identity
Lift your game carers
26/01/2010 00:21
Just so you know we are quite prepared to have a go at anyone, we bring you our latest opinion.
It’s time for carers to set a standard.
When a consultation paper has just been released in relation to National Standards for Out of Home Care, we wonder whether carers need to step up and set more of those standards themselves, by their actions.
Here’s one. A simple one really.
We’ve welcomed a number of foster children into our home over the years. Foster children who have been in other foster care placements. Not one has arrived with nice clothes, well cared for and loved toys, packaged in a decent bag.
We are inspired by the work Backpacks for Aussie Kids are doing. They aim to fill backpacks and nappy bags with essential and personal items for children going into foster and kinship care.
So here’s the rule we’d like to see carers adopt:
Foster carers will not send children in care to another placement with their belongings in plastic bags.
And no, those blue, red and white striped bags, from Kmart or Target, don’t cut it either.
How do you begin to show a child they are worth anything, when dropping their belongings into a plastic bag is acceptable? You might try and convince us that the child, if they are young enough, is oblivious to it.
That’s not the point.
It’s all about care and respect.
Care and respect for the child. Care about their belongings. Care about the small number of toys, items and clothing that, in some circumstances, make up this child’s life. Respect that, no matter how young they are, belongings are important.
Carers, go buy a decent bag, or demand one from your worker. You get an allowance each fortnight. Use it.
Just in case you wondered, the move this child will make from you to their next placement is always significant. They will listen and watch and take their cues in a way we adults have long lost. Treat them with respect, and treat their belongings with respect too.
It’s time for carers to set a standard.
When a consultation paper has just been released in relation to National Standards for Out of Home Care, we wonder whether carers need to step up and set more of those standards themselves, by their actions.
Here’s one. A simple one really.
We’ve welcomed a number of foster children into our home over the years. Foster children who have been in other foster care placements. Not one has arrived with nice clothes, well cared for and loved toys, packaged in a decent bag.
We are inspired by the work Backpacks for Aussie Kids are doing. They aim to fill backpacks and nappy bags with essential and personal items for children going into foster and kinship care.
So here’s the rule we’d like to see carers adopt:
Foster carers will not send children in care to another placement with their belongings in plastic bags.
And no, those blue, red and white striped bags, from Kmart or Target, don’t cut it either.
How do you begin to show a child they are worth anything, when dropping their belongings into a plastic bag is acceptable? You might try and convince us that the child, if they are young enough, is oblivious to it.
That’s not the point.
It’s all about care and respect.
Care and respect for the child. Care about their belongings. Care about the small number of toys, items and clothing that, in some circumstances, make up this child’s life. Respect that, no matter how young they are, belongings are important.
Carers, go buy a decent bag, or demand one from your worker. You get an allowance each fortnight. Use it.
Just in case you wondered, the move this child will make from you to their next placement is always significant. They will listen and watch and take their cues in a way we adults have long lost. Treat them with respect, and treat their belongings with respect too.
|
Growing up in the care of strangers
12/01/2010 22:25
That’s the title of a book…. about care.
We haven’t read the book. But its authors are profiled over at www.fostercareinamerica.com, so that tells us it’s worth looking into. It’s available on Amazon but takes some time to be delivered to us here in Oz (and at some expense). So we hope the authors will forgive us for taking little more than the title, and a bit of information from the blurbs, and writing something about it.
You can read about the authors, Dr John Seita and Waln Brown, at www.fostercareinamerica.com, and they have a website for the book (which tells you a little more).
They and their contributors are foster care alumni. It is marvelous to see those who experienced the system capable of, and interested in, working in it. That’s one of their points. When is the system going to take on board advice from those who experienced it?
Business listens to its customers (or tries to) frequently. And there’s a whole wave of debate and discussion globally about Government transparency and interaction. And yet our experience of the foster care system is, quite frankly, that the ‘consumers’ of it – children and birth families – and partners in it – carers – often don’t get much of a say. Their ability to do so seems to be very much at the mercy of individual workers, and not enshrined in the system.
If we take the title of this book at face value, you shouldn’t have to grow up in the care of strangers, should you?
The word ‘strangers’ hit us hard because we have been strangers to a small, bemused child who landed on our doorstep. The dazed look on her face was quite hard to face, and we remember our pleasure when we watched it gradually give way to some expression as she became familiar with us.
The ‘strangers’ have now retreated, to be replaced by loving family members. We’ve watched the Camper grow happier and stronger as the realization and assurance of that has worked its way deep into her soul. Careful and skilled eyes see this change in her. We see it, but we feel it too, and that’s the feeling that gives us the greatest joy.
So the only strangers in the Camper’s life now are those outside our family and her birth family, and her circle of friends and acquaintances. Like most kids.
The system decided she needed permanency, and sought it for her. We have taken up that challenge. We have held the line when those in the system got a bit confused, and thought that relationships other than the Camper’s and ours were more important and should be given priority. We have made sure some workers understand that the Camper is a child who has a birth family she doesn’t live with, rather than a child in substitute care who needs to conform to some pre-defined relationship with her birth family. We have made sure that her individual interests didn’t get swamped beneath the standard way the system does things. We’ve acted like the Camper’s parents. Because we are.
We’ve said for a while that the foster carer base needs to be segmented. There is a vast difference between short and long term care – both in what a child needs from it and what a carer needs to be able to commit to and provide. All of which drives us to advocate more transparency about how this system works.
So our congratulations to every one of the contributors to Growing up in the Care of Strangers. Not just for what they have achieved in their lives, but for speaking out.
We haven’t read the book. But its authors are profiled over at www.fostercareinamerica.com, so that tells us it’s worth looking into. It’s available on Amazon but takes some time to be delivered to us here in Oz (and at some expense). So we hope the authors will forgive us for taking little more than the title, and a bit of information from the blurbs, and writing something about it.
You can read about the authors, Dr John Seita and Waln Brown, at www.fostercareinamerica.com, and they have a website for the book (which tells you a little more).
They and their contributors are foster care alumni. It is marvelous to see those who experienced the system capable of, and interested in, working in it. That’s one of their points. When is the system going to take on board advice from those who experienced it?
Business listens to its customers (or tries to) frequently. And there’s a whole wave of debate and discussion globally about Government transparency and interaction. And yet our experience of the foster care system is, quite frankly, that the ‘consumers’ of it – children and birth families – and partners in it – carers – often don’t get much of a say. Their ability to do so seems to be very much at the mercy of individual workers, and not enshrined in the system.
If we take the title of this book at face value, you shouldn’t have to grow up in the care of strangers, should you?
- Did you ever wonder where you might be sleeping tomorrow, or the next day?
- Did you ever wonder whether the adult giving you assistance or instruction really, really cared deep down for you, or were they just doing a job?
- Did you ever want just one person to tell you they loved you, just you?
- Did you ever think that, no matter what, there was one place and one person who would welcome you, any time?
The word ‘strangers’ hit us hard because we have been strangers to a small, bemused child who landed on our doorstep. The dazed look on her face was quite hard to face, and we remember our pleasure when we watched it gradually give way to some expression as she became familiar with us.
The ‘strangers’ have now retreated, to be replaced by loving family members. We’ve watched the Camper grow happier and stronger as the realization and assurance of that has worked its way deep into her soul. Careful and skilled eyes see this change in her. We see it, but we feel it too, and that’s the feeling that gives us the greatest joy.
So the only strangers in the Camper’s life now are those outside our family and her birth family, and her circle of friends and acquaintances. Like most kids.
The system decided she needed permanency, and sought it for her. We have taken up that challenge. We have held the line when those in the system got a bit confused, and thought that relationships other than the Camper’s and ours were more important and should be given priority. We have made sure some workers understand that the Camper is a child who has a birth family she doesn’t live with, rather than a child in substitute care who needs to conform to some pre-defined relationship with her birth family. We have made sure that her individual interests didn’t get swamped beneath the standard way the system does things. We’ve acted like the Camper’s parents. Because we are.
We’ve said for a while that the foster carer base needs to be segmented. There is a vast difference between short and long term care – both in what a child needs from it and what a carer needs to be able to commit to and provide. All of which drives us to advocate more transparency about how this system works.
So our congratulations to every one of the contributors to Growing up in the Care of Strangers. Not just for what they have achieved in their lives, but for speaking out.
Twitter stream to 30-12-09
30/12/2009 23:25
Sometimes this could more readily be called a ‘Twitter trickle’, rather than a stream, but hey, there’s still some good stuff in here.
