up, everything in its place, and she always made her bed. Now, she had trouble deciding what to wear in the morning, and so at least five items of clothing end up on the floor in her closet each day. And each afternoon, we have her go in and hang her clothes back up. So one day, I asked her to go put her clothes back on the hanger, and as happens spontaneously and unexpectedly several times a week, Annie went into a rage. For whatever reason, that day asking her to do something we ask her to do almost daily, triggered her tantrum mechanism. I walked away, as is usual. When she finally started to calm a little, 45 minutes later, I asked her to go hang her clothes up now. She stomped off, and I could hear her screaming and yelling at me in her closet from the living room. I continued to ignore. (Believe it or not, this is the best way to deal with her rage.) She came out 30 minutes later, stomping and full of attitude, and looked at me with pure hatred shooting from her eyes, and yelled, "I feel like a maid!" I have to say, it took everything I had not to burst out laughing right there. I calmly explained to her that a maid is someone who cleans up other people's stuff, not someone who cleans up their own stuff. She didn't get it, and went back to her room kicking and screaming.
So getting back to this morning. Will wanted to go play in the girls' room. Granny, being oh so practical, brought him back out explaining that the girls were getting dressed, so he couldn't be in there. Of course, this makes no sense to someone who doesn't understand hiding your naked body. He's 3...3-year-olds often parade around the house in nothing but socks. Right? Well, he does anyway. So he didn't care for Granny's actions. He screamed. What can I compare his screams to? Have you ever heard a rabbit or a guinea pig scream in fear? Think of the highest pitch you can still hear, turn the volume up to about 75, and consider how long it takes to get the air out of an inflatable floatation mattress. I may be exaggerating a little here, but don't kid yourself, I'm not exaggerating all that much. Granny tilts her head, gets that granny look on her face, and says in that soft, drawn out, "I love you, and want to slap you but am not going to because it's not the way we raise children anymore, so all I can do is say your name" voice, and says, "Willlllllllll..." As she turns to walk away, he throws his soccer ball at the back of her head. Don't worry, it was one of those soft squishy balls, so no concussion.
Now, I'm the only one who can see her face. If I was a kid, I'd be peeing my pants at that point seeing the color and set of her face. You should know, Will woke her up at 5:00 this morning and woke up the girls and wanted everyone to play. So she's already frazzled. I thought she was going to implode. She turned, and even he looked scared. (He usually thinks this is play time and laughs and runs.) She snatched him up, and before I could react, she strapped him in the booster chair from the table and pulled it to the middle of the kitchen and said, "You're in time out!" I thought that was pretty good self-control, considering her state of mind at that point...it was 7:30 am...
I had to leave for work. In my mind I said a prayer asking that God keep everyone safe today. As I was walking out the door, my mom was mumbling..."It's going to be a GREAT day!" Will was screaming..."I want my blankie...my blankie is sad...I'm crying...my blankie is crying too...I'm sad at you..." and so on.
That's right, at some point each morning, at least one of my lovable drug babies is in this state, and either my mom or I are nearing a breaking point...and it's those comments they wail at you that break your mood and make you laugh, even if they don't appreciate the humor. If they only knew...
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
It was a pretty typical morning at the Angel Retreat. We have at least four children in our home who were affected by drugs and alcohol exposure in the womb. (I say "at least" because there is one whom we don't have enough information about to know if she was exposed or not.) So on any given day, well, actually, every day, there are certain behaviours being displayed by at least one of these children. But sometimes, the things they say while having these behaviours are humorous, and I think being able to laugh at these things is what keeps us sane.
It makes me think of an episode we had with Annie earlier this year. Annie has a hard time with her closet. See, she and our 10-year-old share a room we originally had set up for 4 teenagers, and in this room we added on a fairly large walk-in closet. Sometimes I think the space is just too overwhelming for Annie. We keep hoping they'll place two more elementary age girls with us to share that room, but for now we have to live with Annie being lost in her closet. She used to be such a neat freak! Her room was always perfectly picked up, everything in its place, and she always made her bed. Now, she had trouble deciding what to wear in the morning, and so at least five items of clothing end up on the floor in her closet each day. And each afternoon, we have her go in and hang her clothes back up. So one day, I asked her to go put her clothes back on the hanger, and as happens spontaneously and unexpectedly several times a week, Annie went into a rage. For whatever reason, that day asking her to do something we ask her to do almost daily, triggered her tantrum mechanism. I walked away, as is usual. When she finally started to calm a little, 45 minutes later, I asked her to go hang her clothes up now. She stomped off, and I could hear her screaming and yelling at me in her closet from the living room. I continued to ignore. (Believe it or not, this is the best way to deal with her rage.) She came out 30 minutes later, stomping and full of attitude, and looked at me with pure hatred shooting from her eyes, and yelled, "I feel like a maid!" I have to say, it took everything I had not to burst out laughing right there. I calmly explained to her that a maid is someone who cleans up other people's stuff, not someone who cleans up their own stuff. She didn't get it, and went back to her room kicking and screaming.
So getting back to this morning. Will wanted to go play in the girls' room. Granny, being oh so practical, brought him back out explaining that the girls were getting dressed, so he couldn't be in there. Of course, this makes no sense to someone who doesn't understand hiding your naked body. He's 3...3-year-olds often parade around the house in nothing but socks. Right? Well, he does anyway. So he didn't care for Granny's actions. He screamed. What can I compare his screams to? Have you ever heard a rabbit or a guinea pig scream in fear? Think of the highest pitch you can still hear, turn the volume up to about 75, and consider how long it takes to get the air out of an inflatable floatation mattress. I may be exaggerating a little here, but don't kid yourself, I'm not exaggerating all that much. Granny tilts her head, gets that granny look on her face, and says in that soft, drawn out, "I love you, and want to slap you but am not going to because it's not the way we raise children anymore, so all I can do is say your name" voice, and says, "Willlllllllll..." As she turns to walk away, he throws his soccer ball at the back of her head. Don't worry, it was one of those soft squishy balls, so no concussion.
Now, I'm the only one who can see her face. If I was a kid, I'd be peeing my pants at that point seeing the color and set of her face. You should know, Will woke her up at 5:00 this morning and woke up the girls and wanted everyone to play. So she's already frazzled. I thought she was going to implode. She turned, and even he looked scared. (He usually thinks this is play time and laughs and runs.) She snatched him up, and before I could react, she strapped him in the booster chair from the table and pulled it to the middle of the kitchen and said, "You're in time out!" I thought that was pretty good self-control, considering her state of mind at that point...it was 7:30 am...
I had to leave for work. In my mind I said a prayer asking that God keep everyone safe today. As I was walking out the door, my mom was mumbling..."It's going to be a GREAT day!" Will was screaming..."I want my blankie...my blankie is sad...I'm crying...my blankie is crying too...I'm sad at you..." and so on.
That's right, at some point each morning, at least one of my lovable drug babies is in this state, and either my mom or I are nearing a breaking point...and it's those comments they wail at you that break your mood and make you laugh, even if they don't appreciate the humor. If they only knew...
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Guess What Day it is!!!!!!!
Day 42!
That's right, tomorrow we can breathe again. This is the last day Annie's birth mom has to appeal the termination of her rights, and so far, no word!! 7 hours and counting!! I think we made it this time, though I will knock on wood for saying that!
I know I promised a discussion on my relationships with Lainie and Annie, but I'm putting that off. I'll get back to it. I'm too excited about Annie. Now, if only I could get moving on Will's adoption. Have I told you much about him? See, he's not actually in foster care, his mom obtained custody back a little over a year ago, but he's still been living with us. She finally realized she doesn't make a good mom because it takes more than love to raise a child, especially a meth baby. So she has asked me to adopt him, since I am the mom who has raised him. This is great, but I'm having one problem. I'm not getting the state adoption assistance like I would if he were a foster child, and so far, I'm on hold because I can't afford the homestudy update. It costs just as much to update your homestudy as it does to get a new one. I don't have $500 to spare. I applied for a grant from the National Adoption Foundation, but have never heard back from them. I really don't know what to do, at this point, I may have to put off his adoption for quite a while. If you've ever considered donating to someone on their blog, I could really use your donation right now! That's right, I'm no longer above asking for a handout! I'd like to get all this done, make things legal and permanent quickly so everyone can get on with their lives. The legal fees aren't as big an obstacle, the lawyer doesn't ask for payment up front. But this $500 homestudy fee has to be paid before they'll do the homestudy.
I hate that I'm not wealthy. Just think of all the good I could do for kids if I had money. Of course, if I had money, I'd probably spend it all on the kids so fast, I wouldn't be wealthy anymore! :-)
Now that I've gloated, cried, and begged, I thought I'd vent. Why not be one of those obnoxious people nobody likes to be stuck sitting next to on the plane? What do I have to vent about? This blog. I wanted a new look, something nice. I found a template, changed up a few things, added all my junk, you know, moved in, and published it. Well, after hours of frustration, I finally got the main post column up BESIDE the side bar, but now, the comments are down below the sidebar, and I can't figure out how to bring those up. I've been playing with it all morning. And one nice blogger, Bozette, suggested I resize the pics to fit the bars. I appreciate the comment, but I don't know what that means. HELP! I admit, I'm new and uneducated in the blogging world. I'm learning HTML as I go, and it's mostly guesses with a lot of trial and error. My other problem with this new layout is that the nice people who created it, made the title in the header a link, so it has to be the same color as the rest of the links on the page. This sucks, because the color I want it to be doesn't work for the links on the rest of the page. I don't know how to fix that either. I wish I could just create my own layout, cuz I have a nice idea for a better header, but don't know how to do it.
