Sweet Sixteen

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

Last Sunday was Grace's birthday. We offered to host a party for her, and I made a cake. It was the first time she'd had a birthday party. Despite telling her all week to invite friends, the only people who came were her Mom and her sister, Jill. Grace did leave to got and meet a friend, but the friend never showed up to meet her.

All in all it was sweet and intimate, but for someone as social as Grace it was clear that it didn't fulfill her fantasy of a birthday party. After the pizza, cake and presents, Jill and I were talking, Mom was playing Candy Crush Saga, and Grace was watching Vampire Diaries. 

After they all left, Leonard and I were talking about the emotional train wreck that was unfolding in front of us. While I don't doubt that Mom loves her kids, she is pretty incapable of keeping her addiction and other issues under control. Generally parents of foster kids fall into two groups- involved and making an effort or too wrapped up in their problems to be able to make it work. Their mom is an unfortunate combination of the two- just involved enough and just loving enough to really mess with the kids' heads, but not involved enough to make hard changes in her life. 

The good news (sort of) is that Jill was very friendly and very chatty. We talked about paperwork and getting her board extension filed. While she's not technically our responsibility, it seems that the home she is in is giving her minimal support. That makes sense on one level... why put a ton of effort into a kid who's only with you for 2 months? But apparently her grandfather is pushing her to get the board extension and at least have the option when she turns 18. I think she's still holding out hope that by the end of January Mom will have it together and get a house. 

Court is this Friday. We have no idea how it's going to go. I've written an impassioned appeal to her service team (made up of DHS and agency workers and the attorney) to try to keep her out of a group home. We saw with Joan that sometimes the court just makes a decision and that's that. So we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best outcome for everyone. On some level, we're still not sure what the best outcome would actually be...

Real Rap

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

Real Rap, yo...

In the last three weeks, Grace has been AWOL twice to where we had to call and file a police report in the middle of the night, skipped school three times and come home high a few other times. We have few disciplinary tools at our disposal. We don’t have a long term sway over her as she has decided not to ask to stay with us. We aren’t going to lock her in her room (immoral and illegal) and we’re not going to beat her for leaving the house. She’s already stopped doing chores or anything around the house to earn allowance, so that’s not something we can hold over her.

What’s really interesting to me from a psychological perspective is what’s encouraging her to act this way. Why does she think it’s o.k. to do these things? Because she’s been told by everyone that she’s worthless, and now this place that was supposed to be a rock for her has also slipped out from under her. I get it.

I found this on a Georgia foster agency website. Either they are particularly useless at expressing themselves, or there really aren’t any benefits besides warm fuzzies to do what we’ve been doing since April:

Why foster a Teen or Sibling group?

5 reasons to foster a teenager

1. Teens help you stay up to date on the latest fashions, trends and technology.
2. Teens benefit by learning from your experiences
3. Teens are fun and interactive which keeps you young at heart!
4. Teens benefit from living in nurturing and stable family environments where they can focus on school, building meaningful relationships and all things teen!

5.     Teens can decipher instant messaging codes and teach you even more ways

A lot of the talk in foster parenting land is to hang on and believe in these kids no matter what. When I mentioned about some of the troubles that we were having at home because of the issues the girls were having, I was told by one person that their reactions were “totally understandable” and then lectured about all the myriad factors and societal influences that are making them behave like this. More than one person has said “Well, what did you expect?”

I felt totally patronized by that reaction. That reaction, and the implied reaction behind the disappointed looks I’ve gotten from people that I’ve told about our situation, is that we need to keep hanging on as if we can save these girls.

We can’t. There are limits to tolerance and limits to what we can deal with. My job is on the line because I’ve spent too many sleepless nights worrying about them and too little time trying to keep my sanity. Our relationship is strained. Home has become a source of stress for both of us. If I lose my job, we can’t take care of our own family and will be disqualified to be foster parents anyway.

It took 15 years of bad parenting to get her to this point. We’re not going to change her life in 7 months.

We have just had to file another report on her tonight. She’s a kid who is lost and upset and totally abandoned by the world. The problem is that foster parenting, because of its inherently transient nature, isn’t the place to help someone form a healthier perspective. The stated goal of foster parenting is to reunite families, or to adopt if a family is too unstable. The problem is that with older kids it just isn’t that cut and dry. When you get a kid who has been habitually mistreated, it’s going to be nearly impossible to find a perfect fit. We were maybe about as perfect as it can get. We certainly were going to give her our everything.

It’s just that our everything wasn’t enough.