Sammut: Community needs to accept that children in danger need to be removed, and the earlier the better for the child. http://ow.ly/R368 2 minutes ago from HootSuite
Creation of a stand alone dept that investigates reports of children at risk sorely needed and long overdue. Top priority. 3 minutes ago from HootSuite
NSW Govt throwing additional $300 million into support services for dysfunctional families after Wood Royal Commission. http://ow.ly/R34e 5 minutes ago from HootSuite
Sammut says DOCS budget was 'in excess of $1 billion last financial year'. That's a lot of shekels. http://ow.ly/R32J 6 minutes ago from HootSuite
Perhaps more honesty is needed about the real chances of solving drug abuse, mental illness and domestic violence in dysfunctional families? 9 minutes ago from HootSuite
Removal of 'at risk' children as a last resort can be a high risk policy. See Ebony and Dean Shillingsworth cases: http://ow.ly/R30b 10 minutes ago from HootSuite
Sammut comes out and says that family preservation - the current approach in child protection - is flawed: http://ow.ly/R2ZA 11 minutes ago from HootSuite
Two dreadful cases this year of parental neglect that were fatal for the children: Jeremy Sammut in the SMH http://ow.ly/R2YL 12 minutes ago from HootSuite
'Ghost Child' (Caroline Overington) available from Dymocks http://ow.ly/PPG4. If you are interested in children's rights - worth reading. 10:47 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
Just read Caroline Overington's Ghost Child. Fiction - but some interesting and authentic perspectives from players in 'the system'. 10:43 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
Hate to break it to you folks, but more money ain't gonna fix the social welfare system: http://ow.ly/PPzT 10:39 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
We are not sure how much one-on-one our lovely Happy Camper got in her first years. Not much we suspect. Can you catch up? A resounding YES! 11:52 PM Dec 22nd from HootSuite
We read all the 'can do' advice for birth parents. And we realise that our small bundle of humanity might have missed out on lots of that. 11:48 PM Dec 22nd from HootSuite
We are tired at the end of the year and so it is very easy to scoff at all the rubbish on Twitter. 3:03 AM Dec 21st from HootSuite
Parental responsibility? rt @kimota Just blogged: 18+ video games in Aus "Won't somebody think of the children?" http://bit.ly/5R52jX 2:31 PM Dec 16th from HootSuite
Wonderful to see a mother provide such a sterling example to her daughter - NOT. Kid bashes another and mother films it! http://ow.ly/I1dU 12:37 PM Dec 3rd from HootSuite
What do kids in care need? Stability. Our view on what that looks like and the benefits for a child in care http://ow.ly/HsQt 11:42 PM Dec 1st from HootSuite
Our view on Adoption Awareness week in Oz. Is adoption actively discouraged here? http://ow.ly/HsPo 11:40 PM Dec 1st from HootSuite
Children have expectations about daily life. Harder to handle for children in care are the expectations about birth parents. What to expect? 10:08 PM Nov 24th from HootSuite
When a child in care becomes more responsible and mature than the birth parent, what do you do? We can see this coming. http://ow.ly/CVmj 1:33 PM Nov 17th from HootSuite
Awesome post from fostercareinamerica - honest, practical, insightful. A must read. http://ow.ly/CVlS 1:32 PM Nov 17th from HootSuite
Interesting reader responses on News.com.au to Adoption Awareness Week report. Everyone has an opinion! http://ow.ly/CTh9 10:27 AM Nov 17th from HootSuite
@emqff Nationaladoptionweek is happening in the UK as well. http://ow.ly/CCM0 4:33 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite in reply to emqff
Furness calls on Government to create 'a dedicated agency with a parliamentary secretary to oversee the adoption process' http://ow.ly/CC7F 3:50 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
Deborah-Lee Furness comes out fighting on Oz Govt's 'anti-adoption culture' http://ow.ly/CC66 3:48 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
Adoption is viable solution for 'children stuck in foster care drift'. And to prevent kids drifting into foster care drift http://ow.ly/CC54 3:47 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
It's National Adoption Awareness Week. There is a perception that Oz is reluctant to advocate adoption. http://ow.ly/CC3Y 3:46 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
@jcflamini Agree - re @childrensrights. Lots of solid info in their report. Want to write more on it! 7:06 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite in reply to jcflamini
Really like this report from @childrensrights on NYC foster care, and the effort to bring kids to permanent families. http://ow.ly/BPB2 7:05 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Increase in number of children being taken into care post the Baby P case UK. Predictable? http://ow.ly/BOiS 4:40 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Irritating = news reports on children being taken into care on a single issue. Who doesn't understand the complexity? ttp://ow.ly/BOcJ 4:32 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Poor reporting from the journos - children removed from 'so-called fat family'. Called by whom? Not social workers http://ow.ly/BObS 4:30 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
rt @childrensrights New report on Oklahoma child welfare: treatment of kids in foster care there is "immoral." http://is.gd/4SSRwdrensrights 10:15 AM Nov 12th from HootSuite
If you live in an apartment and have small children, check the safety of the windows and upgrade them if necessary http://ow.ly/Bc8t 2:08 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
'Huge backlog' of cases in NT; - independent enquiry announced to report into the 'notification system' for child abuse http://ow.ly/BbPD 1:45 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
When agencies can't work out what information can be shared people really do suffer JGOS (mental health service) http://ow.ly/BbNm 1:43 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
rt @gauntlent rt @drewfromtv Follow me and LIVESTRONG gets 1 M Cancer DOLLARS help me reach1 m followers by 12/31/09 help save a life 11:52 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Babies having babies - 12 yr old who escaped proper supervision now has her own child http://ow.ly/ASIE 11:45 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Pew Report Only 6% of the adult population has no one who they consider to be “especially significant” in their life. http://ow.ly/ASFG 11:41 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Pew report on social isolation 'Only 6% of the adult population has no one with whom they can discuss important matters' http://ow.ly/ASF3 11:40 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
the old adage - it takes a village to raise a child. http://bit.ly/eWnLe 1:12 PM Nov 6th from web
Medical world first saves baby's life - wonderful how this world of ours can collaborate http://ow.ly/zlgy 12:31 PM Nov 5th from HootSuite
'What do I call my foster carer? Whatever I choose just as long as I feel comfortable with it'. http://ow.ly/yNhC Sensible. 4:33 PM Nov 3rd from HootSuite
Useful publications for children in care from WA Govt - includes a charter of rights for children in care on page 20 http://ow.ly/yNfc 4:31 PM Nov 3rd from HootSuite
We are 'wired' similarly to degus (rodents) and so scientists can extrapolate the impact of single parents? Honestly. http://ow.ly/ygWQ 8:19 PM Nov 1st from HootSuite
Bad reporting 'Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.' http://ow.ly/ygVo 8:17 PM Nov 1st from HootSuite
Six dimensions of child well-being: material, housing, education, health, risk behaviours and quality of school life.http://ow.ly/xsIb 1:33 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
Oh dear. How many things are wrong with this story. A Kiwi politician's answer to child abuse. http://ow.ly/xsxc 1:18 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
Parents - become familiar with online tools so you can educate your children. Facebook hate sites are unacceptable! http://ow.ly/xspa 1:10 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
There IS a link between diet and immune system http://ow.ly/xdva 12:53 PM Oct 29th from HootSuite
We like Chris Gardiner's article on the The Punch (CEO of PCYC) http://ow.ly/x00i so we wrote about it http://tinyurl.com/yhjshpp 12:57 AM Oct 29th from web
Kids need an adult committed to them, and not a committee of social workers and public servants: Chris Gardiner PCYC http://ow.ly/x00i 2:44 PM Oct 28th from HootSuite
intervention...must be built on an intense engagement around a single, consistent and strong adult relationship http://ow.ly/x004 2:43 PM Oct 28th from HootSuite
Failing kids, failing the community - good article in The Punch, re-socialising kids better than locking them up later on http://ow.ly/wZZm
Sammut: Community needs to accept that children in danger need to be removed, and the earlier the better for the child. http://ow.ly/R368 2 minutes ago from HootSuite
Creation of a stand alone dept that investigates reports of children at risk sorely needed and long overdue. Top priority. 3 minutes ago from HootSuite
NSW Govt throwing additional $300 million into support services for dysfunctional families after Wood Royal Commission. http://ow.ly/R34e 5 minutes ago from HootSuite
Sammut says DOCS budget was 'in excess of $1 billion last financial year'. That's a lot of shekels. http://ow.ly/R32J 6 minutes ago from HootSuite
Perhaps more honesty is needed about the real chances of solving drug abuse, mental illness and domestic violence in dysfunctional families? 9 minutes ago from HootSuite
Removal of 'at risk' children as a last resort can be a high risk policy. See Ebony and Dean Shillingsworth cases: http://ow.ly/R30b 10 minutes ago from HootSuite
Sammut comes out and says that family preservation - the current approach in child protection - is flawed: http://ow.ly/R2ZA 11 minutes ago from HootSuite
Two dreadful cases this year of parental neglect that were fatal for the children: Jeremy Sammut in the SMH http://ow.ly/R2YL 12 minutes ago from HootSuite
'Ghost Child' (Caroline Overington) available from Dymocks http://ow.ly/PPG4. If you are interested in children's rights - worth reading. 10:47 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
Just read Caroline Overington's Ghost Child. Fiction - but some interesting and authentic perspectives from players in 'the system'. 10:43 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
Hate to break it to you folks, but more money ain't gonna fix the social welfare system: http://ow.ly/PPzT 10:39 PM Dec 26th from HootSuite
We are not sure how much one-on-one our lovely Happy Camper got in her first years. Not much we suspect. Can you catch up? A resounding YES! 11:52 PM Dec 22nd from HootSuite
We read all the 'can do' advice for birth parents. And we realise that our small bundle of humanity might have missed out on lots of that. 11:48 PM Dec 22nd from HootSuite
We are tired at the end of the year and so it is very easy to scoff at all the rubbish on Twitter. 3:03 AM Dec 21st from HootSuite