OK, I feel a little better. Do you think my plea for money will work? I've noticed a lot of people ask for donations on their blogs...does anyone ever get anything? Is this parallel to sitting on a corner with my dog and a cardboard sign stating "Will Work for Food"?
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
That's right, tomorrow we can breathe again. This is the last day Annie's birth mom has to appeal the termination of her rights, and so far, no word!! 7 hours and counting!! I think we made it this time, though I will knock on wood for saying that!
I know I promised a discussion on my relationships with Lainie and Annie, but I'm putting that off. I'll get back to it. I'm too excited about Annie. Now, if only I could get moving on Will's adoption. Have I told you much about him? See, he's not actually in foster care, his mom obtained custody back a little over a year ago, but he's still been living with us. She finally realized she doesn't make a good mom because it takes more than love to raise a child, especially a meth baby. So she has asked me to adopt him, since I am the mom who has raised him. This is great, but I'm having one problem. I'm not getting the state adoption assistance like I would if he were a foster child, and so far, I'm on hold because I can't afford the homestudy update. It costs just as much to update your homestudy as it does to get a new one. I don't have $500 to spare. I applied for a grant from the National Adoption Foundation, but have never heard back from them. I really don't know what to do, at this point, I may have to put off his adoption for quite a while. If you've ever considered donating to someone on their blog, I could really use your donation right now! That's right, I'm no longer above asking for a handout! I'd like to get all this done, make things legal and permanent quickly so everyone can get on with their lives. The legal fees aren't as big an obstacle, the lawyer doesn't ask for payment up front. But this $500 homestudy fee has to be paid before they'll do the homestudy.
I hate that I'm not wealthy. Just think of all the good I could do for kids if I had money. Of course, if I had money, I'd probably spend it all on the kids so fast, I wouldn't be wealthy anymore! :-)
Now that I've gloated, cried, and begged, I thought I'd vent. Why not be one of those obnoxious people nobody likes to be stuck sitting next to on the plane? What do I have to vent about? This blog. I wanted a new look, something nice. I found a template, changed up a few things, added all my junk, you know, moved in, and published it. Well, after hours of frustration, I finally got the main post column up BESIDE the side bar, but now, the comments are down below the sidebar, and I can't figure out how to bring those up. I've been playing with it all morning. And one nice blogger, Bozette, suggested I resize the pics to fit the bars. I appreciate the comment, but I don't know what that means. HELP! I admit, I'm new and uneducated in the blogging world. I'm learning HTML as I go, and it's mostly guesses with a lot of trial and error. My other problem with this new layout is that the nice people who created it, made the title in the header a link, so it has to be the same color as the rest of the links on the page. This sucks, because the color I want it to be doesn't work for the links on the rest of the page. I don't know how to fix that either. I wish I could just create my own layout, cuz I have a nice idea for a better header, but don't know how to do it.
OK, I feel a little better. Do you think my plea for money will work? I've noticed a lot of people ask for donations on their blogs...does anyone ever get anything? Is this parallel to sitting on a corner with my dog and a cardboard sign stating "Will Work for Food"?
I'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for reading! I promise not to be so whiny next time.Will Blog for Adoption Fees!
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
New Look!!
What Do You Think?
I worked quite a while trying to get this to look different. Please let me know if it looks good or not. I saved my other template so I can put it back at any time. I'm a little anxious about this. I do have plans for an even better header, but I like this for now.
Thank you! :-)
Happy Halloween!!
Let's Look a Little Deeper
Explore the Relationships Part 2
Allee
When Allee moved in, as I have said, we all thought she would one day go back to the family who'd committed to adopting her. In the mean time, she'd spent time with us in respite care, and we'd grown to love her in a different way. It was almost like it was safer because nobody had any expectations of it being a long term parent-child relationship. I had fun with Allee, playing games and joking around. I felt an instant bond with her. We talked about anything and everything. She was more like one of my friends than a child I should be raising. I don't know if any of you out there have ever felt this way about a child...teenager...of your own. But as time went on, it became obvious she was never going back to the adoptive family. Their relationship was becoming more volatile, not getting better...and how could it get better? They weren't even in the same state. She and I became closer and closer. She started doing better in school, and we began working on getting her caught up. (She was a year behind.) I felt like this was the relationship I'd always longed for with a daughter. What I began to realize was that I loved her so much it almost hurt. I didn't want her to have another family, I wanted to be her family. But knowing the plan, I never expressed this idea. Until one day, she said it. She asked me to adopt her. She didn't want to leave, she felt at home for the first time in her life. I can't even tell you how excited I was. I called the case manager, and found everyone was on board with this. We'd all seen a change in Allee. She was less deceptive, less manipulative, she was settling in, and doing well in school. She'd been in foster care for 10 years, and nobody had ever seen her doing this well.
Just after her 17th birthday, I adopted her. We went through tough times, she resisted me, tested me, tried to get me to give up on her like everyone else had in her past. But I couldn't. I knew I could never let her go. There was something about her that I needed. Don't get me wrong, please. I didn't love her more than the others, I loved them all differently. I had just as strong a feeling of mother-daughter to Kneesaa, who I was also planning to adopt, it was just different. Allee was like an addiction. I needed to be her mother, and I needed her to want me to be her mother. And she was the same way. We needed each other. My relationship with her almost makes me shy off from new relationships with kids. You'll understand that more if you keep reading my story.
Allee is hard for me to talk about, so I'm done today. I'll come back tomorrow to talk about Lainie and Annie. Thanks for reading!
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Allee
When Allee moved in, as I have said, we all thought she would one day go back to the family who'd committed to adopting her. In the mean time, she'd spent time with us in respite care, and we'd grown to love her in a different way. It was almost like it was safer because nobody had any expectations of it being a long term parent-child relationship. I had fun with Allee, playing games and joking around. I felt an instant bond with her. We talked about anything and everything. She was more like one of my friends than a child I should be raising. I don't know if any of you out there have ever felt this way about a child...teenager...of your own. But as time went on, it became obvious she was never going back to the adoptive family. Their relationship was becoming more volatile, not getting better...and how could it get better? They weren't even in the same state. She and I became closer and closer. She started doing better in school, and we began working on getting her caught up. (She was a year behind.) I felt like this was the relationship I'd always longed for with a daughter. What I began to realize was that I loved her so much it almost hurt. I didn't want her to have another family, I wanted to be her family. But knowing the plan, I never expressed this idea. Until one day, she said it. She asked me to adopt her. She didn't want to leave, she felt at home for the first time in her life. I can't even tell you how excited I was. I called the case manager, and found everyone was on board with this. We'd all seen a change in Allee. She was less deceptive, less manipulative, she was settling in, and doing well in school. She'd been in foster care for 10 years, and nobody had ever seen her doing this well.
Just after her 17th birthday, I adopted her. We went through tough times, she resisted me, tested me, tried to get me to give up on her like everyone else had in her past. But I couldn't. I knew I could never let her go. There was something about her that I needed. Don't get me wrong, please. I didn't love her more than the others, I loved them all differently. I had just as strong a feeling of mother-daughter to Kneesaa, who I was also planning to adopt, it was just different. Allee was like an addiction. I needed to be her mother, and I needed her to want me to be her mother. And she was the same way. We needed each other. My relationship with her almost makes me shy off from new relationships with kids. You'll understand that more if you keep reading my story.Allee is hard for me to talk about, so I'm done today. I'll come back tomorrow to talk about Lainie and Annie. Thanks for reading!
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Let's Look a Little Deeper
Explore the Relationships... Part 1
So far I've mostly been telling you about who was in our house, and what we were doing, but not a lot about our relationships. At this point in the story, I had Kneesaa, Stacie, Allee, Lainie, and Annie...my girls. I haven't really given you a good picture of Kneesaa and Stacie, and there was a lot going on at this point that you should know about to understand my story better. So I'm going back to Fall 2002, and taking a deeper look at my relationships with each of my girls.
So far I've mostly been telling you about who was in our house, and what we were doing, but not a lot about our relationships. At this point in the story, I had Kneesaa, Stacie, Allee, Lainie, and Annie...my girls. I haven't really given you a good picture of Kneesaa and Stacie, and there was a lot going on at this point that you should know about to understand my story better. So I'm going back to Fall 2002, and taking a deeper look at my relationships with each of my girls.
Kneesaa
This was the beginning of Kneesaa's junior year in high school, and when I looked at her and watched her, it amazed me at how much she had changed in only a year. She'd grown up a lot between 15 and 16. It also shocked me that it felt like she'd always been with me, instead of only having been with me for a year. In that year I had come to feel like she was part of me; I don't know that I could have felt any different if I had given birth to her 16 years earlier. We had all the makings of a mother-daughter relationship. She hated me a l
ot, she felt like I was too hard on her, too protective of her. And she loved me. When it counted, she showed it, and I never doubted it. We had our troubles. We went through counseling together. Of course, one of our biggest obstacles was her past, having been abused her whole life, she had no concept of what love should really look like. I could probably say that about most of my kids, especially the ones who came to me when they were older. I love Kneesaa dearly, but she never trusted that I loved her, and I think she still has trouble trusting that I love her. She was jealous of anyone else in my life. She competed with the other girls even when they didn't know she was doing it. She always needed to be seen as the good girl, the most loved. She never understood that I loved her no matter what, and that the other girls had nothing to do with our relationship. Even now, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, she competes with the other girls to be the favorite. I've given up trying to make her see I don't have a favorite, and I just let her believe she's it. If it helps her feel more secure about us, I'm OK with it.
