No Easy Answers

Now at: http://peachstreetmissives.wordpress.com/

After the last post, things have plummeted downwards. Jill proclaimed loudly and absolutely that she was not going to return to us. As she's about to turn 18 and the home she's in is good, we decided to go ahead and comply with that. She's officially not our responsibility anymore.

I have mixed feelings about this. From a personal perspective, I'm glad to have more space and time and less stress. From a maternal instinct perspective, I'm worried sick about her.

The home she's in is really great, though. The foster mom has been at this for a long time and is no nonsense and kind at the same time. We talked with her a little bit about what's been going on, and she is very understanding. What was even better was that she reassured us that we have not somehow fucked up really badly. According to her, we've been very patient with the girls.

About a week and a half ago, we had a family therapy session with just Grace. It went fairly well. Then later that night, things got really bad. When I asked her (in a very restrained and quiet voice) to go upstairs, she really let me have it. She then called Jill, and sat next to me with Jill on speakerphone and mocked me. Some pretty unforgivable things were said then.

The cussing and the attitude continued right up until tonight. There have been a few periods that were marginally better, but tonight was Old Grace. She calmly asked us why her phone had been turned off and listened while I explained about the way the billing worked. She talked about working on her homework, and what her plan was to get back on track with her grades. She was joking around and hugging on us. We were able to talk about what happened that night and talk a little bit about why she's been awful to us for almost 3 weeks now.

We kind of think being the only kid in the house is not a good setting for her. She's very sociable and friendly, and has 10 siblings. She's never been in a room by herself. The transition was always going to be hard on her.

But the conversation we need to have is what is fair to us. How long do we have to wait for her to have another episode like this, where she's going AWOL and we have to file a missing person's report on her? When will she flip out and say the next inexcusable thing to us? At what point do we stop being able to help her, and are just enabling an abusive cycle of behavior?

From some things she mentioned during the course of the conversation, I got the sense that her mom told her that we were going to give her up because of the way she's been acting. I wonder if that was resonating with her. Somewhere deep down inside she knows we'd be within our rights to. 

This is all exacerbated by her worker being on vacation. The girls are lucky to have such a competent worker on their case, but I'm really missing her right now.

Most of the seasoned professionals we've talked to have told us that we've given them far too many chances, and that it's amazing we haven't kicked them out sooner. While it's entirely understandable that a kid from their situation would behave angrily, violently and inappropriately, it's not fair to think we'll just sit by and let it roll all over us.

This is where being a true foster parent becomes difficult. From some of the things Grace said tonight, I suspect that their mom was telling her today that we're going to give her up. This isn't a conversation we're ready to have with her at this time, but she asked me if we were going to "give her up" about 5 times tonight. I asked her how she'd feel if we did, and she said she'd be mad. So despite treating us like toe rags for the last 3 weeks, she wants to stay with us.

My biggest fear in this process is hurting her any more that is necessary or reasonable. We love this kid, and I think she truly loves us back. It makes decision making very difficult. Though I will say that in the last 2 weeks, since Leonard and I detached some, I think we've been better parents. Maybe that's the key- detachment. These kids are, after all, not ours. Finding a balance where you can love a kid, be open with a kid, but maintain a sense of distance with that kid is very, very hard.

The emotional made physical

Now at: http://peachstreetmissives.wordpress.com/

I'm totally exhausted and cramming lovely, gingery carbs in my mouth like my life depends on it. It very well might. My ridiculous son will wake me up in about 6 hours, because he doesn't understand about sleeping in. I rode the GIANT cargo bike all over town today.

This is a cargo bike:

Ok, so I wasn't moving furniture, but the baby FEELS like he's as heavy as furniture.

Essentially, it's a bike that can haul a lot of cargo around. This is mainly practical, because we don't have a car. At this point, we don't have a car because of finances more than anything. Try grocery shopping for 5 people on a bus. The bike is better.

I rode all over town (including to one of Philadelphia's finest gems, Smith Memorial Playground) because today was the day that Leonard and our friend Dustin built our deck. This is one of the goals of our fundraiser, which we are running in an effort to make our lives a little more manageable. 

One of the things we didn't really think about before the girls came to live with us was the practical layout and space of our home. We had the bikes living inside, as is common for people in our sub-section of the West Philadelphia community. We have a woodstove that provides most of our heat and a nice, comfy couch that has seen a few too many dogs on it to be totally comfortable. 

Now we suddenly have two extra people who have their own needs, their own space demands, and the kinds of houses that they are accustomed to. This is another reason to consider being a respite parent for a while. You need to suss out what the kids in the age range you're interested in need, and what your home can provide. If you're used to living with your own kids, or maybe you're empty nesters, you'll want to go through a few respite placements just to figure out where the toy box goes or where the couch can expand to to accommodate teenagers and their friends. We knew we were in trouble when we had to figure out where to put their bikes. 

