Fostering Live

The System is Broken

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I feel guilty complaining about the heaviness of our burden here. Because overall we are really really blessed. We have 5 amazing kids who we are adopting this year.

There is a mama in my foster family support group who is living through every foster parent’s nightmare. The two young kids she has been raising for almost three years now are going back to a bio parent. The issue isn’t that they are being reunified, the issue here is that there are serious questions about safety and stability – there’s no foundation for her. Bio mom is barely sober, has no job, has a history of using drugs with her other children (who she gave up to foster care over a decade ago), has made no progress with mental health goals, and the list goes on. She got a housing voucher just a couple of weeks ago and it feels like the Department is putting the cart before the horse. I don’t understand what the powers that be are thinking here. I believe these children belong with their bio mom, but not yet. She needs time. They need time. The transition needs more support than a free housing voucher and a monthly health and safety visit. These children deserve better.

Another mama in my foster family support group has been caring for her fifteen year old granddaughter. A victim of trafficking. This woman tracked down her granddaughter, who had been injected with meth from a group of men that had been abusing her. When the grandmother pursued putting her granddaughter in rehab, the powers that be moved her to a friend’s home where there’s no accountability and high risk for illicit activities and drugs.

Yet another mama in my foster family support group who has been raising twin girls since they were babies 3 years ago, is losing her girls… again. Their parents went to jail for murdering their sibling. About 18 months ago the powers that be tried placing these girls with a bio relative who then failed their background check. The girls came back to this foster mama. Now the powers that be want to try moving them back to this same relative they were once removed from for safety reasons. The reason for their uprooting? Their skin color (or native american heritage).

Another foster mama poured out her heart at a recent meeting. A boy she had been raising for almost 3.5 years was reunified with his bio mother before his bio mother was actually ready to care for him. The week before and in a drug binge, this bio mom left her car on the side of the road, with her 6 year old son inside, gave him her cell phone and had him call this foster mom to come find him. He couldn’t tell her where he was so at almost 11pm, she begged him to get out of the abandoned car, walk to a corner and spell out the words on the signs. For the last year he has spent every weekend at this foster mama’s house… because that’s where he’s safe. That’s where there is food. That’s where someone is caring for him. I know this boy. My sons have gone to pre-school with him.

And another foster mama in my network is being banned from taking any more foster placements. Because she was a whistleblower. She spoke out to the media about her last foster daughter who was moved to an alleged bio father out of state, who turned out to not even be this girl’s real father, and he beat this precious baby so badly that she is blind, suffers constant seizures, and will never be the normal, happy child that she was before the move. This child should have never been moved. This man had a violent crime and history of assault in his background.

Are you mad yet? You should be. I could tell you at least twelve more stories like these. People I know. Kids I’ve met. A system broken in more ways than I can count. Children are slipping through the cracks every day. EVERY DAMN DAY! When is enough enough? When are we going to foster real change? When are we as a community going to commit to the hard work and invest in the future of these kids instead of letting them fall into the cycle of abuse, neglect, drugs, government assistance, prison, mental health problems, homelessness, etc…?

 

Rescue

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This song came on the radio the other night when I was having one of those dramatic B rated movie moments. You know what I’m talking about. That kind of hands in the air, “what the heck do you want from me?!?”, I don’t think I can do this, yelling to the sky in the rain moment.
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Brokenness. Anger. Fear. Doubt. Anxiety. Grief. I’ve got a lot of work to do on my heart this season.
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Anyways this song came on the radio, almost as an answer at the end of my “moment,” and I swear it’s been looped on repeat in my car and everywhere ever since. I’m not sure what it means but it feels like hope. Words of a love so profound that it pierces the deepest, darkest, longest, hardest lengths to get to you. Purpose. Safety. Comfort. Though I believe in God, I’m not a “religious person.” There is something about these words and this song that reaches my very core in a spiritual way. In a way that says “Hey you, I see you struggling with some deep shit. YOU MATTER. I’ll go through this with you.”
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Though the author of these lyrics probably wasn’t thinking of foster children while drafting this song, I feel as though these are the perfect words for our foster youth.
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Lyrics:
You are not hidden
There’s never been a moment
You were forgotten
You are not hopeless
Though you have been broken
Your innocence stolen
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I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
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I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you
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There is no distance
That cannot be covered
Over and over
You’re not defenseless
I’ll be your shelter
I’ll be your armor
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I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS
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I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue youI will never stop marching to reach you
In the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true, I will rescue you
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I hear the whisper underneath your breath
I hear you whisper, you have nothing left
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I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you
I will never stop marching to reach you
In the middle of the hardest fight
It’s true, I will rescue you
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Oh, I will rescue you

Redacted Files

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These two thumbdrives, given to me this afternoon (August 28, 2019) by our Adoption Social Worker, possess the entire histories of our 5 children. Detailed compilations of their trauma, how they came into foster care, vital records, birth records, CPS intake calls from strangers, maybe even family, legal records, case notes, notes from CASAs, etc… Their stories before they were mine. A formality in the process of adoption, this is the State’s way of giving an adoptive parent every piece of information they need to make an educated decision as to whether to complete the adoption of their child. It’s called the Redacted File or Disclosures. Redacted because a professional whose sole job for the State is to sit down and black out any names or addresses or contact information listed in the records, probably spent ten hours sifting through the lives of my babies, blacking out names of birth family, former foster parents and other placements, and any information that they deem necessary to keep private. (Yeah, let that sink in next time you want to complain about your job. Someone’s full time job is pretty much whiting out documents.)

Do I really need to look at these? I don’t think that there is anything we could discover about our kids that would change our minds about adopting them. We’ve seen all the behaviors. We’ve lived this life. We know we have an uphill journey. Adoption isn’t a cure for our kids’ past trauma, for the neglect or abuse or exposure to drugs in utero.  We know that the clock is ticking for two of our kiddos – that therapy and medical interventions need to happen NOW and be consistent so that they don’t repeat the cycle ahead of them. What could we possibly discover that we don’t already know about our kids. We love them so so much!!

Aren’t you afraid your kids will end up like their birth parents? I’ll admit, and I’m ashamed to say this but… YES. I am. What if I invest my whole heart and life and every resource I have into giving them a good life and they choose to follow their birth parents’ footsteps. Heroine. Meth. Crime. Homelessness. Domestic Violence. The thing is, there is no guarantee. Drug addiction doesn’t discriminate, white picket fence or not. Although some of the trauma and experiences my kids have had to walk through may predispose them to certain certain struggles, there is hope. And a future (Jer 29:11). I only have ten more years until my  “first born” is an adult. I can’t have strings attached like I’ll only love you if you don’t struggle with drug addiction, suicidal ideation, and depression. 

Will reading the files on these thumbdrives help me understand my children better? Should these thumbdrives be saved for when our kids are adults and have questions? There are so many thoughts.

I feel reluctant to open these files.

Like most decisions made in our household, Mauricio and I will sit down together tonight and discuss the pros and cons to opening these thumb drives. And then we’ll do it together. Knowing how broken our system is, I’m expecting there to be a lot of heart breaking details on these drives – handfuls of foster homes, CPS intakes, police reports, children returned to situations of neglect and abuse, concerning behaviors, emails between the Department, etc… It will break us. I know it will. We don’t need the beginning of their story to change the ending. But we’d do anything to give them a redo and be able to take away the challenges they’ve faced and will continue to face as they grow older.