This was the beginning of Kneesaa's junior year in high school, and when I looked at her and watched her, it amazed me at how much she had changed in only a year. She'd grown up a lot between 15 and 16. It also shocked me that it felt like she'd always been with me, instead of only having been with me for a year. In that year I had come to feel like she was part of me; I don't know that I could have felt any different if I had given birth to her 16 years earlier. We had all the makings of a mother-daughter relationship. She hated me a l
ot, she felt like I was too hard on her, too protective of her. And she loved me. When it counted, she showed it, and I never doubted it. We had our troubles. We went through counseling together. Of course, one of our biggest obstacles was her past, having been abused her whole life, she had no concept of what love should really look like. I could probably say that about most of my kids, especially the ones who came to me when they were older. I love Kneesaa dearly, but she never trusted that I loved her, and I think she still has trouble trusting that I love her. She was jealous of anyone else in my life. She competed with the other girls even when they didn't know she was doing it. She always needed to be seen as the good girl, the most loved. She never understood that I loved her no matter what, and that the other girls had nothing to do with our relationship. Even now, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, she competes with the other girls to be the favorite. I've given up trying to make her see I don't have a favorite, and I just let her believe she's it. If it helps her feel more secure about us, I'm OK with it.Stacie
Stacie was a whole different story. In a lot of ways, we got each other, and in a lot of ways, we didn't. Our love for each other was more practical, a lot less mushy. She was more tomboyish than any
other girl in the house. She hated lace, HATED pink, and if she had her way, every article of clothing she owned would be blue. Her only girlish obsession was butterflies. She didn't mess with her hair, didn't wear make-up, didn't wear dresses or skirts. I got this. I am not real girly either, though not quite to the same extent. And we shared the same taste in music...70's and 80's hard rock. She loved the classic metal bands, and the hair bands from the 80's. It was like the only thing we had in common some days. But it was enough. She hated me most of the time, but I understood that too. See, she had a bond with her birth mom, and they still spent a lot of time together. In Stacie's mind, loving me would have meant betraying her mom. This caused a lot of internal conflict for her. I tried to respect that, and not push myself on her. I wanted her to know I loved her, but that I didn't want to replace her mom, I just wanted to be there for her. Mostly I did this by respecting her space, remembering things that were important to her, buying her birthday and Christmas gifts that had meaning rather than being just things. I was subtle in letting her know I loved her. And she did the same. She remembered what I liked and what was important to me. She'd talk bad about me in her bedroom with the other girls, but secretly slip me home-made cards, or just little notes to let me know she cared. One time I was craving wedding cake...for weeks. You know, just one of those weird things. I came home one day, and she had made a small wedding cake just for me. Now, as an adult, Stacie has figured out how to love me and love her mom, and be OK with it. In fact, I think we have an even more loving relationship now, since she left the house, than we ever did when she was there.
This exploration is taking more time and space than I thought it would, so I think I'll post it in parts. Stay tuned for part 2!
Stacie was a whole different story. In a lot of ways, we got each other, and in a lot of ways, we didn't. Our love for each other was more practical, a lot less mushy. She was more tomboyish than any
other girl in the house. She hated lace, HATED pink, and if she had her way, every article of clothing she owned would be blue. Her only girlish obsession was butterflies. She didn't mess with her hair, didn't wear make-up, didn't wear dresses or skirts. I got this. I am not real girly either, though not quite to the same extent. And we shared the same taste in music...70's and 80's hard rock. She loved the classic metal bands, and the hair bands from the 80's. It was like the only thing we had in common some days. But it was enough. She hated me most of the time, but I understood that too. See, she had a bond with her birth mom, and they still spent a lot of time together. In Stacie's mind, loving me would have meant betraying her mom. This caused a lot of internal conflict for her. I tried to respect that, and not push myself on her. I wanted her to know I loved her, but that I didn't want to replace her mom, I just wanted to be there for her. Mostly I did this by respecting her space, remembering things that were important to her, buying her birthday and Christmas gifts that had meaning rather than being just things. I was subtle in letting her know I loved her. And she did the same. She remembered what I liked and what was important to me. She'd talk bad about me in her bedroom with the other girls, but secretly slip me home-made cards, or just little notes to let me know she cared. One time I was craving wedding cake...for weeks. You know, just one of those weird things. I came home one day, and she had made a small wedding cake just for me. Now, as an adult, Stacie has figured out how to love me and love her mom, and be OK with it. In fact, I think we have an even more loving relationship now, since she left the house, than we ever did when she was there.This exploration is taking more time and space than I thought it would, so I think I'll post it in parts. Stay tuned for part 2!
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Lainie Storms In
She's Not So Bad...
When Annie came home, and the two brothers left to live with a relative, she became quite close to Hank. She was teaching him so much, he was starting to talk, and he began walking. It's amazing what older siblings can do to help teach their younger brothers and sisters. Just playing with him, she gave him so much. And she loved playing with him! If you've never heard the sound of children laughing hysterically and spontaneously in your house, you're missing out!
Hank was making so much progress, and we were all becoming so attached to him. It looked like that case was headed to termination, and then we got that call. They'd been to court, and to every one's amazement, the judge was sending Hank home to his parents. I was devastated, I was losing another baby! I called the Regional Director at Health and Welfare and cried on her shoulder. I just didn't understand how they could send him home when the parents hadn't done anything to get him back! She had sympathy, but there was nothing she could do. In the end, all decisions are made by the judges, and this judge went against the recommendations of the department. She gave me the number of another foster parent who only took babies, so she had a lot of experience letting babies go, and might be able to help me. I never did call her, and maybe I should have, just to have that connection, that support. Instead, I internalized, and started developing my own way of getting through the letting go phase...ask for more kids!
So I got Lainie. She was 13, and a troubled girl. They told me I could expect trouble from her, and that she was a poor student, and that they hoped it would work out in our home, but nobody expected it to. Wow, what a way to meet someone, having all those preconceived notions...and this was the first of many who would come to me this way, with me expecting the worst. I don't know if that's good or bad.
When I was in college, one of my professors often quoted one study they'd done with teachers. They took a 40 kids who were all at the same level academically, and behaviorally, and split them in two groups. They told teacher A she was getting a class of high achievers, good kids. They told teacher B she was getting low achievers with behavior problems. Teacher A tried new teaching strategies, and challenging lessons in her class, and concentrated very little on classroom management, assuming she would have no problems anyway. Teacher B focused on classroom management and social skills and kept to the outlined curriculum for the class. In the end, teacher A's student excelled, and teacher B's students performed lower than normal. The point of this was that people perform to your expectations. So is this any way to bring a new child into your home? I don't have an answer. On the one hand, you do need to know their behavior history so you won't be blind-sided if they continue that behavior in your home. On the other hand, the kids do perform, quite often, to our expectations. Like with the twins...we didn't know they were still strictly on a bottle, we assumed at their age they'd be on solids and using a cup, so that's what we gave them, and they began to thrive.
Back to Lainie...we'd never been given a kid and told to expect trouble, so we treated her like any other kid in our home. All the same rules applied. She wasn't being watched closer than the others, she was expected to do her best in school, and she was expected to participate in the family. Her first week there, she told us she hated little kids, but she still played with Barbie dolls, and she had an excuse every night for not being able to help clean up the kitchen.
Well, we just let the "I hate little kids" thing drift off in the air with no response. It didn't take long before she was playing Barbies with Annie. In fact, she got quite close to Annie, and protective of her. With the cleaning thing, we let her get away with it the first night, but the second time she did it, I just kind of shrugged and said, "that's OK, the bathroom is close to the kitchen if you need to vomit. You were well enough to eat, so you should be well enough to put the dishes in the dish washer and wipe the counters." She tried a few more times with the same response, then gave up and did her job with no complaints.
Right after she'd moved in, we sat down and had a family meeting of sorts, and went over the house rules. The other girls helped, and so it was more of a discussion about expectations than anything. The girls actually did most of the talking. They were the ones who stressed to her that school was a big thing. They knew we expected them to try hard, do their best, and ask for help when they needed it, and if they didn't do those things and came home with bad grades, they lost privileges. One of those was the TV in their room that they all shared. So they were good at helping each other out during homework hour every day, and keeping their grades up to the best of their ability so they wouldn't lose their TV. (It only had an antennae on it, so it's not like they'd lose much, but it was important to them.) So what do you think Lainie did? She got straight A's. Everyone who'd known her before was shocked. We didn't even do anything, she was just naturally good in school, never asked for help, and did quite well. You know, two years later when she moved to an adoptive family, they asked her what made the change in her academics, and she told them it was simply that suddenly people believed in her.
After that, I became even more conscious of how we treated kids when they came, and tried to make sure we always kept our expectations high and positive rather than sitting around waiting for them to display whatever bad behavior we were told they'd have. Most of the time, this works.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
When Annie came home, and the two brothers left to live with a relative, she became quite close to Hank. She was teaching him so much, he was starting to talk, and he began walking. It's amazing what older siblings can do to help teach their younger brothers and sisters. Just playing with him, she gave him so much. And she loved playing with him! If you've never heard the sound of children laughing hysterically and spontaneously in your house, you're missing out!
Hank was making so much progress, and we were all becoming so attached to him. It looked like that case was headed to termination, and then we got that call. They'd been to court, and to every one's amazement, the judge was sending Hank home to his parents. I was devastated, I was losing another baby! I called the Regional Director at Health and Welfare and cried on her shoulder. I just didn't understand how they could send him home when the parents hadn't done anything to get him back! She had sympathy, but there was nothing she could do. In the end, all decisions are made by the judges, and this judge went against the recommendations of the department. She gave me the number of another foster parent who only took babies, so she had a lot of experience letting babies go, and might be able to help me. I never did call her, and maybe I should have, just to have that connection, that support. Instead, I internalized, and started developing my own way of getting through the letting go phase...ask for more kids!