Parental responsibility? rt @kimota Just blogged: 18+ video games in Aus "Won't somebody think of the children?" http://bit.ly/5R52jX 2:31 PM Dec 16th from HootSuite
Wonderful to see a mother provide such a sterling example to her daughter - NOT. Kid bashes another and mother films it! http://ow.ly/I1dU 12:37 PM Dec 3rd from HootSuite
What do kids in care need? Stability. Our view on what that looks like and the benefits for a child in care http://ow.ly/HsQt 11:42 PM Dec 1st from HootSuite
Our view on Adoption Awareness week in Oz. Is adoption actively discouraged here? http://ow.ly/HsPo 11:40 PM Dec 1st from HootSuite
Children have expectations about daily life. Harder to handle for children in care are the expectations about birth parents. What to expect? 10:08 PM Nov 24th from HootSuite
When a child in care becomes more responsible and mature than the birth parent, what do you do? We can see this coming. http://ow.ly/CVmj 1:33 PM Nov 17th from HootSuite
Awesome post from fostercareinamerica - honest, practical, insightful. A must read. http://ow.ly/CVlS 1:32 PM Nov 17th from HootSuite
Interesting reader responses on News.com.au to Adoption Awareness Week report. Everyone has an opinion! http://ow.ly/CTh9 10:27 AM Nov 17th from HootSuite
@emqff Nationaladoptionweek is happening in the UK as well. http://ow.ly/CCM0 4:33 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite in reply to emqff
Furness calls on Government to create 'a dedicated agency with a parliamentary secretary to oversee the adoption process' http://ow.ly/CC7F 3:50 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
Deborah-Lee Furness comes out fighting on Oz Govt's 'anti-adoption culture' http://ow.ly/CC66 3:48 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
Adoption is viable solution for 'children stuck in foster care drift'. And to prevent kids drifting into foster care drift http://ow.ly/CC54 3:47 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
It's National Adoption Awareness Week. There is a perception that Oz is reluctant to advocate adoption. http://ow.ly/CC3Y 3:46 PM Nov 16th from HootSuite
@jcflamini Agree - re @childrensrights. Lots of solid info in their report. Want to write more on it! 7:06 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite in reply to jcflamini
Really like this report from @childrensrights on NYC foster care, and the effort to bring kids to permanent families. http://ow.ly/BPB2 7:05 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Increase in number of children being taken into care post the Baby P case UK. Predictable? http://ow.ly/BOiS 4:40 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Irritating = news reports on children being taken into care on a single issue. Who doesn't understand the complexity? ttp://ow.ly/BOcJ 4:32 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
Poor reporting from the journos - children removed from 'so-called fat family'. Called by whom? Not social workers http://ow.ly/BObS 4:30 PM Nov 13th from HootSuite
rt @childrensrights New report on Oklahoma child welfare: treatment of kids in foster care there is "immoral." http://is.gd/4SSRwdrensrights 10:15 AM Nov 12th from HootSuite
If you live in an apartment and have small children, check the safety of the windows and upgrade them if necessary http://ow.ly/Bc8t 2:08 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
'Huge backlog' of cases in NT; - independent enquiry announced to report into the 'notification system' for child abuse http://ow.ly/BbPD 1:45 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
When agencies can't work out what information can be shared people really do suffer JGOS (mental health service) http://ow.ly/BbNm 1:43 PM Nov 11th from HootSuite
rt @gauntlent rt @drewfromtv Follow me and LIVESTRONG gets 1 M Cancer DOLLARS help me reach1 m followers by 12/31/09 help save a life 11:52 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Babies having babies - 12 yr old who escaped proper supervision now has her own child http://ow.ly/ASIE 11:45 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Pew Report Only 6% of the adult population has no one who they consider to be “especially significant” in their life. http://ow.ly/ASFG 11:41 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
Pew report on social isolation 'Only 6% of the adult population has no one with whom they can discuss important matters' http://ow.ly/ASF3 11:40 AM Nov 10th from HootSuite
the old adage - it takes a village to raise a child. http://bit.ly/eWnLe 1:12 PM Nov 6th from web
Medical world first saves baby's life - wonderful how this world of ours can collaborate http://ow.ly/zlgy 12:31 PM Nov 5th from HootSuite
'What do I call my foster carer? Whatever I choose just as long as I feel comfortable with it'. http://ow.ly/yNhC Sensible. 4:33 PM Nov 3rd from HootSuite
Useful publications for children in care from WA Govt - includes a charter of rights for children in care on page 20 http://ow.ly/yNfc 4:31 PM Nov 3rd from HootSuite
We are 'wired' similarly to degus (rodents) and so scientists can extrapolate the impact of single parents? Honestly. http://ow.ly/ygWQ 8:19 PM Nov 1st from HootSuite
Bad reporting 'Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops.' http://ow.ly/ygVo 8:17 PM Nov 1st from HootSuite
Six dimensions of child well-being: material, housing, education, health, risk behaviours and quality of school life.http://ow.ly/xsIb 1:33 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
Oh dear. How many things are wrong with this story. A Kiwi politician's answer to child abuse. http://ow.ly/xsxc 1:18 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
Parents - become familiar with online tools so you can educate your children. Facebook hate sites are unacceptable! http://ow.ly/xspa 1:10 PM Oct 30th from HootSuite
There IS a link between diet and immune system http://ow.ly/xdva 12:53 PM Oct 29th from HootSuite
We like Chris Gardiner's article on the The Punch (CEO of PCYC) http://ow.ly/x00i so we wrote about it http://tinyurl.com/yhjshpp 12:57 AM Oct 29th from web
Kids need an adult committed to them, and not a committee of social workers and public servants: Chris Gardiner PCYC http://ow.ly/x00i 2:44 PM Oct 28th from HootSuite
intervention...must be built on an intense engagement around a single, consistent and strong adult relationship http://ow.ly/x004 2:43 PM Oct 28th from HootSuite
Failing kids, failing the community - good article in The Punch, re-socialising kids better than locking them up later on http://ow.ly/wZZm
Children need a strong adult relationship
29/10/2009 00:13
‘We should also, however, recognise that some adults fail to raise their children properly, fail to care for them, and fail to socialise them.’
So, a voice of reason. Chris Gardiner is the CEO of the Police and Community Youth Clubs. He posted a great article on The Punch today about kids at risk. That quote is from his article.
He argues that we should be investing in our youth in trouble, because while ‘re-socialising dysfunctional, delinquent kids is relationship and resource intensive, … it is cheaper and more effective in the long run than detention centres and prisons. For example, it costs $11 per day for youth conferencing, and $556 per day for custody.’
(And just to explain why this is an issue, he notes that NSW has several times the number of kids in detention that Victoria has, and that over half the kids locked up are aboriginal.)
It’s the same message we hear from the ‘children at risk’ support system. Get into the family, support them, stop the family structure breaking down. Fix it, rather than manage the fallout.
So why does Gardiner’s article sound more realistic to us?
He puts the child at the centre of it.
After that early statement about the family, he talks about the child, and what they need. Let’s be blunt - he doesn’t talk about propping up a failing family structure. He advocates action with the child, and for the child. He says we need to give these children ‘the chance for social development that they have been thus far denied’.
There is no reason why support for the family shouldn’t continue. But it should be separate to support allocated to the child.
And here’s the paragraph that could well be written for children in care.
‘For intervention to work, though, it must be built on an intense engagement around a single, consistent and strong adult relationship and an alternative peer setting. Kids need an adult committed to them, and not a committee of social workers and public servants (as interagency case management often becomes).’
This issue of attachment came up in an American Academy of Paediatrics article on Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster Care , and we wrote about it previously on our blog. Here’s the relevant paragraph from the Academy article:
‘Having at least 1 adult who is devoted to and loves a child unconditionally, who is prepared to accept and value that child for a long time, is key to helping a child overcome the stress and trauma of abuse and neglect.’
So we think those two paragraphs might contain some guidance for assessing whether a child at risk is getting what they need:
Those of us lucky enough to grow up in a nurturing family will read those points and understand what they mean. We know what that looks and feels like.
So, how long should we take to decide a child is NOT getting that, and what are we prepared to do about it?
So, a voice of reason. Chris Gardiner is the CEO of the Police and Community Youth Clubs. He posted a great article on The Punch today about kids at risk. That quote is from his article.
He argues that we should be investing in our youth in trouble, because while ‘re-socialising dysfunctional, delinquent kids is relationship and resource intensive, … it is cheaper and more effective in the long run than detention centres and prisons. For example, it costs $11 per day for youth conferencing, and $556 per day for custody.’
(And just to explain why this is an issue, he notes that NSW has several times the number of kids in detention that Victoria has, and that over half the kids locked up are aboriginal.)
It’s the same message we hear from the ‘children at risk’ support system. Get into the family, support them, stop the family structure breaking down. Fix it, rather than manage the fallout.
So why does Gardiner’s article sound more realistic to us?
He puts the child at the centre of it.
After that early statement about the family, he talks about the child, and what they need. Let’s be blunt - he doesn’t talk about propping up a failing family structure. He advocates action with the child, and for the child. He says we need to give these children ‘the chance for social development that they have been thus far denied’.
There is no reason why support for the family shouldn’t continue. But it should be separate to support allocated to the child.
And here’s the paragraph that could well be written for children in care.
‘For intervention to work, though, it must be built on an intense engagement around a single, consistent and strong adult relationship and an alternative peer setting. Kids need an adult committed to them, and not a committee of social workers and public servants (as interagency case management often becomes).’