Parentification

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

I didn’t post last week because I had a mild concussion after hitting my head with a bike rack. It was fairly undignified.

It’s been an up and down week. Two weeks, actually. Grace has been going through medication changes as well as religion changes. She had a rough patch at school and we had to go in for a parent teacher meeting today. It seems that she has dramatic acting out behaviors in her English classes. It doesn't take a psychologist to know that if she’s acting out in her English/Language Arts classes, there might be some kind of issue with the subject matter.

In fact, she is incredibly self-conscious about her reading and writing abilities. She’s actually a fantastic poet with a lot of raw talent, but she thinks she’s stupid. So she acts out in the hope of getting kicked out of class. So far, it’s working.

The real Topic this week is Jill. We’re dealing with an incredible downward spiral with her. For a while, she was receiving in-home intensive therapy, but that stopped after 3 months. At first she was just stable, neither better nor worse. Now she’s rapidly spiraling out of control and mimicking some of the behavior we saw from Joan over the summer.

The big issue is her parentification issues. Parentification happens when roles are reversed, and the child becomes the parent. Many, many people go through this, and it is especially common when parents have some sort of mental illness or addiction problems. The parent puts responsibility on the child for support: emotional, physical or even financial. In Jill’s case, their mom would leave for days or weeks at a time, leaving teen-aged Jill in charge of all the younger siblings. She is also expected to validate or uphold her mother’s emotional needs, sometimes to the exclusion of the other children (especially Grace). This turns into their mother being like a “best friend” person to Jill, pulling her in as a peer rather than a child. This is a very, very confusing role for a teenager.

We recognized the signs straight off, and have made some clear boundaries around what we expect as far as babysitting, caring for Gloria, her role as a child in the house, etc. On the flip side, we expect her to communicate with us, to answer our phone calls when she’s out and to tell us where she’s going and when she’ll be home. These may seem like minimal things, but this is a 17 year old who is used to acting like another adult in the family.

We’ve been informed that her mom has taken every opportunity to tell her that the only reason we want her to stay in foster care is so we can continue to get a check for her. This is, of course, ridiculous. Foster parenting is not a profitable gig. But anyway, that’s what she’s telling Jill, while Grace is saying that she thinks the only reason her mom wants her back is for the same reason- the checks that come with under 18 year old kids. We're doing our best to make non-committal noises whenever this comes up and generally trying to not get sucked into the drama. 

The other half of that is the long standing family dynamic between Jill and Grace is that Grace is the “dumb one” and the “crazy one” and it’s safe to blame all mishaps or broken dishes on her. Grace has actually been left behind when the family have gone on trips. She is laughed at, ridiculed, teased and told that she is a “bad kid” by her family. They have all learned that she is the one to make fun of.

But here that’s all changed. They are both getting support and love.  This is a role change that Jill is having difficulty with.

Jill, on the other hand, has mostly locked herself in her room. She has developed actual hypochondria and won’t take any of the medication for a significant health problem she has developed. In the last month she went from being sulky to being downright hostile towards us.

She has been offered a Board Extension  which would ostensibly extend her time in foster care to age 21. She would be eligible for an Independent Living Program, and would get support for school and job placement. She can stay with us or get signed up for another living arrangement. But to get it, she needs to write a letter stating that she wants it and why.

She is stating that she wants to hurry up and finish High School and then go back to live with her mom. So far the most compelling reason I’ve heard for that is she’ll get her own room. She also claims that we favor Grace and “give her whatever she wants and whatever she asks for.” Jill is too depressed and too wrapped in her own drama to see that we do not, in fact, give Grace whatever she wants.

What are the costs of this kind of neglect and abuse? Apparently, rather steep. I try not to project too much on what’s going to happen, but if Jill decides to leave us when she’s 18, there are very few positive outcomes. She is already showing the symptoms of a parentification problem such as a sudden temper and an inability to connect with people in a meaningful way and a total inability to discuss or share her emotions. She’s hoping to go back to the role that she is comfortable in as the sole caretaker for her family, including all her siblings and her mother. There she can be made to feel valued and important, above all others. At the same time, she will be frustrated knowing that she has the potential to do so much more.

Ultimately the decision is hers. We are trying to balance compassion and understanding for her plight with doing what is necessary to keep our home emotionally safe. The art to foster parenting is finding the place where you can support, love, encourage but not get too burned out yourself. I think this is why so many people prefer to foster-to-adopt. It makes sense. It's definitely our next plan. 

We just hope that in a few years, someone will be writing an article like this NY Times article about Jill. 

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.