So I got Lainie. She was 13, and a troubled girl. They told me I could expect trouble from her, and that she was a poor student, and that they hoped it would work out in our home, but nobody expected it to. Wow, what a way to meet someone, having all those preconceived notions...and this was the first of many who would come to me this way, with me expecting the worst. I don't know if that's good or bad.
When I was in college, one of my professors often quoted one study they'd done with teachers. They took a 40 kids who were all at the same level academically, and behaviorally, and split them in two groups. They told teacher A she was getting a class of high achievers, good kids. They told teacher B she was getting low achievers with behavior problems. Teacher A tried new teaching strategies, and challenging lessons in her class, and concentrated very little on classroom management, assuming she would have no problems anyway. Teacher B focused on classroom management and social skills and kept to the outlined curriculum for the class. In the end, teacher A's student excelled, and teacher B's students performed lower than normal. The point of this was that people perform to your expectations. So is this any way to bring a new child into your home? I don't have an answer. On the one hand, you do need to know their behavior history so you won't be blind-sided if they continue that behavior in your home. On the other hand, the kids do perform, quite often, to our expectations. Like with the twins...we didn't know they were still strictly on a bottle, we assumed at their age they'd be on solids and using a cup, so that's what we gave them, and they began to thrive.
Back to Lainie...we'd never been given a kid and told to expect trouble, so we treated her like any other kid in our home. All the same rules applied. She wasn't being watched closer than the others, she was expected to do her best in school, and she was expected to participate in the family. Her first week there, she told us she hated little kids, but she still played with Barbie dolls, and she had an excuse every night for not being able to help clean up the kitchen.
Well, we just let the "I hate little kids" thing drift off in the air with no response. It didn't take long before she was playing Barbies with Annie. In fact, she got quite close to Annie, and protective of her. With the cleaning thing, we let her get away with it the first night, but the second time she did it, I just kind of shrugged and said, "that's OK, the bathroom is close to the kitchen if you need to vomit. You were well enough to eat, so you should be well enough to put the dishes in the dish washer and wipe the counters." She tried a few more times with the same response, then gave up and did her job with no complaints.
Right after she'd moved in, we sat down and had a family meeting of sorts, and went over the house rules. The other girls helped, and so it was more of a discussion about expectations than anything. The girls actually did most of the talking. They were the ones who stressed to her that school was a big thing. They knew we expected them to try hard, do their best, and ask for help when they needed it, and if they didn't do those things and came home with bad grades, they lost privileges. One of those was the TV in their room that they all shared. So they were good at helping each other out during homework hour every day, and keeping their grades up to the best of their ability so they wouldn't lose their TV. (It only had an antennae on it, so it's not like they'd lose much, but it was important to them.) So what do you think Lainie did? She got straight A's. Everyone who'd known her before was shocked. We didn't even do anything, she was just naturally good in school, never asked for help, and did quite well. You know, two years later when she moved to an adoptive family, they asked her what made the change in her academics, and she told them it was simply that suddenly people believed in her.
After that, I became even more conscious of how we treated kids when they came, and tried to make sure we always kept our expectations high and positive rather than sitting around waiting for them to display whatever bad behavior we were told they'd have. Most of the time, this works.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
To Quote My 3-Year-Old
"OK, OK, JEEZ!"
I'm back to continue my story. Is anyone out there reading it? I guess, at the very least, this has been very therapeutic for me. So where were we...Annie just came back. Imagine this, she's three...she left eight months earlier...really, before that, she'd only lived with us for four months. I thought there was no way she'd ever remember us. But when they brought her home, she ran into my mom's arms (I was at work) and lay her head on my mom's shoulder and stayed there for 20 minutes. The case worker was in tears. Annie was home, where she belonged. Granny then brought her to me at work, and she did the same thing with me. I was in tears, my friends and co-workers were in tears. Kneesaa was bawling. Stacie had tears in her eyes. Even Allee, who had never met Annie, was in tears. My baby girl was home. I don't even know how to convey what that feels like because most people don't go through this, their child leaving for good, then unexpectedly coming back, all at the age of three. I always felt like Annie was supposed to be mine, she had so many traits that reminded me of me at a young age. When they took her away, I was genuinely shocked, and my mind and body couldn't fathom how they could take away a child who was so obviously meant to be with me. So when she came home, I knew she was meant to be with me forever.
Now, Health and Welfare was looking at this in an entirely different light. There's this called the Adoptions and Safe Families Act designed to keep kids from hanging around in foster care for years and years with no sense of permanence. I'll try to explain how this works...when a child comes into foster care, basically, a clock starts ticking. When that child has been in care for 15 of the last 22 months the buzzer goes off, the court and Department of Health and Welfare are supposed to seek a permanent placement for that child, which often means terminating parental rights so the child can be adopted. In fact, they are only supposed to forgo termination if they have a compelling reason not to terminate.
When Annie was in my care the first time, the buzzer had gone off, and it was time to terminate. Part of that termination was posting in the newspapers to inform the father, who had been unattainable the whole time she'd been in care, so he had a fair shot to fight termination. Unexpectedly, he finally came forward after not coming forward for nearly two years. Because he suddenly came forward, he had an opportunity to work a case plan and get her back. She went to live with him under protective supervision, and when he showed that he also could not protect her and care for her, and he endangered her life, she came back to us. But she had been with him just long enough, we had to reset the clock, and wait another 15 months to start the termination process again. Basically, what this did was put her chance for permanence off for two more years.
So 15 months later, when she was five years old, a termination hearing was scheduled. The dad was terminated immediately for abandonment. The mom was fighting it. And she fought hard. Even though she hadn't worked her case plan, and after the things she did to Annie when Annie was only a toddler, just over a year old, this woman was fighting, and expecting apologies and such. It actually came down to the fact that it had been so long, and the case so drug out, the ADA and H&W were starting to feel like she would win her case. I was in denial. There was no way this woman could get my Annie after what she did. Then, a year later, after several court dates, and months of anguish, termination was granted. Annie was now six. However, the birth parent has 42 days to appeal, and she did.
The appeal was worse than the termination. There were no court dates, only silence. Basically, the case file goes to another judge who reviews it and makes a ruling. Sounds simple enough. But appeals for termination cases don't seem to take priority over...well...ANYTHING! Every month I would ask our case worker, have you heard anything? Every month she'd tell me no. She actually started to get defensive with me about it after a while. When we'd been waiting over a year (Annie was then 7) I asked one day, and this is what she said. "Our judge is very busy. He's handling the case where that guy cut off his wife's head." Now, I'm not cold hearted or uncaring about others, but this was my response, "She's dead, she can wait. That just happened, and we've been waiting over a year to go on with our lives. How is her death a priority over a little girl's future?" That didn't go over very well, and the case worker ended her visit about then.
Well, here we are, October 2006. Annie will be 8 in two and a half months. She's been in foster care since she was 18 months old. Last month we finally got a ruling on the appeal...it was in our favor. We've been holding our breath for 34 days now, hoping birth mom doesn't appeal. We have 8 more days. If we get through the next week with no appeal, I finally get to adopt her, and bring some closure to all this. She needs this, wants this, and is now worried something else will happen to crush her dream. She only really knows me as her mom. I've been there for her since she can remember. She knows about her other mom, and who she is, but she also knows what her other mom did to her, and that when the time is right, we will find her again, and she can ask her why and whatever else she wants to ask. But right now, my little girl needs to be safe and secure, and know that this home is for sure and legally her forever home.
Now I realize that I skipped ahead to give you the details of Annie's wait in foster care, but I think it works. Next time I'll go back to when she came home and give you more about what was happening within the Angel Retreat. Thanks for continuing to read on.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
I'm back to continue my story. Is anyone out there reading it? I guess, at the very least, this has been very therapeutic for me. So where were we...Annie just came back. Imagine this, she's three...she left eight months earlier...really, before that, she'd only lived with us for four months. I thought there was no way she'd ever remember us. But when they brought her home, she ran into my mom's arms (I was at work) and lay her head on my mom's shoulder and stayed there for 20 minutes. The case worker was in tears. Annie was home, where she belonged. Granny then brought her to me at work, and she did the same thing with me. I was in tears, my friends and co-workers were in tears. Kneesaa was bawling. Stacie had tears in her eyes. Even Allee, who had never met Annie, was in tears. My baby girl was home. I don't even know how to convey what that feels like because most people don't go through this, their child leaving for good, then unexpectedly coming back, all at the age of three. I always felt like Annie was supposed to be mine, she had so many traits that reminded me of me at a young age. When they took her away, I was genuinely shocked, and my mind and body couldn't fathom how they could take away a child who was so obviously meant to be with me. So when she came home, I knew she was meant to be with me forever.
Now, Health and Welfare was looking at this in an entirely different light. There's this called the Adoptions and Safe Families Act designed to keep kids from hanging around in foster care for years and years with no sense of permanence. I'll try to explain how this works...when a child comes into foster care, basically, a clock starts ticking. When that child has been in care for 15 of the last 22 months the buzzer goes off, the court and Department of Health and Welfare are supposed to seek a permanent placement for that child, which often means terminating parental rights so the child can be adopted. In fact, they are only supposed to forgo termination if they have a compelling reason not to terminate.
When Annie was in my care the first time, the buzzer had gone off, and it was time to terminate. Part of that termination was posting in the newspapers to inform the father, who had been unattainable the whole time she'd been in care, so he had a fair shot to fight termination. Unexpectedly, he finally came forward after not coming forward for nearly two years. Because he suddenly came forward, he had an opportunity to work a case plan and get her back. She went to live with him under protective supervision, and when he showed that he also could not protect her and care for her, and he endangered her life, she came back to us. But she had been with him just long enough, we had to reset the clock, and wait another 15 months to start the termination process again. Basically, what this did was put her chance for permanence off for two more years.