This issue of attachment came up in an American Academy of Paediatrics article on Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster Care , and we wrote about it previously on our blog. Here’s the relevant paragraph from the Academy article:
‘Having at least 1 adult who is devoted to and loves a child unconditionally, who is prepared to accept and value that child for a long time, is key to helping a child overcome the stress and trauma of abuse and neglect.’
So we think those two paragraphs might contain some guidance for assessing whether a child at risk is getting what they need:
- A single, consistent and strong adult relationship
- An adult committed to them (our comment – in action, not words)
- An adult devoted to them
- An adult who loves them unconditionally
- An adult who is prepared to accept and value that child for a long time
Those of us lucky enough to grow up in a nurturing family will read those points and understand what they mean. We know what that looks and feels like.
So, how long should we take to decide a child is NOT getting that, and what are we prepared to do about it?
Twitter stream to 27-10-09
28/10/2009 21:43
We post links daily on Twitter to many articles we come across. They are often news reports or research studies that may be relevant to children in care, or to children generally.
We usually manage to provide our blunt opinion with them. While we try hard to be constructive on www.fostercarer.com.au, you’ll see we have a bit more fun with our tweets.
In case you missed them (or heaven forbid, you don’t follow us!) here is a list of our last couple of weeks’ tweets. Oh, and you’ll find the most recent posts at the top. So if you are unfamiliar with Twitter then you should read from the bottom of the post up.
Child protection workers raised 'serious concerns' about an adult's capability to care for a child but no one acted. Why? http://ow.ly/wvZH about 18 hours ago from HootSuite
And on the flip side, parenting is now a competition sport? Its one extreme to the other, isn't it. http://ow.ly/wvkF about 20 hours ago from HootSuite
Beyond belief that parents would let a child suffer because they are fearful of losing her. Or is it? http://ow.ly/wv6j about 21 hours ago from HootSuite
What is the test parents must pass if they have lost custody of a child, before that child or another is returned to them? http://ow.ly/wv5y about 21 hours ago from HootSuite
Good to see technology used to protect children's rights and wellbeing 'kidnapped child found through global money trail' http://ow.ly/vQ2G 3:13 PM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
Mental impairment defence for dad accused of throwing daughter from bridge. Not surprising. http://ow.ly/vPZW 3:09 PM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
Was about to huff about the guidelines but if those TV stats are true then we need more education out there! http://ow.ly/vNx5 9:46 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
'four-month-old babies watch 44 minutes of TV daily ...under-fours spend at least three hours a day in front of TV' (ACMA) http://ow.ly/vNwA 9:45 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
New parenting guidelines for parents - Don't force your kids to clear their plates at meal times. http://ow.ly/vNvp 9:42 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
rt Bckpck4AusKids 5 computers to give to long term foster/kinship carers! The computers are not new and fancy but ... http://bit.ly/r8zDL 1:57 PM Oct 21st from HootSuite
Foster care allowance is lower than this average cost of raising a child 'til 5. After 5 it is even more expensive! http://ow.ly/vAwG 1:54 PM Oct 21st from HootSuite
Small person is squealing with delight doing www.readingeggs.com. Really cool site for spelling and word skills for the under 10's.7:33 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
Sue Price Men's Rights Agency: 'reasonable contact'. That's the issue - what's reasonable for the child? http://ow.ly/vn8N 4:00 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
Submission: Family Court to consider parenting roles played by each parent pre-separation before deciding on roles after http://ow.ly/vn0l 3:38 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
'Children under the current system DO NOT HAVE A VOICE' Submission on Shared parenting rollback - http://ow.ly/vmSp 3:31 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
What a shame - child abduction hoax: rt @mashable WARNING: “98B351″ AMBER Alert Hoax Still Spreading on Twitter, Facebook - http://bit.ly/3v 10:35 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
The results of a poor decision in child welfare can scar a child for life. http://ow.ly/uv8J Maybe we need an insurance scheme? 4:02 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
You can sue a lawyer or a doctor for malpractice - should caseworkers be accountable to the same degree? http://ow.ly/uv8n
While we don't agree with punishment for caseworkers who make errors, we do agree accountability needs to be there http://ow.ly/uv7S 3:41 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
When the current ideology is restitution with bio family @PruGoward, maybe social workers can argue just following orders? http://ow.ly/ujBL 8:52 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
That'll help recruitment and retention @PruGoward (not). Criminal charges for caseworkers who get it wrong http://ow.ly/ujBm 8:50 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'Ms Goward said the prospect of punishment for caseworkers could provide better outcomes.' REALLY BAD IDEA http://ow.ly/ujyY 8:45 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
To quote @jcflamini (who knows of what she speaks), 'sometimes the state should not give repeat chances to failing parents' 4:26 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'A desire to keep children with their families would not change, Ms Burney said.' No, 'keeping with' and 'returning to' are very different. 4:25 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
There are many serious long term impacts of returning children to bio families again, and again, and again. Our post: http://ow.ly/uijV 4:23 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
Is the ideology and desire to return children to bio family overriding their safety? Here's an example of where it did http://ow.ly/uijr 4:21 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'A BABY girl severely injured since being put in the care of relatives after DOCS took her from a foster family'. http://ow.ly/uiiI 4:19 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
Pre-emptive strike: we teach the Camper that advertising is a crock, and you can't believe what you see in mags #bodyimage http://ow.ly/uh6E 12:59 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
A Youth Advisory Board? Now there's an idea for children's services in Oz. Example here from the US. http://ow.ly/u4U3 3:18 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
No TV for toddlers? The point is not only quantity, but QUALITY. http://ow.ly/u4Sn 3:13 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
Just completed the NAPCAN survey on child abuse and neglect - please contribute! http://ow.ly/u3Ff 12:06 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
RT @colgo too much research flying at parents, maybe they just shouldn't have kids? http://bit.ly/5ASmG 11:48 AM Oct 13th from HootSuite
We usually manage to provide our blunt opinion with them. While we try hard to be constructive on www.fostercarer.com.au, you’ll see we have a bit more fun with our tweets.
In case you missed them (or heaven forbid, you don’t follow us!) here is a list of our last couple of weeks’ tweets. Oh, and you’ll find the most recent posts at the top. So if you are unfamiliar with Twitter then you should read from the bottom of the post up.
Child protection workers raised 'serious concerns' about an adult's capability to care for a child but no one acted. Why? http://ow.ly/wvZH about 18 hours ago from HootSuite
And on the flip side, parenting is now a competition sport? Its one extreme to the other, isn't it. http://ow.ly/wvkF about 20 hours ago from HootSuite
Beyond belief that parents would let a child suffer because they are fearful of losing her. Or is it? http://ow.ly/wv6j about 21 hours ago from HootSuite
What is the test parents must pass if they have lost custody of a child, before that child or another is returned to them? http://ow.ly/wv5y about 21 hours ago from HootSuite
Good to see technology used to protect children's rights and wellbeing 'kidnapped child found through global money trail' http://ow.ly/vQ2G 3:13 PM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
Mental impairment defence for dad accused of throwing daughter from bridge. Not surprising. http://ow.ly/vPZW 3:09 PM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
Was about to huff about the guidelines but if those TV stats are true then we need more education out there! http://ow.ly/vNx5 9:46 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
'four-month-old babies watch 44 minutes of TV daily ...under-fours spend at least three hours a day in front of TV' (ACMA) http://ow.ly/vNwA 9:45 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
New parenting guidelines for parents - Don't force your kids to clear their plates at meal times. http://ow.ly/vNvp 9:42 AM Oct 22nd from HootSuite
rt Bckpck4AusKids 5 computers to give to long term foster/kinship carers! The computers are not new and fancy but ... http://bit.ly/r8zDL 1:57 PM Oct 21st from HootSuite
Foster care allowance is lower than this average cost of raising a child 'til 5. After 5 it is even more expensive! http://ow.ly/vAwG 1:54 PM Oct 21st from HootSuite
Small person is squealing with delight doing www.readingeggs.com. Really cool site for spelling and word skills for the under 10's.7:33 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
Sue Price Men's Rights Agency: 'reasonable contact'. That's the issue - what's reasonable for the child? http://ow.ly/vn8N 4:00 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
Submission: Family Court to consider parenting roles played by each parent pre-separation before deciding on roles after http://ow.ly/vn0l 3:38 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
'Children under the current system DO NOT HAVE A VOICE' Submission on Shared parenting rollback - http://ow.ly/vmSp 3:31 PM Oct 20th from HootSuite
What a shame - child abduction hoax: rt @mashable WARNING: “98B351″ AMBER Alert Hoax Still Spreading on Twitter, Facebook - http://bit.ly/3v 10:35 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
The results of a poor decision in child welfare can scar a child for life. http://ow.ly/uv8J Maybe we need an insurance scheme? 4:02 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
You can sue a lawyer or a doctor for malpractice - should caseworkers be accountable to the same degree? http://ow.ly/uv8n
While we don't agree with punishment for caseworkers who make errors, we do agree accountability needs to be there http://ow.ly/uv7S 3:41 PM Oct 15th from HootSuite
When the current ideology is restitution with bio family @PruGoward, maybe social workers can argue just following orders? http://ow.ly/ujBL 8:52 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
That'll help recruitment and retention @PruGoward (not). Criminal charges for caseworkers who get it wrong http://ow.ly/ujBm 8:50 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'Ms Goward said the prospect of punishment for caseworkers could provide better outcomes.' REALLY BAD IDEA http://ow.ly/ujyY 8:45 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
To quote @jcflamini (who knows of what she speaks), 'sometimes the state should not give repeat chances to failing parents' 4:26 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'A desire to keep children with their families would not change, Ms Burney said.' No, 'keeping with' and 'returning to' are very different. 4:25 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
There are many serious long term impacts of returning children to bio families again, and again, and again. Our post: http://ow.ly/uijV 4:23 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
Is the ideology and desire to return children to bio family overriding their safety? Here's an example of where it did http://ow.ly/uijr 4:21 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
'A BABY girl severely injured since being put in the care of relatives after DOCS took her from a foster family'. http://ow.ly/uiiI 4:19 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
Pre-emptive strike: we teach the Camper that advertising is a crock, and you can't believe what you see in mags #bodyimage http://ow.ly/uh6E 12:59 PM Oct 14th from HootSuite
A Youth Advisory Board? Now there's an idea for children's services in Oz. Example here from the US. http://ow.ly/u4U3 3:18 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
No TV for toddlers? The point is not only quantity, but QUALITY. http://ow.ly/u4Sn 3:13 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
Just completed the NAPCAN survey on child abuse and neglect - please contribute! http://ow.ly/u3Ff 12:06 PM Oct 13th from HootSuite
RT @colgo too much research flying at parents, maybe they just shouldn't have kids? http://bit.ly/5ASmG 11:48 AM Oct 13th from HootSuite
Details on children kept from foster carers
01/10/2009 23:01
‘Thousands of foster carers are welcoming children into their homes without being given the full facts about the children’s past, including whether they were victims of abuse’.