So today was the second step in that process: the deck. 

Before! What the back looked like when we left

After! The amazing transformation when we came home

The big foster parenting thing this weekend was about the battle between the girls. 

In total, there are 9 siblings that share the same mother and father in Jill and Graces' sibling group. There are also 4 additional siblings that share one parent or the other. All of the kids are either in foster care or are now grown and creating children of their own. One of the younger siblings comes to stay with us from time to time for respite because she and her foster mom don't get along. She is trying to stay there because she wants to stay with the even younger twins. So we give everyone a break, and it's usually good. Tara is a generally polite kid, at least in small doses. We've seen things that lead us to believe she can hold her own in the Holy Terror category. 

Because all three of the girls were here, their mom wanted to see them. This is generally something that the girls set up and coordinate on their own, and we know little to nothing about it. This time, however, we got to hear all about it because Grace was furious last night because of some hurtful things her mom said. This is the second time in a row, and about the 20th time altogether that we've heard this from her. 

This leads me to the thing that's been weighing heavily on me. What is the split/balance between foster parent and therapist? While our agency is taking it's sweet time getting her a therapist, I'm walking around with her at night for 2 hours while she dumps on me all of her issues. On the one hand I want to say "I'm happy to do it. I'd love to help her out" while on the other hand, my heart is screaming "noooooo! i need more bleeping time to myself!"

Either way, I ended up walking her around and we got incredibly expensive popsicles. They were delicious. All day she's been really on the ball, really helpful and thoughtful. 

Then we had this conversation:

G: Kitty, I talked to my mom tonight. See, Jill had talked to her and asked her to tell me to call. 

K: Really? Ah. I see. 

G: So I talked to her. I didn't want to at first, and first when she started talking I didn't say nothin. 

K. Mmmmhmmm. 

G. So she said "why you tellin them that I been mean to you. i ain't been mean to you, and i been sad all day". But Kitty, I don't believe her. I don't think she tellin the truth. 

THere was more. She told me the whole conversation, but it goes around in circles. Basically, Grace was looking to me to show her a reaction. How to respond, behave in this situation. I think she handled it very well, actually, by not saying anything and giving the phone back to her sister. 

She was looking at me with her big, brown, innocent eyes. It's remarkable to me sometimes how childlike she can really be. So I told her the truth. 

The truth was that right then, I didn't know what I could or could not say. As a foster parent, I have to keep my own emotions, biases and feelings out of the game there. Clearly, I am upset when I see the girls upset. I obviously have biases that lead me to judge their mom. I try not to, and I try to offset my judging by finding the positive things the girls learned from her and repeating them, almost like a rosary. 

So I told Grace that. I said "I am not saying anything right now because I don't know what to say. I have to be careful, because I don't want what I say to be played into a war between you and your mom. I am going to trust you to do what your instincts tell you is the right thing to do. Last night you had a lot of examples of behaviors that made you feel one way about your mom, but maybe tomorrow you will have a different list. Ultimately the decision is up to you. I trust you to make a good one." 

She stared at her toes for a bit, but I think it made sense to her. And it's all true. I also stated to her that I trust her to make the right decision, and hopefully implied that I'm here to help her if needed. 

I wish I could pass along a similar message to Jill, but I'm afraid she's in a place where she can be the adult to her mom. I think it makes her feel good to provide worldliness to their mom. This almost automatically makes me the bad guy. But i'm honestly fine with that... She'll figure it out soon. 

I'm now so tired I can barely see to spell check. I will try to do a mid-week post this week! 

Fostering Facts #2

Fostering Facts #2

What to expect

Much like starting your own biological family, you are never really ready to be a foster parent. Each kid is different. Each situation is different. You can’t just say “oh, I have 3 rooms, I’ll take 3 kids”. They might not like each other. One of them might need more care and attention than you expected. Or they might all be amazing, and willing to step out of their comfort zone and fit in with your family seamlessly. They might love the food you eat or hate it. You might always have to re-negotiate chores, or not. Things that you never considered might come up. Do you like to have a glass of wine with dinner? Well, maybe one of your foster kids comes from an alcoholic home and seeing you sip that wine or smelling alcohol on your breath triggers them. We’ve had to do months of trust building around that with our two girls, modeling for them what a healthy relationship to alcohol looks like.