So 15 months later, when she was five years old, a termination hearing was scheduled. The dad was terminated immediately for abandonment. The mom was fighting it. And she fought hard. Even though she hadn't worked her case plan, and after the things she did to Annie when Annie was only a toddler, just over a year old, this woman was fighting, and expecting apologies and such. It actually came down to the fact that it had been so long, and the case so drug out, the ADA and H&W were starting to feel like she would win her case. I was in denial. There was no way this woman could get my Annie after what she did. Then, a year later, after several court dates, and months of anguish, termination was granted. Annie was now six. However, the birth parent has 42 days to appeal, and she did.
The appeal was worse than the termination. There were no court dates, only silence. Basically, the case file goes to another judge who reviews it and makes a ruling. Sounds simple enough. But appeals for termination cases don't seem to take priority over...well...ANYTHING! Every month I would ask our case worker, have you heard anything? Every month she'd tell me no. She actually started to get defensive with me about it after a while. When we'd been waiting over a year (Annie was then 7) I asked one day, and this is what she said. "Our judge is very busy. He's handling the case where that guy cut off his wife's head." Now, I'm not cold hearted or uncaring about others, but this was my response, "She's dead, she can wait. That just happened, and we've been waiting over a year to go on with our lives. How is her death a priority over a little girl's future?" That didn't go over very well, and the case worker ended her visit about then.
Well, here we are, October 2006. Annie will be 8 in two and a half months. She's been in foster care since she was 18 months old. Last month we finally got a ruling on the appeal...it was in our favor. We've been holding our breath for 34 days now, hoping birth mom doesn't appeal. We have 8 more days. If we get through the next week with no appeal, I finally get to adopt her, and bring some closure to all this. She needs this, wants this, and is now worried something else will happen to crush her dream. She only really knows me as her mom. I've been there for her since she can remember. She knows about her other mom, and who she is, but she also knows what her other mom did to her, and that when the time is right, we will find her again, and she can ask her why and whatever else she wants to ask. But right now, my little girl needs to be safe and secure, and know that this home is for sure and legally her forever home.
Now I realize that I skipped ahead to give you the details of Annie's wait in foster care, but I think it works. Next time I'll go back to when she came home and give you more about what was happening within the Angel Retreat. Thanks for continuing to read on.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Bringing Up the Past
This is Harder than I Thought it Would Be!
I finished writing my post yesterday thinking I'd be all psyched up to continue the story today about getting Annie back...what a happy memory! But instead, I'm having trouble getting myself to go back to the story just yet. See, right now we are at a good and happy time, but knowing what I know, it's very hard for me, as you will see later down the line. I love my girls, and I miss them, and I love thinking about them, and it puts me in quite a melancholy mood.
When I got home from work last night to house full of chaos: screaming, fighting, tantrums, and outright defiance...well, it was a tough snap back to reality I guess. I'd spent the day rejoicing in thoughts of days gone by, and wasn't ready to leave it all behind. For the first time in my life, the chaos brought me to tears. The memories were too vivid at that moment, and my mind couldn't handle the present.
Please don't get me wrong...I love my kids dearly, I wouldn't be adopting most of them if I didn't. Just, some days, I long for the fun family of teenage girls who lived with me four years ago. I know we will get there again someday with this gang...they have quite a bit of growing to do first, and I cherish all the moments of their babyhood, childhood right now. But there are just days when I wish instead of going to soccer practice to watch Annie act like a monkey down at the goal rather than play the game we were settling down at the kitchen table to play a long drawn-out game of Phase 10, or talking about Homecoming plans.
I guess this is the dangers of parenting in the foster care system...especially when it's the only kind of parenting you've ever done. I did it backwards. First I had the teens and high school drama...now I have potty training, terrible two's, soccer practice, swim lessons, and learning to read.
I don't mean to whine...I always say, don't whine at me, talk to me like I'm just another human being...I just got caught up in the memories. And my mind also knows whats coming in the story, and I may be a little reluctant to get there, to drudge up that pain again.
I did want to say this though, I'm finally there in the story...right after we got Annie back, we decided to name our home. I don't even know why. Granny and I had gone back to NM for a friend's wedding, and we were driving around, visiting old haunts, seeing the sights again, and as we drove down one of my favorite roads, full of huge old haciendas, horse ranches, beautiful scenery, and reading the names of these places, I started thinking about our little home in Idaho. I thought about how my kids were like Angels finding a place to land in our hearts...and I burst out with, "We should call our home the Angel Retreat." And ever since, that's what we are. Oddly enough, we even get junk mail now addressed to the Angel Retreat. (I;m not sure how that happened.) I'll try to get myself prepared to continue with my story when I get back on Monday...see ya then.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
I finished writing my post yesterday thinking I'd be all psyched up to continue the story today about getting Annie back...what a happy memory! But instead, I'm having trouble getting myself to go back to the story just yet. See, right now we are at a good and happy time, but knowing what I know, it's very hard for me, as you will see later down the line. I love my girls, and I miss them, and I love thinking about them, and it puts me in quite a melancholy mood.
When I got home from work last night to house full of chaos: screaming, fighting, tantrums, and outright defiance...well, it was a tough snap back to reality I guess. I'd spent the day rejoicing in thoughts of days gone by, and wasn't ready to leave it all behind. For the first time in my life, the chaos brought me to tears. The memories were too vivid at that moment, and my mind couldn't handle the present.
Please don't get me wrong...I love my kids dearly, I wouldn't be adopting most of them if I didn't. Just, some days, I long for the fun family of teenage girls who lived with me four years ago. I know we will get there again someday with this gang...they have quite a bit of growing to do first, and I cherish all the moments of their babyhood, childhood right now. But there are just days when I wish instead of going to soccer practice to watch Annie act like a monkey down at the goal rather than play the game we were settling down at the kitchen table to play a long drawn-out game of Phase 10, or talking about Homecoming plans.
I guess this is the dangers of parenting in the foster care system...especially when it's the only kind of parenting you've ever done. I did it backwards. First I had the teens and high school drama...now I have potty training, terrible two's, soccer practice, swim lessons, and learning to read.
I don't mean to whine...I always say, don't whine at me, talk to me like I'm just another human being...I just got caught up in the memories. And my mind also knows whats coming in the story, and I may be a little reluctant to get there, to drudge up that pain again.
I did want to say this though, I'm finally there in the story...right after we got Annie back, we decided to name our home. I don't even know why. Granny and I had gone back to NM for a friend's wedding, and we were driving around, visiting old haunts, seeing the sights again, and as we drove down one of my favorite roads, full of huge old haciendas, horse ranches, beautiful scenery, and reading the names of these places, I started thinking about our little home in Idaho. I thought about how my kids were like Angels finding a place to land in our hearts...and I burst out with, "We should call our home the Angel Retreat." And ever since, that's what we are. Oddly enough, we even get junk mail now addressed to the Angel Retreat. (I;m not sure how that happened.) I'll try to get myself prepared to continue with my story when I get back on Monday...see ya then.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The Brady Bunch..Sorta
Summer 2002
By the middle of summer in 2002, we felt like a family, and I felt like I'd been doing this forever, not just over a year. We developed a game to play with the girls to give them an opportunity to earn rewards. See, we're big fans of two reality TV shows: Survivor, and Big Brother. So we started giving the girls Big Brother Challenges. Like, for instance, we obtained chop sticks from a local Chinese restaurant, and played Egg-Foo-Young...first they had to hold an egg with their chop sticks and run a specific pattern in the yard, handing the egg off to the next like in a relay. Then they had to use their chop sticks to tie their shoes (which rhymes with foo), and last they had to hold a piece of sidewalk chalk with the chop sticks and write their name on the driveway (they are young). All this had to be done in a certain amount of time. For this they earned dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
I guess, in going back and writing about my life as a foster parent, it's making me look at all the things I did with my girls that made our house a family rather than just a foster home. Like I said, I often look back at these times with my girls and wish it were still like that. I long for my family, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that our time together was so short. And never since that time have we had that same feeling of family in our home.
So that summer, we were blessed with three more kids...boys. They were younger, one a toddler, Hank, and the other two brothers, 6 and 8, Owen and Ivan. Of course, the girls and I instantly fell in love with Hank. It's really hard not to immediately fall in love with the babies! And I suppose that's best, because they are at a crucial developmental stage when they learn to love and be loved, and they need their caregivers to do just that. The brothers were a bit more of a challenge. They'd been in another foster home who couldn't handle them anymore, and the deal was, they were waiting for all the red tape to be gone through to get moved to a relative in another state. We took them and were told it would be for about a month.
Owen and Ivan have a place in my heart that probably nobody else can go. They were very special boys who needed so much! And yet, they were near impossible to handle. The younger one, Owen, would get in so much trouble, the year before while he was with his last foster parents, he'd been kicked off the school bus indefinitely...on the first day of school. And he was only in kindergarten. Ivan was different, he was a charmer. People thought he was an angel. But if you listened at their bedroom door, you could hear him telling Owen to do things that would only get Owen in trouble. You could hear him saying things that would send Owen into a rage. Has anyone seen the Omen? J/K J/K
Anyway, a month turned into two, and suddenly we were registering the boys for school. Hank was doing well, catching up...he was nearly two, and we had to teach him to eat solid food, walk, and start making talking sounds. Allee especially fell in love with him, and worked with him a lot. I think he was as good for her as she was for him. Owen and Ivan were starting to wear our patience thin. We actually had to start putting them in respite care almost every weekend towards the end of their stay with us. By mid September, I was hounding their case worker almost daily to see where things were with getting them to their relatives. (They were with us into October.)