We put the link to this Times Online (UK) article on Twitter, and quickly got a response:
11:25pm, Sep 17 from Web
feeling this first hand
The report came from Fostering Network, which represents 43,000 carers in Britain. A couple of court rulings had opened the door for local authorities to be sued if they didn’t meet their duty of care to foster families.
The statistics were blunt – more than 51% of carers in the UK say that they have been given inadequate information about a child in their care, which has put themselves, their own children and even the foster child at risk. A full 30% weren’t told about the child’s medical requirements, 50% were not informed about a history of abuse, and 75% said that they were not made aware of the child’s general behaviour.
This is not an uncommon problem. In the early years it may be critical to understanding the child’s behaviour and health, and as they get older it may be essential to help them understand their past and their birth family.
When the turnover of workers is high (average we’ve heard for DoCS in Oz is about a year, and even in private agencies it runs at about 2 years), and if a child has moved placements a great deal, who on earth has any history for this child?
Oh, that’s right, the system does. (Btw, this is why life story work, however you may do that, is critical for these kids. More on that later.)
So what’s the problem with getting the right information to carers? The case file on a child who comes into your care may:
Why can’t carers see the child’s files, you might ask? We actually don’t think that’s a good idea. There are privacy issues relating to information in there about people other than the child. Carers need to retain some objectivity about birth parents and families. You need a good relationship with them for the child’s sake, and reading what might be a troubled history, that you will make a judgement on, might actually stop you doing that.
What needs to happen is for the files to be reproduced for the carers, with all the facts relevant to the child, but with none of the other stuff.
When the general consensus seems to be that many of our workers are overloaded, it’s not surprising that paperwork isn’t their first priority.
The people to do, what would essentially be a ‘sifting’ job, need to understand privacy, and they need to understand which facts are relevant to the child’s history. So why not find some lawyers, or social workers, who want to work part time? Get them in, make them sign a confidentiality agreement, and get them at it.
We think some rigour needs to be directed at solving these problems. Outsourcing a task is common in business, provided risk and privacy is managed well.
And as the survey shows, there is real risk to the foster family and the child if information is not forthcoming. ‘Flying blind’ can be fun sometimes, but not for a foster carer struggling to understand, manage and care for a small person.
We put the link to this Times Online (UK) article on Twitter, and quickly got a response:
11:25pm, Sep 17 from Web
feeling this first hand
The report came from Fostering Network, which represents 43,000 carers in Britain. A couple of court rulings had opened the door for local authorities to be sued if they didn’t meet their duty of care to foster families.
The statistics were blunt – more than 51% of carers in the UK say that they have been given inadequate information about a child in their care, which has put themselves, their own children and even the foster child at risk. A full 30% weren’t told about the child’s medical requirements, 50% were not informed about a history of abuse, and 75% said that they were not made aware of the child’s general behaviour.
This is not an uncommon problem. In the early years it may be critical to understanding the child’s behaviour and health, and as they get older it may be essential to help them understand their past and their birth family.
When the turnover of workers is high (average we’ve heard for DoCS in Oz is about a year, and even in private agencies it runs at about 2 years), and if a child has moved placements a great deal, who on earth has any history for this child?
Oh, that’s right, the system does. (Btw, this is why life story work, however you may do that, is critical for these kids. More on that later.)
So what’s the problem with getting the right information to carers? The case file on a child who comes into your care may:
- Be very large
- Contain information that is not relevant to the child in your care (for example information about birth family)
- Contain highly sensitive, prejudicial or private information about someone other than your foster child,
- Be very large – oh, we said that.
Why can’t carers see the child’s files, you might ask? We actually don’t think that’s a good idea. There are privacy issues relating to information in there about people other than the child. Carers need to retain some objectivity about birth parents and families. You need a good relationship with them for the child’s sake, and reading what might be a troubled history, that you will make a judgement on, might actually stop you doing that.
What needs to happen is for the files to be reproduced for the carers, with all the facts relevant to the child, but with none of the other stuff.
When the general consensus seems to be that many of our workers are overloaded, it’s not surprising that paperwork isn’t their first priority.
The people to do, what would essentially be a ‘sifting’ job, need to understand privacy, and they need to understand which facts are relevant to the child’s history. So why not find some lawyers, or social workers, who want to work part time? Get them in, make them sign a confidentiality agreement, and get them at it.
We think some rigour needs to be directed at solving these problems. Outsourcing a task is common in business, provided risk and privacy is managed well.
And as the survey shows, there is real risk to the foster family and the child if information is not forthcoming. ‘Flying blind’ can be fun sometimes, but not for a foster carer struggling to understand, manage and care for a small person.
You can't force a relationship
22/09/2009 21:59
‘THE Family Court has warned separated parents that they are required to hand over children for access visits, whether the children want to go or not.
While parents don't have to "physically drag" the children to the other parent, they do have to "positively encourage" them to go, and punish those who refuse.’
This quote is from an article in The Australian. The Family Court is saying that a parent should punish a child who refuses to abide by any orders made about their access with other parents. If ever there was an example of parental rights walking rough-shod over the well-being of a child, and enshrined in law, this is it.
So it struck a chord with us. Because at some stage your foster child might not want to go to a contact visit to meet with members of their birth family.
Their reaction, and how you and the support network handles it, will depend on the child, the birth family, and the stage of understanding and development the child is at. It will also depend on how skilled your social worker is, and what the social worker’s agenda is.
The article bothers us, not least because a Family Court Judge appears to be slavishly adopting what we have come to think of as dodgy law. Law becomes dodgy when it is high-jacked by interest groups, and driven by a political agenda.
It bothers us because, as Pragnell says, ‘how can it be in (a child’s) best interests to force them into a relationship?’
We’ve seen social workers ‘play God’ (and we don’t use that expression lightly) with foster children’s relationships for many, many years. We’ve seen foster families denied any follow up relationship with a foster child after a placement has ended, despite the fact that relationship was the longest and most stable of the child’s life. And we’ve experienced contact visits with birth family being managed aggressively by the social workers.
You can’t force a relationship.
Here’s what can happen if a foster child is forced into a relationship:
But the system should tread softly for the children’s sake. There are no hard and fast rules or policy, not if you accept that every child is an individual. What is in the child’s best interest at that point in time, considering their age, circumstances, development and security, should prevail.
What should you, as a foster parent, do in these circumstances if you see a relationship being forced? Stand up for your foster child. Support what you think is best for them. Fight if you have to. We’ve done it.
While parents don't have to "physically drag" the children to the other parent, they do have to "positively encourage" them to go, and punish those who refuse.’
This quote is from an article in The Australian. The Family Court is saying that a parent should punish a child who refuses to abide by any orders made about their access with other parents. If ever there was an example of parental rights walking rough-shod over the well-being of a child, and enshrined in law, this is it.
So it struck a chord with us. Because at some stage your foster child might not want to go to a contact visit to meet with members of their birth family.
Their reaction, and how you and the support network handles it, will depend on the child, the birth family, and the stage of understanding and development the child is at. It will also depend on how skilled your social worker is, and what the social worker’s agenda is.
The article bothers us, not least because a Family Court Judge appears to be slavishly adopting what we have come to think of as dodgy law. Law becomes dodgy when it is high-jacked by interest groups, and driven by a political agenda.
It bothers us because, as Pragnell says, ‘how can it be in (a child’s) best interests to force them into a relationship?’
We’ve seen social workers ‘play God’ (and we don’t use that expression lightly) with foster children’s relationships for many, many years. We’ve seen foster families denied any follow up relationship with a foster child after a placement has ended, despite the fact that relationship was the longest and most stable of the child’s life. And we’ve experienced contact visits with birth family being managed aggressively by the social workers.