The biggest job you can do to prepare for being a foster parent is to set up your support network. If you’re taking in younger kids, who do you have that is willing to get clearances so they can babysit? If you’re taking in older kids, who do you know that can point you in the direction of good after school or summer programs to enrich their lives? If you’re taking in kids from a different race/religious background, who do you know who can talk you through what is expected or needed? You will need people to help you in ways you can’t even imagine, even if it’s just being willing to sit with you and let you vent. Sit down and take inventory. Do these people live close by? Do you know anyone with experience with the system? Start asking. You may be surprised to find that you know someone who was in foster care, or adopted, or had a cousin who was. These people will be worth their weight in gold.

Make sure your support network is diverse. You can’t put all your hopes in your Christian church community only to find that the child you’re bringing into your home is, say, a Hindu. That will feel alienating and disarming to the child. Even if you don’t have any Hindu friends, ensuring that your child is meeting people from a variety of backgrounds will help them to feel less alienated, less obviously an "other." Actively seeking help from their home community is also important. If you don’t know ahead of time what their background is, be willing to put in the time in the first week or two to finding out. You will be thanked.

When we got our girls, we abruptly realized we had no hair care stuff AT ALL in the house. I have a hair brush, which essentially the end of my hair care routine. While I was familiar with the hair needs of African American girls, we weren’t prepared for weave care right out of the box. Fortunately my partner’s sister is mixed race and has a daughter. She quickly threw all of their extra creams, gels, sprays, flat irons, blow dryers and combs into a bag and brought it over. With everything else we were trying to coordinate on top of getting to know these two new people, that was a lifesaver (not to mention a money saver).

Day 1

The training process and clearance process is different from state to state. You’ll have to find that out based on where you are. Essentially, you have to be trained (anywhere from 23 to 40 hours), you have to be legally cleared, and you have to be certified. The agency will delve into every aspect of your life. We had to give letters of reference from family, friends and neighbors to back our claim, and we had to give over our financial statements and tax records. Ostensibly this is to cut down on the number of people who are in it just for the money, but I’m not convinced it works.

When you get a chil through regular foster care, you won’t know ahead of time who’s coming. It’s hard to prepare. You have to just be ready to roll with the punches.

When the child is “placed”, that means they have been put into the care of the state. This can be for a variety of reasons, which I will attempt to tackle in a future post.

In Philadelphia, the agencies are on a rotation. On any given day, different agencies are “on rotation”. The agency at the top of the list has an hour to place a child once the state calls them. They frantically start calling down their list of available parents and you have to answer *right then and there*.

If you have specific criteria, stick to your guns. If you’re doing respite, hold out for respite. If you want girls, don’t be convinced to take a boy. If you want younger kids and they offer you someone a few years above your upper limit, say no. The person calling you will try to talk you into it, and they’ll say all kinds of things to appeal to your better nature. Remember, the agency is only paid by the state depending on the number of kids they have. You, however, are the one who has to live with the kid. 

From there you’re just waiting. It could take them a half an hour or four hours, or even eight or ten hours to move the child. There is usually someone from the state who will bring them to your door. They need to make a visual inspection of the home and confirm that the children are being dropped into a safe environment. If you have a dog, be ready to put them out back and introduce them slowly once the initial chaos is over.

Don’t be surprised if the child wants to spend their first day holed up in their room. They are probably some kind of terrified. Offer them food, invite them to come down and watch TV, but don’t pressure them. Don’t try to make them do anything for at least the first 24 hours.

You may never know about their situation before they came to your house. A lot of that is not disclosed to foster parents for obvious reasons unless it looks like the home will become more permanent.

In our training they recommended not giving them house rules all at once. Saying one or two things like “we always take our shoes off at the door” and “don’t feed the dog from the table” are a good starting point. You can slowly fold out your house rules as you get used to each other. Try to get them to share what they want to eat, and do a few things right off to make them feel comfortable. Do they want to add anything to a grocery list? What kind of movies do they like? Do they play a sport?

Be supportive, but be clear about what you want and don’t want. If your house is one that has a lot of home made meals and lots of healthy fruit and vegetables, get them used to the idea that they won’t be eating processed food everyday. But you have to give in as well- negotiate what kinds of foods you’re willing to let them have on hand, and see if there’s anything that they want to eat that they can make themselves. We have figured out how to make corn dogs, water ice and fried chicken at home. It’s not the ideal of health that I would prefer, but it helps the girls feel more comfortable.

Next installment will talk about the longer term expectations.

Fostering Facts #1

Fostering Facts #1                                                                

A lot of people get a glazed over look when I launch on an explanation of what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and who we’re doing it with. I say things like: “The respite provider wasn’t TFC certified so they didn’t know how to de-escalate in a therapeutic way…” and they look at me like I just broke out into song.

I’m going to spend the next few posts explaining foster care. It’s a system that most people are unfamiliar with, many people are intimidated by and a very few understand. I don’t really understand it. But I do have a working knowledge of what’s going on.