This brought about a new feeling for me. I loved these boys, and I still think about them often. I hope they are well, and have found their place in the world. But I found myself needing them to move on, and I was conflicted...how do you feel that way about someone you love...about a child? The mom in Florida, who wants to unadopt her adopted son...I understand that. When you have kids who are emotionally and physically destructive, you have to start thinking about a bigger picture. You have to think about everyone in the home, and what's going to be best for all. Owen and Ivan needed a smaller family, people who could spend a lot more one on one with them. Not all kids do well in large families, and we would always be a large family. Some kids are going to need special care that will involve therapy, even psycho-therapy, and medications, and a house full of people will only over-stimulate them and hinder any progress they could make in a less populated house.
Now, to add to my feelings of conflict over finally getting these kids moved to their relative, in the years since, I've kept track of them. They eventually ended up back in Idaho in foster care because the relatives used corporal punishment, and probably went a little further than spanking. Then I found them on Wednesday's Child, looking for an adoptive home. My guilt grew because I knew the chances of them being adopted at their age was slim, of staying together even slimmer. But I have to keep telling myself I did the right thing for my family...they were never going to stay with us permanently anyway, I just pushed to speed up the process of getting them moved to their relatives.
But before they left, something very exciting happened...Annie came home. She'd been gone 8 long months, and that August, she was home again. I'll tell you more next time.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
By the middle of summer in 2002, we felt like a family, and I felt like I'd been doing this forever, not just over a year. We developed a game to play with the girls to give them an opportunity to earn rewards. See, we're big fans of two reality TV shows: Survivor, and Big Brother. So we started giving the girls Big Brother Challenges. Like, for instance, we obtained chop sticks from a local Chinese restaurant, and played Egg-Foo-Young...first they had to hold an egg with their chop sticks and run a specific pattern in the yard, handing the egg off to the next like in a relay. Then they had to use their chop sticks to tie their shoes (which rhymes with foo), and last they had to hold a piece of sidewalk chalk with the chop sticks and write their name on the driveway (they are young). All this had to be done in a certain amount of time. For this they earned dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
I guess, in going back and writing about my life as a foster parent, it's making me look at all the things I did with my girls that made our house a family rather than just a foster home. Like I said, I often look back at these times with my girls and wish it were still like that. I long for my family, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that our time together was so short. And never since that time have we had that same feeling of family in our home.
So that summer, we were blessed with three more kids...boys. They were younger, one a toddler, Hank, and the other two brothers, 6 and 8, Owen and Ivan. Of course, the girls and I instantly fell in love with Hank. It's really hard not to immediately fall in love with the babies! And I suppose that's best, because they are at a crucial developmental stage when they learn to love and be loved, and they need their caregivers to do just that. The brothers were a bit more of a challenge. They'd been in another foster home who couldn't handle them anymore, and the deal was, they were waiting for all the red tape to be gone through to get moved to a relative in another state. We took them and were told it would be for about a month.
Owen and Ivan have a place in my heart that probably nobody else can go. They were very special boys who needed so much! And yet, they were near impossible to handle. The younger one, Owen, would get in so much trouble, the year before while he was with his last foster parents, he'd been kicked off the school bus indefinitely...on the first day of school. And he was only in kindergarten. Ivan was different, he was a charmer. People thought he was an angel. But if you listened at their bedroom door, you could hear him telling Owen to do things that would only get Owen in trouble. You could hear him saying things that would send Owen into a rage. Has anyone seen the Omen? J/K J/K
Anyway, a month turned into two, and suddenly we were registering the boys for school. Hank was doing well, catching up...he was nearly two, and we had to teach him to eat solid food, walk, and start making talking sounds. Allee especially fell in love with him, and worked with him a lot. I think he was as good for her as she was for him. Owen and Ivan were starting to wear our patience thin. We actually had to start putting them in respite care almost every weekend towards the end of their stay with us. By mid September, I was hounding their case worker almost daily to see where things were with getting them to their relatives. (They were with us into October.)
This brought about a new feeling for me. I loved these boys, and I still think about them often. I hope they are well, and have found their place in the world. But I found myself needing them to move on, and I was conflicted...how do you feel that way about someone you love...about a child? The mom in Florida, who wants to unadopt her adopted son...I understand that. When you have kids who are emotionally and physically destructive, you have to start thinking about a bigger picture. You have to think about everyone in the home, and what's going to be best for all. Owen and Ivan needed a smaller family, people who could spend a lot more one on one with them. Not all kids do well in large families, and we would always be a large family. Some kids are going to need special care that will involve therapy, even psycho-therapy, and medications, and a house full of people will only over-stimulate them and hinder any progress they could make in a less populated house.
Now, to add to my feelings of conflict over finally getting these kids moved to their relative, in the years since, I've kept track of them. They eventually ended up back in Idaho in foster care because the relatives used corporal punishment, and probably went a little further than spanking. Then I found them on Wednesday's Child, looking for an adoptive home. My guilt grew because I knew the chances of them being adopted at their age was slim, of staying together even slimmer. But I have to keep telling myself I did the right thing for my family...they were never going to stay with us permanently anyway, I just pushed to speed up the process of getting them moved to their relatives.
But before they left, something very exciting happened...Annie came home. She'd been gone 8 long months, and that August, she was home again. I'll tell you more next time.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Spin the Revolving Door
Time for Another Change
Later that Spring, it's now 2002, Carly was being moved to a relative who would be very good for her. We were happy to see her finding a permanent home with someone who loved her and wanted to do what was best for her. At the same time this was happening, there was a 16 year old girl in another foster home who we had had in respite several times. We'd grown close to her, and always loved having her spend time with us. The foster home she was in was having troubles, and the kids were all being moved out, so we took Allee.
This was an interesting placement for us. Allee came to us with the understanding that she would one day be moving back to an adoptive placement in another state where she had been with some of her siblings before being sent back to Idaho. The idea had been that she and the adoptive family needed a break, to get a breath and a better look at things, and Allee would bring up her grades in school, then they would try again. So we knew when we got her that it would not be forever.
Stacie and Kneesaa were excited for Allee to move in. They also had enjoyed the time they'd spent with her, and were looking forward to living with her. Of course, being friends living in different homes is a lot different than being sisters living in the same home. It didn't take long for the girls to settle into sisterhood with all that comes with it. Territory disputes, clothing trauma, petty bickering, and good old sibling rivalry. But at the same time, they were protective of each other, they confided in each other, they were like real sisters. When I take time now to think back on my years doing foster care, this is the time I think back on the most, this is the time when I felt like we had a real family.
The girls became so much a part of me, and vice versa, it was like they'd always been there, and that they'd always been sisters. Our relationships with each other were dynamic and real. Granny and I wanted to share them with everyone, so we planned a trip to Arizona to meet our extended family. We had so much fun taking them to all our favorite places, and introducing them to everyone. They took lots of pictures, and to this day they still talk about that trip.
We were able to integrate these girls into our family, and make them a part of the lives of ALL our family, and I think that made a difference. It made them feel like they belonged, that they would always have us, and I felt like a need to be a mother was beginning to be satisfied. It was good for everyone. One thing that most foster children go through is a sense of isolation. They have been taken from everything and everyone they know, and put with a house full of strangers. Most often, they never feel a sense of belonging. They feel like an outsider, even when they live with one family for years. My whole family has been so great and supportive of my work with kids that they help me help the kids. They accept them and make them part of their lives too. Most of our kids are able to find at least one person within my family to form a bond. By forming that bond, they attach themselves in a permanent sense of belonging, because after that, no matter where they go or what they do, they know that bond is there. All people need to feel that. It's what makes us belong. Otherwise, we'd all be floating around out there, not belonging anywhere, feeling lost and alone.
I have to say, my girls made me feel like I had someone to live for as much as my family did that for them. As foster parents, it's not all about being a saint and savior to a bunch of poor souls who'd be lost forever without us. It's about making our own connections and finding our way in life too. I learn just as much from my kids as they do from me. When I think back to how I got started in all this, I have to wonder where I'd be and what I'd be doing right now if it weren't for them!
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Later that Spring, it's now 2002, Carly was being moved to a relative who would be very good for her. We were happy to see her finding a permanent home with someone who loved her and wanted to do what was best for her. At the same time this was happening, there was a 16 year old girl in another foster home who we had had in respite several times. We'd grown close to her, and always loved having her spend time with us. The foster home she was in was having troubles, and the kids were all being moved out, so we took Allee.
This was an interesting placement for us. Allee came to us with the understanding that she would one day be moving back to an adoptive placement in another state where she had been with some of her siblings before being sent back to Idaho. The idea had been that she and the adoptive family needed a break, to get a breath and a better look at things, and Allee would bring up her grades in school, then they would try again. So we knew when we got her that it would not be forever.
Stacie and Kneesaa were excited for Allee to move in. They also had enjoyed the time they'd spent with her, and were looking forward to living with her. Of course, being friends living in different homes is a lot different than being sisters living in the same home. It didn't take long for the girls to settle into sisterhood with all that comes with it. Territory disputes, clothing trauma, petty bickering, and good old sibling rivalry. But at the same time, they were protective of each other, they confided in each other, they were like real sisters. When I take time now to think back on my years doing foster care, this is the time I think back on the most, this is the time when I felt like we had a real family.
The girls became so much a part of me, and vice versa, it was like they'd always been there, and that they'd always been sisters. Our relationships with each other were dynamic and real. Granny and I wanted to share them with everyone, so we planned a trip to Arizona to meet our extended family. We had so much fun taking them to all our favorite places, and introducing them to everyone. They took lots of pictures, and to this day they still talk about that trip.