- Members of the foster family were told not to attend. This was despite the fact that the Camper was drawing great comfort and stability from the newly forming foster relationships, and needed them even more when confronted by birth family.
- Any and all members of birth family were entitled to turn up, no notice required. So when the Camper was dealing with who her birth family members were and the part they played in her life, another one would appear.
- Social workers forced intervention between the Camper and members of the birth family. There were instructions to hug, play, undertake activities. When it wasn’t happening sufficiently, the social workers took over, running the visit. The look on the Camper’s face when told, by essentially a stranger, to hug another stranger, would have been funny were it not so distressing.
You can’t force a relationship.
Here’s what can happen if a foster child is forced into a relationship:
- You run the risk of alienating the child towards their birth family.
- Pushing an aggressive agenda of interaction risks the child losing trust in the social worker.
- Forcing a relationship between foster child and birth family risks the child losing faith in their foster parent. ‘You’re not in control of this’ they will say to you. ‘You can’t help me’.
But the system should tread softly for the children’s sake. There are no hard and fast rules or policy, not if you accept that every child is an individual. What is in the child’s best interest at that point in time, considering their age, circumstances, development and security, should prevail.
What should you, as a foster parent, do in these circumstances if you see a relationship being forced? Stand up for your foster child. Support what you think is best for them. Fight if you have to. We’ve done it.
Children's sense of time
09/09/2009 22:23
Continuing our series from the American Academy of Pediatrics article.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
Attachment issues for children in foster care
01/09/2009 21:13
The next section of the superb article from the American Academy of Pediatrics covers attachment. Specifically, what is required in order for a child to develop into a healthy human being. Again, we will put the report in our own words in the hope that we can make it a little more accessible.
Not surprisingly, the child needs a relationship with an adult who exhibits the behaviour of a loving, caring parent – nurturing, protection, trust and security. Attachment refers to the relationship between a child and another – that is, two people, and forms the basis for long term relationships.
They state that attachment is an active process. By that they mean something is always happening regarding attachment for children. Children in a poor family circumstance don’t go into limbo while parents and support agencies work things out (we’ve said that before and we’ll say it again.) So attachment at such a time can be both insecure and maladaptive – meaning faulty or inadequate. The child may be actively learning that attachment is faulty, or insecure, or inadequate, not healthy, or enduring, or wonderful.
And in case anyone was wondering: ‘attachment to a primary caregiver (…who provides nurturing, protection, trust and security…) is essential to the development of emotional security and social conscience’ (page 1146).
So far so clear. Attachment issues affect self-esteem and long term relationships. What else?
The article states that the ‘optimal’ child development occurs when a range of the child’s needs are consistently met over an extended period. We’ve paraphrased this concept before and made it personal to us: the Camper deserves to know that there is another day tomorrow that will be, in relation to all the essential elements like nurturing, protection, trust and security, exactly the same as the one she has just had.
And it goes the other way too. Successful parenting is based on a healthy, respectful and long-lasting relationship with the child. In many cases it is highly likely that a birth parent never had this opportunity with their parent, and was unable to provide it for their child. So the cycle begins.
It is the process of parenting – looking after the child’s emotional and psychological needs, as well as their biological needs – that leads a child to perceive a particular adult as his or her parent. And that’s the person they attach to. And the strength of that relationship plays a big part in helping a child overcome early stress or trauma.
So the real risk for children in and out of foster care is that they might fail to form healthy attachments to anyone. They don’t have an adult who is devoted to them, and who accepts and values them for the long term. And in our experience, many of the interactions with both workers and birth family, unless handled with great skill and care, can undermine the forming of that attachment and cause the child more stress and insecurity.
Separation during the first year of life, especially in the first 6 months, may not have a negative effect on social or emotional development.
Separations between 6 months and 3 years of age, if they come about as a result of family breakdown and disruption, are more likely to have ongoing emotional consequences for the child. This is partly due to their age and how they feel around strangers, but also because they do not have the language skills at this age to fully express themselves and make sense of it.
Children older than 3 years when placed with a new family are likely to have the language skills to help them deal with the change. They are at an age where they are able to form strong attachments.
The section concludes with the statement ‘the emotional consequences of multiple placements or disruptions are likely to be harmful at any age.’
So we need to provide stability and long term nurturing for these children? Doesn’t sound too hard, does it?
Not surprisingly, the child needs a relationship with an adult who exhibits the behaviour of a loving, caring parent – nurturing, protection, trust and security. Attachment refers to the relationship between a child and another – that is, two people, and forms the basis for long term relationships.
They state that attachment is an active process. By that they mean something is always happening regarding attachment for children. Children in a poor family circumstance don’t go into limbo while parents and support agencies work things out (we’ve said that before and we’ll say it again.) So attachment at such a time can be both insecure and maladaptive – meaning faulty or inadequate. The child may be actively learning that attachment is faulty, or insecure, or inadequate, not healthy, or enduring, or wonderful.
And in case anyone was wondering: ‘attachment to a primary caregiver (…who provides nurturing, protection, trust and security…) is essential to the development of emotional security and social conscience’ (page 1146).
So far so clear. Attachment issues affect self-esteem and long term relationships. What else?
The article states that the ‘optimal’ child development occurs when a range of the child’s needs are consistently met over an extended period. We’ve paraphrased this concept before and made it personal to us: the Camper deserves to know that there is another day tomorrow that will be, in relation to all the essential elements like nurturing, protection, trust and security, exactly the same as the one she has just had.
And it goes the other way too. Successful parenting is based on a healthy, respectful and long-lasting relationship with the child. In many cases it is highly likely that a birth parent never had this opportunity with their parent, and was unable to provide it for their child. So the cycle begins.
It is the process of parenting – looking after the child’s emotional and psychological needs, as well as their biological needs – that leads a child to perceive a particular adult as his or her parent. And that’s the person they attach to. And the strength of that relationship plays a big part in helping a child overcome early stress or trauma.
So the real risk for children in and out of foster care is that they might fail to form healthy attachments to anyone. They don’t have an adult who is devoted to them, and who accepts and values them for the long term. And in our experience, many of the interactions with both workers and birth family, unless handled with great skill and care, can undermine the forming of that attachment and cause the child more stress and insecurity.
Separation during the first year of life, especially in the first 6 months, may not have a negative effect on social or emotional development.
Separations between 6 months and 3 years of age, if they come about as a result of family breakdown and disruption, are more likely to have ongoing emotional consequences for the child. This is partly due to their age and how they feel around strangers, but also because they do not have the language skills at this age to fully express themselves and make sense of it.
Children older than 3 years when placed with a new family are likely to have the language skills to help them deal with the change. They are at an age where they are able to form strong attachments.
The section concludes with the statement ‘the emotional consequences of multiple placements or disruptions are likely to be harmful at any age.’
So we need to provide stability and long term nurturing for these children? Doesn’t sound too hard, does it?
Developmental issues for young children in foster care
10/08/2009 22:08
If you follow us on Twitter you will have seen us highlight this article from the American Academy of Pediatrics a week or so ago. It’s called Developmental Issues for Young Children in Foster Care, and while it was published in November 2000, it is as relevant today as it was then.
We’d recommend you read it. Really. If you are a carer, or about to become a carer, read it.
It’s one of the most complete analyses of some of the early development issues faced by children in care in their early years. It’s an academic article, so you’ll find the language, well, academic. Don’t be put off. There are so many relevant points in it we were nodding at nearly every paragraph.
We found much of our foster care training focused on the high level issues you and your foster child will face. It wasn’t until we were in charge of a small person who had so much to make up, that we realised we needed a lot more information on how to accelerate learning and development, if that was indeed possible, and how to deal with the real day to day issues around attachment.
We think this article is so useful that over the next few posts we’re going to highlight some of the key aspects of it. Now we are not child psychologists. But we’ve faced so many of these issues with the Camper, that it’s not academic to us anymore.
Early brain and child development
Let’s paraphrase the article: brain growth and development are most active in the early years of life – that’s when personality traits, learning processes, and coping with stress and emotions are established and then become permanent for children.
For children who have little stimulation, or who deal with child abuse or family violence, this development may either stall or be impaired.
What is needed to let children develop their cognitive (perception, memory, judgment and reasoning), language and socialisation skills is stimulation and nurturing. So as a carer, you might find you need to do more than just attend to the physical needs of this child. While the system has hopefully prevented it happening further, you need to repair.
You may need to take on some serious activity and stimulation. We did. When faced with a child failing to thrive we planned each day to cover many experiences. Among other things we sang, played, ran, hopped, jumped, swam, did kindy gym, talked endlessly and explained everything, played with words, mimicked one another, played with water and sand, played upside down, cuddled animals - both real and soft, chose and cherished special comfort toys, and read stories every single day. There were lots of social experiences too, visits to parks and playgrounds, shopping centres and coffee shops, family and friends’ homes. And there were lots of cuddles, and giggles, and routine.
You need to make sure you talk to all the resources at your disposal – workers, paediatricians, health services and others – to work out what may be needed for your foster child, and in fact what is possible.
But we can tell you we are in awe of what a child is able to achieve. And the more you can invest in them, the better chance they’ll have.