This is long. If you just want to read an update about our family, I’ll do that tomorrow. 

The way it works in PA is relatively similar to how it works in the rest of the country. Different states have different names for the processes or procedures, but for the most part it’s all similar.

System-wide management structure

Currently, each state manages their own child welfare system. They may call it Child Protective Services, or Department of Human Services, or Family Services or any number of other similar titles. I'll just call it "The State". This is a state and federally funded agency that is tasked with caring for the children who are identified as being “in the system”. Depending on how well or how poorly your state runs its agencies, your particular agency will work efficiently or not. In our case, we’re in PA so it runs very inefficiently.

Because the day to day management of something like this is time consuming and very costly, that aspect is distributed out to different agencies. Many of these agencies have some religious affiliation. All of them are non-profits. They may be state-wide, they may operate only in a certain geographical area, they may have alliances with agencies in near-by states. They may be well run or poorly run. If you are looking to become a foster parent, it will be up to you to figure out the best agency. It’s best to ask around and find out what experiences other families have had with different agencies.

Role of the Agency

Because these agencies are not run by The State, they get to do whatever they want to within the parameters that the state system sets. These parameters are by necessity kind of loose. The agencies basically need to make sure that the families they certify are a) stable (financially and emotionally) and b) willing and c) haven’t been charged with child endangerment in the past. These guidelines are VERY LOOSE. That is how you get foster families that are really just in it for the money. If your agency is no good, they’re not going to follow up with the families to make sure that what’s going on is in the best interest of the child placed there.

The agencies manage all aspects of the day to day of the child. They will coordinate with the foster family to get school registrations done, medical visits scheduled, getting emotional support or therapeutic services taken care of, etc. As a foster parent, you don’t have the right to change their doctor, change their school or do anything that has a long term effect on the child’s life. The social worker from the agency can, with the express permission of the DHS worker assigned to the case.

Generally you will have this team of people:

Agency social worker

That social worker’s supervisor

Department social worker

That social worker’s supervisor

Therapeutic/psychological services staff

Any of these people need to be able to have access to your child at any time they need it. That means that if you have multiple children who are not on the same “case” (generally those who are not coming from the same home) or if you have children who have higher levels of need, you may have a different worker in your home every day of the week.

Role of the foster family

Your primary responsibility as a foster parent is to keep the children in your care safe. This includes keeping them fed, clothed, in school, going to appointments and keeping them away from dangerous situations. For that purpose, anyone in your house may be subjected to a criminal background check.  In PA that goes by age, so anyone over the age of 14 who will spend more than a cumulative 2 weeks sleeping in your home needs to be checked. That includes State and Federal background checks. The agency should pay for those, and if they don’t, that’s a sign you need to get a different agency.

Medical insurance is paid by the state. In PA, foster children are totally covered at 100%.

Levels of foster care

There are different levels of care. Most children are just “regular” foster care. They may have some issues, and the agency will either have a therapy team on staff or will help you get them into therapy. Anything more than that, and you may be dealing with a “Therapeutic Foster Care” situation. The acronym TFC is used in a lot of states and may have different words attached to them, but basically means the same thing. TFC placement homes require more training and are expected to do more. A child may be TFC for medical reasons or emotional/behavior reasons. It generally means that you have to do considerably more work, and do more one on one work. In PA, they don’t put more than 2 TFC children in a home together, and that’s only if they are siblings or otherwise emotionally connected. It is nearly impossible to be an effective TFC home if all adults are working full time or if you have multiple children in the house.

A very common kind of care is called “Kinship” care. This means that the child has a previous connection to the family. You don’t have to be biologically related, though they do look for a family placement first. In the last 10 years or so there has been a huge push to keep children in their biological families and in their home environments. In the past, many foster situations ended up putting children in homes that were dramatically different than what they were used to, which caused certain kinds of trauma. With kinship, many of the rules get bent. You can have more TFC children in the home if there is kinship. You can have the child placed before you finish your training in kinship care. The rules about what kinds of sleeping arrangements are needed can be waived or bent for kinship care. That is up to each state, and can even be different from worker to worker.

A respite care provider is actually (in my opinion) a great place to start on the foster care journey. Respite providers have homes available for foster children while their foster families go on vacation or just need a break. It can be tricky bringing children out of state, so respite providers are like pure gold. It is also a great way for new foster families to give it a whirl because you can work out some of the kinks, like chore expectations, travel coordination, socializing the rest of your family, etc. It can also be fun because if you have a kid for the weekend, you get a chance to spoil them a little bit. Take ‘em to the zoo. Go get their hair done. It’s all good. As a respite provider, you still get paid the daily rate for their care.

Next installment will talk more about what you as a foster parent can expect right off the bat.