We were able to integrate these girls into our family, and make them a part of the lives of ALL our family, and I think that made a difference. It made them feel like they belonged, that they would always have us, and I felt like a need to be a mother was beginning to be satisfied. It was good for everyone. One thing that most foster children go through is a sense of isolation. They have been taken from everything and everyone they know, and put with a house full of strangers. Most often, they never feel a sense of belonging. They feel like an outsider, even when they live with one family for years. My whole family has been so great and supportive of my work with kids that they help me help the kids. They accept them and make them part of their lives too. Most of our kids are able to find at least one person within my family to form a bond. By forming that bond, they attach themselves in a permanent sense of belonging, because after that, no matter where they go or what they do, they know that bond is there. All people need to feel that. It's what makes us belong. Otherwise, we'd all be floating around out there, not belonging anywhere, feeling lost and alone.
I have to say, my girls made me feel like I had someone to live for as much as my family did that for them. As foster parents, it's not all about being a saint and savior to a bunch of poor souls who'd be lost forever without us. It's about making our own connections and finding our way in life too. I learn just as much from my kids as they do from me. When I think back to how I got started in all this, I have to wonder where I'd be and what I'd be doing right now if it weren't for them!
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Trying Something New...Again
beta Blogger...sounds like a diet pill...
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it. I guess I switched my blog over to beta, and being only somewhat computer savvy, I have no idea what that means. I was actually scared to do it. I thought for sure, with my luck, it would throw everything out of wack and I wouldn't be able to fix it. Afterall, there was a warning that you can't take it back, once you switch, it's for good!
Something else is on my mind. Being somewhat new to all of this. I notice a lot of people will occasionally mention sites they use to gain traffic on their blog. I use Blog Mad and Blog Explosion, and I like them well enough. Is there some rule I missed, though, saying you have to mention these once in a while? If so, here goes.
Blog Mad is awesome!
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it. I guess I switched my blog over to beta, and being only somewhat computer savvy, I have no idea what that means. I was actually scared to do it. I thought for sure, with my luck, it would throw everything out of wack and I wouldn't be able to fix it. Afterall, there was a warning that you can't take it back, once you switch, it's for good!
Something else is on my mind. Being somewhat new to all of this. I notice a lot of people will occasionally mention sites they use to gain traffic on their blog. I use Blog Mad and Blog Explosion, and I like them well enough. Is there some rule I missed, though, saying you have to mention these once in a while? If so, here goes.
Blog Mad is awesome!
Blog Explosion, what a gift!
Don't forget to donate to the cause. We're poor, and our kids are hungry! :-)
Child Welfare Reform
Focus in Foster Families Today is "Reforming the Child Welfare System to Benefit Children"
How foster care is paid for can be quite confusing. Every state does it different, and each state utilizes federal funds for their child welfare programs. In some states, foster parents are considered employees, and are well compensated for their work with children, but receive no other monetary assistance than their monthly reimbursement. Of coarse, that monthly check is meant to be enough to cover the entire cost of raising the children in their home. In other states, like Idaho, foster parents are considered volunteers, and are reimbursed at a very low rate (Don't quote me, but the last time I looked, Idaho foster families were in the bottom five in the nation for reimbursement for their work. We don't do this for the money!). However, we do get additional assistance in buying clothing, and diapers.
But that's just the foster parent end of things. Child Welfare funds pay for the social workers who manage the cases, medical expenses, transportation, court costs, programs to prevent abuse and neglect aimed at keeping the children safely in their own homes rather than putting them in foster care, and a plethora of other things. The federal funds are split in two categories, Title IV-E, and Title IV-B. Now, my understanding of this is, Title IV-B funds are specifically for prevention and reunification programs, and all children and families are eligible for these funds. Title IV-E funds are dedicated to foster care and adoption assistance, and some children, depending on their biological parents' income, are not eligible for these funds. At present, 65% of federal funding goes to foster care, 22% of federal funding goes to adoption assistance, and 11% of federal funding is used for prevention and reunification services. (Confused yet?)
So the problem lies in that the states don't have flexibility to use funds in ways to increase prevention, help the families who are at risk become more stable and safe, because such a large portion of the funds are distributed under Title IV-E. You see, if a family makes just a few dollars more than the poverty line, they don't qualify for IV-E. And, these funds are allocated for foster care services. How do we make changes to this system without jeopardizing useful and needed programs?
The September/October 2006 edition of Foster Families Today focuses on Child Welfare Reform. In the article "President Bush's Proposal: Flexible Funding for Child Welfare" by Jerry Foxhaven, the director of the Joan and Lyle Middleton Children's Rights Center at the Drake University School of Law, he quotes one recommendation from the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, "give states new flexibility to use nearly half of all current federal IV-E expenditures as they see fit to meet the unique needs of the children in their care." This would free up some of the money to be used when and where needed instead of that money being available only for specific pre-outlined uses.
President Bush has proposed the Child Welfare Program Option. As described in the same article, "The President's Program Option is designed to give states complete flexibility in the use of federal child welfare funds, with less documentation and compliance requirements, but continues outcome measures to ensure child safety protections. The proposal is voluntary. States have the option to "elect in" or "elect out" for a five-year period. However, states could not change their election choice during that five-year period. States that do not select the option will continue operating under the current IV-E entitlement program. States selecting the Program Option would receive annual grants during the five-year time period based upon their previous IV-E eligibility claims, with funding increased equal to the projected growth in foster care spending. An emergency fund is created to allow additional funding to states exercising the option in the event of an unusual increase in foster care caseload or unemployment rates."
Ok, so this was sounding reasonable to me, but I kept thinking..."Bush's idea, what's the catch?" I think Bush has an intention to help, but in his own narrow Republican mind, probably doesn't see the big picture. From the same edition of Fostering Families Today, I found this in the article "Increase Support for the Nation's Most Vulnerable Children" by Joe Kroll who is involved with the North American Council on Adoptable Children, or NACAC. "A better way to ensure that abused and neglected children who cannot live at home are looked after...is to preserve federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and to use Title IV-B and Title IV-E administrative and training funds to create an indexed, block-granted fund for prevention, treatment, reunification, post-permanency services, and other assistance out of Title IV-B and the administration and training portions of Title IV-E. This innovative funding idea was recommended by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care....Congress should (also) build in a "snap-back" provision that would be triggered if the block grant was ever reduced. This would guarantee that the IV-E administration and training provisions would revert to their former open-ended entitlement status if the block grant were ever reduced. As child advocates know from having watched the Title XX Social Services fund diminish by one-third since 1981 after it was block-granted in 1981, protections must be built in when fixed, predetermined allocations for child welfare are made to child welfare funding." He goes on to say, "There are risks in moving to flexible child welfare financing. States may be asked to fall back on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds that come in a fixed amount and are marked mainly for family economic self-sufficiency, not child welfare. Block granting could pit workforce and training needs against access to a greater range of services for children and families. In spite of the challenges, the time has come for greater flexibility and accountability in child welfare financing. That doesn't mean, however, that child advocates should embrace President Bush's proposal. We must continue to advocate for flexibility with the proper levels of protection and support for vulnerable children and their families."
So my point is, there are a lot of people out here who want only to see improvement in the lives of children in our country. But there are even more people out there who have no conception of the real problems that exist, and our child welfare system is hindered in ways that need fixing. There do exist organizations which are studying the problems and working out solutions, but the federal government wants to make it's own solutions. What we need is someone in the government looking at the issue from this side in order to make better recommendations that will produce long-lasting solutions rather than short-term fixes.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
How foster care is paid for can be quite confusing. Every state does it different, and each state utilizes federal funds for their child welfare programs. In some states, foster parents are considered employees, and are well compensated for their work with children, but receive no other monetary assistance than their monthly reimbursement. Of coarse, that monthly check is meant to be enough to cover the entire cost of raising the children in their home. In other states, like Idaho, foster parents are considered volunteers, and are reimbursed at a very low rate (Don't quote me, but the last time I looked, Idaho foster families were in the bottom five in the nation for reimbursement for their work. We don't do this for the money!). However, we do get additional assistance in buying clothing, and diapers.
But that's just the foster parent end of things. Child Welfare funds pay for the social workers who manage the cases, medical expenses, transportation, court costs, programs to prevent abuse and neglect aimed at keeping the children safely in their own homes rather than putting them in foster care, and a plethora of other things. The federal funds are split in two categories, Title IV-E, and Title IV-B. Now, my understanding of this is, Title IV-B funds are specifically for prevention and reunification programs, and all children and families are eligible for these funds. Title IV-E funds are dedicated to foster care and adoption assistance, and some children, depending on their biological parents' income, are not eligible for these funds. At present, 65% of federal funding goes to foster care, 22% of federal funding goes to adoption assistance, and 11% of federal funding is used for prevention and reunification services. (Confused yet?)
So the problem lies in that the states don't have flexibility to use funds in ways to increase prevention, help the families who are at risk become more stable and safe, because such a large portion of the funds are distributed under Title IV-E. You see, if a family makes just a few dollars more than the poverty line, they don't qualify for IV-E. And, these funds are allocated for foster care services. How do we make changes to this system without jeopardizing useful and needed programs?
The September/October 2006 edition of Foster Families Today focuses on Child Welfare Reform. In the article "President Bush's Proposal: Flexible Funding for Child Welfare" by Jerry Foxhaven, the director of the Joan and Lyle Middleton Children's Rights Center at the Drake University School of Law, he quotes one recommendation from the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care, "give states new flexibility to use nearly half of all current federal IV-E expenditures as they see fit to meet the unique needs of the children in their care." This would free up some of the money to be used when and where needed instead of that money being available only for specific pre-outlined uses.