We’d recommend you read it. Really. If you are a carer, or about to become a carer, read it.
It’s one of the most complete analyses of some of the early development issues faced by children in care in their early years. It’s an academic article, so you’ll find the language, well, academic. Don’t be put off. There are so many relevant points in it we were nodding at nearly every paragraph.
We found much of our foster care training focused on the high level issues you and your foster child will face. It wasn’t until we were in charge of a small person who had so much to make up, that we realised we needed a lot more information on how to accelerate learning and development, if that was indeed possible, and how to deal with the real day to day issues around attachment.
We think this article is so useful that over the next few posts we’re going to highlight some of the key aspects of it. Now we are not child psychologists. But we’ve faced so many of these issues with the Camper, that it’s not academic to us anymore.
Early brain and child development
Let’s paraphrase the article: brain growth and development are most active in the early years of life – that’s when personality traits, learning processes, and coping with stress and emotions are established and then become permanent for children.
For children who have little stimulation, or who deal with child abuse or family violence, this development may either stall or be impaired.
What is needed to let children develop their cognitive (perception, memory, judgment and reasoning), language and socialisation skills is stimulation and nurturing. So as a carer, you might find you need to do more than just attend to the physical needs of this child. While the system has hopefully prevented it happening further, you need to repair.
You may need to take on some serious activity and stimulation. We did. When faced with a child failing to thrive we planned each day to cover many experiences. Among other things we sang, played, ran, hopped, jumped, swam, did kindy gym, talked endlessly and explained everything, played with words, mimicked one another, played with water and sand, played upside down, cuddled animals - both real and soft, chose and cherished special comfort toys, and read stories every single day. There were lots of social experiences too, visits to parks and playgrounds, shopping centres and coffee shops, family and friends’ homes. And there were lots of cuddles, and giggles, and routine.
You need to make sure you talk to all the resources at your disposal – workers, paediatricians, health services and others – to work out what may be needed for your foster child, and in fact what is possible.
But we can tell you we are in awe of what a child is able to achieve. And the more you can invest in them, the better chance they’ll have.
Foster children walking on eggshells
25/06/2009 22:15
Here is a quote, from a real person, Jennifer, who runs a site called Foster Care in America. Her site gets the thumbs up from us because of its constructive focus, and its positive objectives. Jennifer highlights foster care alumni and their achievements, and has recently started writing about her experiences as a child in care. How’s that for leadership?
So just take a moment, close your eyes, and try to think about what that might feel like. Knowing that the most fundamental element of your life – where you live and who you live with – might change at any moment. No warning. Out of your control. That’s stressful.
Why on earth would you begin to put down any roots? Why would you bother?
Children are learning to live with a level of stress that most of us only deal with as adults. What does that do to them?
As adults, we have lots of resources available to help us cope with stress. We have the ability to research for ourselves. We have support groups, family networks and often employers who care enough to teach us to deal with it or to support us if it becomes overwhelming. And we have life experience to put the stressful event in some sort of context.
Kids have none of that.
The Camper is with us now until she decides otherwise (she has told us that she’s never moving out by the way). She sees her birth family and this knowledge of her history is good. But we’ve seen her deal with stress about her birth family. She has suffered acute stress after contact visits. She suffers stress about what she thinks her birth family expect of her at contact visits. It’s not what the usual under-10 brigade has to deal with, and so we balance two approaches with her: a cheerful sense of robustness about it all (‘oh, you’ll be fine!’), and an acutely tuned awareness of how she really feels. So we are actively addressing the Camper’s stress. If we want her to trust us and have confidence that we can make it right for her, we need to be able to influence it.
Luckily we can. As the Camper works through this it has reinforced for her that:
If moving children causes them such stress, shouldn’t we aim not to move them? Or if we need to move them, shouldn’t we have the guts to make it permanent, at the very least for those early formative years. When there is so much evidence that multiple moves harm children, why do we keep accepting that it is the best we can do?
Imagine if we could get a Prime Minister to say ‘No child should walk on eggshells, knowing that at any moment without warning; HOME CHANGE!’
So just take a moment, close your eyes, and try to think about what that might feel like. Knowing that the most fundamental element of your life – where you live and who you live with – might change at any moment. No warning. Out of your control. That’s stressful.
Why on earth would you begin to put down any roots? Why would you bother?
Children are learning to live with a level of stress that most of us only deal with as adults. What does that do to them?
As adults, we have lots of resources available to help us cope with stress. We have the ability to research for ourselves. We have support groups, family networks and often employers who care enough to teach us to deal with it or to support us if it becomes overwhelming. And we have life experience to put the stressful event in some sort of context.
Kids have none of that.
The Camper is with us now until she decides otherwise (she has told us that she’s never moving out by the way). She sees her birth family and this knowledge of her history is good. But we’ve seen her deal with stress about her birth family. She has suffered acute stress after contact visits. She suffers stress about what she thinks her birth family expect of her at contact visits. It’s not what the usual under-10 brigade has to deal with, and so we balance two approaches with her: a cheerful sense of robustness about it all (‘oh, you’ll be fine!’), and an acutely tuned awareness of how she really feels. So we are actively addressing the Camper’s stress. If we want her to trust us and have confidence that we can make it right for her, we need to be able to influence it.
Luckily we can. As the Camper works through this it has reinforced for her that:
- We are her family, we love her and we will help her work through this.
- We know her best and she can talk to us about it.
- She gets a say, and she can influence the outcome.
If moving children causes them such stress, shouldn’t we aim not to move them? Or if we need to move them, shouldn’t we have the guts to make it permanent, at the very least for those early formative years. When there is so much evidence that multiple moves harm children, why do we keep accepting that it is the best we can do?
Imagine if we could get a Prime Minister to say ‘No child should walk on eggshells, knowing that at any moment without warning; HOME CHANGE!’
A child's right to privacy
16/06/2009 21:41
As foster carers who have a front row seat on how the system should work better, we’d like to inject a note of caution in response to The Australian’s editorial A Dangerous Secrecy (11/06/09).
It was part of the Oz’s reporting on eight children taken into care.
The editorial comments that ‘It is not abused and neglected children who are damaged by publicity, it is the people who hurt them’.
We don’t have a problem with publicity as long as it gets something fixed. We don’t have a problem with freer constraints on reporting matters of public interest, as long as it is done very, very carefully. We’ve asked before whether more information from skilful journos may be in order (see our previous post Reporting more detail on children in care?)
But a child in care has the right to grow up with the privacy the rest of us enjoy. They have enough issues to deal with in relation to who they are and where they came from. They do not need details of their lives spread out for all in their community to read, and remember.
You may face this privacy issue quite regularly in your role as carer. We don’t mention the fact that the Camper wasn’t born to us to very many people. We don’t hide it by any means, but it’s not relevant much of the time. There are still instances where adults who are told launch into twenty questions. Their motives vary.
What happened? they’ll ask.
What are the circumstances with birth family?
Sometimes people even try to be helpful: Were there drugs or mental health or violence or neglect or abandonment or health or developmental delay or behaviour issues?
So what do you say? You may feel cornered, and you may try to stumble through some explanation.
Here’s what we say, with a smile: ‘Oh, we’re not at liberty to go into any of that with anyone outside the Camper’s immediate family’. If pushed, we will elaborate further with: ‘All of that information is private to the Camper’. And if we think a further explanation might make them think twice about being quite so intrusive next time, we might finish with: ‘The Camper does not deserve to have the details of her private life shared with anyone other than her immediate family’. Keep smiling while you say it, you’d be surprised how that diffuses things.
These children aren’t public property. And we need to be careful not to use them as such, even if our intention is to try to fix the system.
It was part of the Oz’s reporting on eight children taken into care.
The editorial comments that ‘It is not abused and neglected children who are damaged by publicity, it is the people who hurt them’.
We don’t have a problem with publicity as long as it gets something fixed. We don’t have a problem with freer constraints on reporting matters of public interest, as long as it is done very, very carefully. We’ve asked before whether more information from skilful journos may be in order (see our previous post Reporting more detail on children in care?)
But a child in care has the right to grow up with the privacy the rest of us enjoy. They have enough issues to deal with in relation to who they are and where they came from. They do not need details of their lives spread out for all in their community to read, and remember.
You may face this privacy issue quite regularly in your role as carer. We don’t mention the fact that the Camper wasn’t born to us to very many people. We don’t hide it by any means, but it’s not relevant much of the time. There are still instances where adults who are told launch into twenty questions. Their motives vary.
What happened? they’ll ask.
What are the circumstances with birth family?
Sometimes people even try to be helpful: Were there drugs or mental health or violence or neglect or abandonment or health or developmental delay or behaviour issues?
So what do you say? You may feel cornered, and you may try to stumble through some explanation.
Here’s what we say, with a smile: ‘Oh, we’re not at liberty to go into any of that with anyone outside the Camper’s immediate family’. If pushed, we will elaborate further with: ‘All of that information is private to the Camper’. And if we think a further explanation might make them think twice about being quite so intrusive next time, we might finish with: ‘The Camper does not deserve to have the details of her private life shared with anyone other than her immediate family’. Keep smiling while you say it, you’d be surprised how that diffuses things.
These children aren’t public property. And we need to be careful not to use them as such, even if our intention is to try to fix the system.
Do foster children always become troubled teens?