President Bush has proposed the Child Welfare Program Option. As described in the same article, "The President's Program Option is designed to give states complete flexibility in the use of federal child welfare funds, with less documentation and compliance requirements, but continues outcome measures to ensure child safety protections. The proposal is voluntary. States have the option to "elect in" or "elect out" for a five-year period. However, states could not change their election choice during that five-year period. States that do not select the option will continue operating under the current IV-E entitlement program. States selecting the Program Option would receive annual grants during the five-year time period based upon their previous IV-E eligibility claims, with funding increased equal to the projected growth in foster care spending. An emergency fund is created to allow additional funding to states exercising the option in the event of an unusual increase in foster care caseload or unemployment rates."
Ok, so this was sounding reasonable to me, but I kept thinking..."Bush's idea, what's the catch?" I think Bush has an intention to help, but in his own narrow Republican mind, probably doesn't see the big picture. From the same edition of Fostering Families Today, I found this in the article "Increase Support for the Nation's Most Vulnerable Children" by Joe Kroll who is involved with the North American Council on Adoptable Children, or NACAC. "A better way to ensure that abused and neglected children who cannot live at home are looked after...is to preserve federal foster care maintenance and adoption assistance as an entitlement and to use Title IV-B and Title IV-E administrative and training funds to create an indexed, block-granted fund for prevention, treatment, reunification, post-permanency services, and other assistance out of Title IV-B and the administration and training portions of Title IV-E. This innovative funding idea was recommended by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care....Congress should (also) build in a "snap-back" provision that would be triggered if the block grant was ever reduced. This would guarantee that the IV-E administration and training provisions would revert to their former open-ended entitlement status if the block grant were ever reduced. As child advocates know from having watched the Title XX Social Services fund diminish by one-third since 1981 after it was block-granted in 1981, protections must be built in when fixed, predetermined allocations for child welfare are made to child welfare funding." He goes on to say, "There are risks in moving to flexible child welfare financing. States may be asked to fall back on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds that come in a fixed amount and are marked mainly for family economic self-sufficiency, not child welfare. Block granting could pit workforce and training needs against access to a greater range of services for children and families. In spite of the challenges, the time has come for greater flexibility and accountability in child welfare financing. That doesn't mean, however, that child advocates should embrace President Bush's proposal. We must continue to advocate for flexibility with the proper levels of protection and support for vulnerable children and their families."
So my point is, there are a lot of people out here who want only to see improvement in the lives of children in our country. But there are even more people out there who have no conception of the real problems that exist, and our child welfare system is hindered in ways that need fixing. There do exist organizations which are studying the problems and working out solutions, but the federal government wants to make it's own solutions. What we need is someone in the government looking at the issue from this side in order to make better recommendations that will produce long-lasting solutions rather than short-term fixes.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Moving On
Then There Were Two...No, Make that Three Again
It started to seem that we had a revolving door. Kilee left, and here was Carly. Carly was only 12, so kind of a pre-teen. But, she was trouble. She had the body of a 17 year old girl, and not the maturity to handle it. I couldn't let her hang out anywhere without some kind of parental supervision. I suddenly felt like a jailer instead of a parent. And Carly had an attitude to go along with her body! I found myself wondering how I'd gotten to this point. A year before I was getting my first child, a baby, and the experience was wonderful. Here I was going into my second year as a foster parent, and I had no babies, or even young children. I had three teenage girls, all with their own niche in the teenage world of woes bundled up with a life time of problems from being abused and neglected.
I didn't feel prepared for this. Social workers kept telling me they loved what we were doing with the girls, our home was like magic. But I felt I was missing something. My parenting skills didn't get to grow up with anyone. I went from babyhood to teenagerville in the blink of an eye. But at the same time that I felt unprepared, I was also having fun. Each of the girls caused me their own special brand of trouble, but we mostly had a happy life. I'm not like most foster parents who have already raised children of their own so have a base of skills to draw from. I was a first time parent, so I was drawing on personal experience as a former teenager to parent these teens.
In our house, we don't make the kids do endless chores, it's simple: keep your room clean, strip your bed on Mondays, put your laundry in the laundry room on Tuesdays, help clean the kitchen after dinner, and we all have one room in the house to clean on Saturdays. We also don't want kids having too much time to dwell alone in a room by themselves, so they can't hole up in their rooms until after 7:00 pm every day. We like to play games, Phase 10, Aggravation, Hearts, Sequence...these are our favorites. The girls enjoyed learning the games, and became quite good at them. We spent a lot of time with these three teens at the kitchen table playing games. I also love movies, so we took the girls to a lot of movies. In foster care, kids can't get a driver's license, ride in cars with driver's under 18, or have too much unsupervised activity. We tried to make up for this by taking them to festivals, movies, malls, whatever we could find so they weren't cooped up in the house all the time.
Maybe it was good that I was a first-time parent in some ways. I didn't really feel old enough to be the parent of teens, so I may have identified with them a little more than someone older with more parenting experience. I don't know. Whatever it was, it was working. And for that reason, I kept getting calls to take more teens. And for a very long time, that was what I loved, and what I thought I wanted. So much so that it led to my first two adoptions.
Getting back to Carly...she, Kneesaa, and Stacie got along fine, until one night when all three girls were in trouble. They'd taken advantage of our trust, and got in pretty big trouble. It was the first time Kneesaa and Stacie had been in trouble in the six months they'd been with us. They weren't happy, but took their consequences with a grain of salt, and went to their room. Carly, on the other hand, had only been with us a little over a month, and was still settling in. She let her temper flair up, and puffed up her chest and took a threatening stance in front of Granny. Strangely enough, this act led to a wonderful realization.
When Kneesaa and Stacie saw Carly threaten Granny, they came out of their room. Stacie actually got between Carly and Granny. "This is our home, and you will not hurt my Granny." It was the first time either of the girls had verbalized their emotions about our home. It was almost as if the seriousness of what had happened that night melted away in the glow of joy at hearing Stacie defend our home. It was amazing in a way that is so hard to explain. Carly backed down and went to bed. We didn't have anymore trouble with her from then until she left about 2 months later.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
It started to seem that we had a revolving door. Kilee left, and here was Carly. Carly was only 12, so kind of a pre-teen. But, she was trouble. She had the body of a 17 year old girl, and not the maturity to handle it. I couldn't let her hang out anywhere without some kind of parental supervision. I suddenly felt like a jailer instead of a parent. And Carly had an attitude to go along with her body! I found myself wondering how I'd gotten to this point. A year before I was getting my first child, a baby, and the experience was wonderful. Here I was going into my second year as a foster parent, and I had no babies, or even young children. I had three teenage girls, all with their own niche in the teenage world of woes bundled up with a life time of problems from being abused and neglected.
I didn't feel prepared for this. Social workers kept telling me they loved what we were doing with the girls, our home was like magic. But I felt I was missing something. My parenting skills didn't get to grow up with anyone. I went from babyhood to teenagerville in the blink of an eye. But at the same time that I felt unprepared, I was also having fun. Each of the girls caused me their own special brand of trouble, but we mostly had a happy life. I'm not like most foster parents who have already raised children of their own so have a base of skills to draw from. I was a first time parent, so I was drawing on personal experience as a former teenager to parent these teens.
In our house, we don't make the kids do endless chores, it's simple: keep your room clean, strip your bed on Mondays, put your laundry in the laundry room on Tuesdays, help clean the kitchen after dinner, and we all have one room in the house to clean on Saturdays. We also don't want kids having too much time to dwell alone in a room by themselves, so they can't hole up in their rooms until after 7:00 pm every day. We like to play games, Phase 10, Aggravation, Hearts, Sequence...these are our favorites. The girls enjoyed learning the games, and became quite good at them. We spent a lot of time with these three teens at the kitchen table playing games. I also love movies, so we took the girls to a lot of movies. In foster care, kids can't get a driver's license, ride in cars with driver's under 18, or have too much unsupervised activity. We tried to make up for this by taking them to festivals, movies, malls, whatever we could find so they weren't cooped up in the house all the time.
Maybe it was good that I was a first-time parent in some ways. I didn't really feel old enough to be the parent of teens, so I may have identified with them a little more than someone older with more parenting experience. I don't know. Whatever it was, it was working. And for that reason, I kept getting calls to take more teens. And for a very long time, that was what I loved, and what I thought I wanted. So much so that it led to my first two adoptions.
Getting back to Carly...she, Kneesaa, and Stacie got along fine, until one night when all three girls were in trouble. They'd taken advantage of our trust, and got in pretty big trouble. It was the first time Kneesaa and Stacie had been in trouble in the six months they'd been with us. They weren't happy, but took their consequences with a grain of salt, and went to their room. Carly, on the other hand, had only been with us a little over a month, and was still settling in. She let her temper flair up, and puffed up her chest and took a threatening stance in front of Granny. Strangely enough, this act led to a wonderful realization.
When Kneesaa and Stacie saw Carly threaten Granny, they came out of their room. Stacie actually got between Carly and Granny. "This is our home, and you will not hurt my Granny." It was the first time either of the girls had verbalized their emotions about our home. It was almost as if the seriousness of what had happened that night melted away in the glow of joy at hearing Stacie defend our home. It was amazing in a way that is so hard to explain. Carly backed down and went to bed. We didn't have anymore trouble with her from then until she left about 2 months later.
Tune in again to read tales about the adventures from the Angel Retreat.
Donations to fund the needs and activities for the angels who live with us are always welcome.
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