28/12/2008 23:48
‘AN AMERICAN academic is to run a five-year study of NSW children who are removed from their parents and placed in foster care in the hope of finding ways to stop them becoming troubled teenagers.’ SMH 26/12/08
Well Professor Fred Wulczyn, let’s get you started on the way.
The system often prevents these children from putting down roots with a new family. Either the legal process fails to catch up with the child’s needs and the child spends too long in ‘temporary care’, or the system applies the invisible brand to them – ‘foster child’ – and demands things of them that ‘normal’ children never have to contemplate. Let us explain.
Happy Camper had been bounced around the system for some years before she landed with us. She had been emotionally abandoned and that was obvious from the minute we met her. Her physical needs hadn’t been well looked after either, but they were relatively easier to fix. We threw every ounce of care, love and attention into making her feel that we were her family, that we were here to stay. As her level of understanding has grown, we’ve explained that she will get a say in anything that happens now.
But some workers viewed our level of passion and commitment with nothing less than suspicion. They worked hard to redevelop the bond between the Camper and birth family, and increase her reliance on the social worker. So when the Camper was coming to grips with the fact that no one in her birth family was able to take care of her, and hadn’t, and she desperately wanted to believe she was finally somewhere safe, she had a worker telling her quite forcefully through actions and words that it was all about birth family. We could see the confusion and distrust in her eyes.
We know carers who foster with that particular agency, and the agenda (restitution with birth families) hasn’t changed. A new worker has suddenly told a carer, who has had a child in care from 4 months to early teen years, that she considers the child needs to have more contact with her birth mum. They see birth mum and other members of the birth family every school holidays and it is pitched at just the right level. The child is old enough to ask her foster mum, who she considers to be her mum, ‘why?’ We hope the carer has what it takes to ask the agency ‘why?’ on behalf of the child.
We can tell you that this particular child is thriving – winning awards at school, happy, a very capable sportsperson, very savvy about her circumstances - and she handles her birth mum’s probing for information with an ease well beyond her years. So she is one of Professor Wulczyn’s success stories. We’re working on the Camper being a success story as well.
So what characterises these two placements?
The children have put down roots. They feel stable. They trust that nothing is going to change.
The system recognises they have been put into long term care for a very good reason, and is not trying to undermine that. The children are free to get on with living.
They have contact with their birth families, but not at the expense of time with their new families and their sense of stability. It’s a delicate balance.
Imagine if you were a child, and had a worker continually telling you how important your birth mum was, insisting you cuddle the woman when you only see her 5 times a year, reminding you to your face that you are ‘a child in care’, not calling the mum and dad you live with ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, but ‘carer? Imagine if you couldn’t have a play date with your friends on a particular day in the school holidays because of contact with your birth family. Imagine if you knew you couldn’t go away on holidays with your family because you had to be back for access with your birth family?
The agency recognises a ‘good’ placement and plays a monitoring role.
There is often a huge lack of continuity of approach from one worker to the next. Good governance demands that new workers review placements and all the circumstances around them, but aspects of the placement should not be changed without very good reason. These should be thoughtfully monitored and individually researched reasons. They should be discussed and reviewed with the carers over time before any decision to change is made. Workers should be taught that leaving their individual mark on a case is not always a sign of success.
We are good carers.
Forgive us if we state it bluntly, but we are. We treat these children as if they were our own. We don’t expect them to do anything much differently to our other children. We’re not in it for any financial gain. We love them.
So we are genuinely puzzled as to why the system has such a hard time codifying what works?
Maybe it’s not talking to the right people? Maybe it is not prepared to hear what we are saying? Maybe there are agendas and policies that the system, and those who work in it, need to give up?
Posted by EssentialMum
Well Professor Fred Wulczyn, let’s get you started on the way.
The system often prevents these children from putting down roots with a new family. Either the legal process fails to catch up with the child’s needs and the child spends too long in ‘temporary care’, or the system applies the invisible brand to them – ‘foster child’ – and demands things of them that ‘normal’ children never have to contemplate. Let us explain.
Happy Camper had been bounced around the system for some years before she landed with us. She had been emotionally abandoned and that was obvious from the minute we met her. Her physical needs hadn’t been well looked after either, but they were relatively easier to fix. We threw every ounce of care, love and attention into making her feel that we were her family, that we were here to stay. As her level of understanding has grown, we’ve explained that she will get a say in anything that happens now.
But some workers viewed our level of passion and commitment with nothing less than suspicion. They worked hard to redevelop the bond between the Camper and birth family, and increase her reliance on the social worker. So when the Camper was coming to grips with the fact that no one in her birth family was able to take care of her, and hadn’t, and she desperately wanted to believe she was finally somewhere safe, she had a worker telling her quite forcefully through actions and words that it was all about birth family. We could see the confusion and distrust in her eyes.
We know carers who foster with that particular agency, and the agenda (restitution with birth families) hasn’t changed. A new worker has suddenly told a carer, who has had a child in care from 4 months to early teen years, that she considers the child needs to have more contact with her birth mum. They see birth mum and other members of the birth family every school holidays and it is pitched at just the right level. The child is old enough to ask her foster mum, who she considers to be her mum, ‘why?’ We hope the carer has what it takes to ask the agency ‘why?’ on behalf of the child.
We can tell you that this particular child is thriving – winning awards at school, happy, a very capable sportsperson, very savvy about her circumstances - and she handles her birth mum’s probing for information with an ease well beyond her years. So she is one of Professor Wulczyn’s success stories. We’re working on the Camper being a success story as well.
So what characterises these two placements?
The children have put down roots. They feel stable. They trust that nothing is going to change.
The system recognises they have been put into long term care for a very good reason, and is not trying to undermine that. The children are free to get on with living.
They have contact with their birth families, but not at the expense of time with their new families and their sense of stability. It’s a delicate balance.
Imagine if you were a child, and had a worker continually telling you how important your birth mum was, insisting you cuddle the woman when you only see her 5 times a year, reminding you to your face that you are ‘a child in care’, not calling the mum and dad you live with ‘mum’ or ‘dad’, but ‘carer? Imagine if you couldn’t have a play date with your friends on a particular day in the school holidays because of contact with your birth family. Imagine if you knew you couldn’t go away on holidays with your family because you had to be back for access with your birth family?
The agency recognises a ‘good’ placement and plays a monitoring role.
There is often a huge lack of continuity of approach from one worker to the next. Good governance demands that new workers review placements and all the circumstances around them, but aspects of the placement should not be changed without very good reason. These should be thoughtfully monitored and individually researched reasons. They should be discussed and reviewed with the carers over time before any decision to change is made. Workers should be taught that leaving their individual mark on a case is not always a sign of success.
We are good carers.
Forgive us if we state it bluntly, but we are. We treat these children as if they were our own. We don’t expect them to do anything much differently to our other children. We’re not in it for any financial gain. We love them.
So we are genuinely puzzled as to why the system has such a hard time codifying what works?
Maybe it’s not talking to the right people? Maybe it is not prepared to hear what we are saying? Maybe there are agendas and policies that the system, and those who work in it, need to give up?
Posted by EssentialMum
'I am a foster child'
26/11/2008 22:17
How should children in care refer to themselves? How should you introduce them?
We don’t do labels.
So Happy Camper is not described to anyone, particularly in her hearing, as a foster child. We introduce her as our daughter. Generally only those who need to know are told her status. And for anyone who needs to know (doctor, teacher), the basic facts are sufficient and explain all that needs to be said.
Foster care is her legal status. So why should that be what describes her?
We sometimes used to feel like the system had given her a secret stamp – only visible to it – that said ‘Child in Care’. Different rules apply to ‘normal’ children. This feeling wasn’t helped by the workers’ frequent response, when we disagreed about a particular action, that ‘this is what we do for all our children in care’. One approach suits all? We knew enough other carers to know that wasn’t true.
This issue about labels is really important.
Labels are pejorative. They are loaded with meaning. We have heard of children in out of home care having the term ‘foster child’ flung at them in the school playground in a derisory way.
Come to think of it, maybe the term ‘foster care’ has had its day. What does ‘foster’ mean anyway? Out-of-home care isn’t much better.
Here’s the definition of foster from dictionary.com:
We like number 3 – to care for or cherish.
We have brought Happy Camper into our family to show her what it means to be cherished. She hasn’t had that before. Make no mistake – she’s been fawned over, and been the centre of attention, and had lots of people spending lots of time reviewing what’s best for her. But she hasn’t been cherished. It’s the strength of that individual care that is making a difference to her life.
We show her what constant, unchanging love looks like, in all its shapes and colours and circumstances. We show her how to receive it and give it. Most people take that for granted.
So we provide family care. The Camper is now part of our family, and nothing will change that even if the circumstances of her care change.
So maybe Family Care is the new description. A new family is caring for this child. What do you think?
Posted by EssentialMum
We don’t do labels.
So Happy Camper is not described to anyone, particularly in her hearing, as a foster child. We introduce her as our daughter. Generally only those who need to know are told her status. And for anyone who needs to know (doctor, teacher), the basic facts are sufficient and explain all that needs to be said.
Foster care is her legal status. So why should that be what describes her?
We sometimes used to feel like the system had given her a secret stamp – only visible to it – that said ‘Child in Care’. Different rules apply to ‘normal’ children. This feeling wasn’t helped by the workers’ frequent response, when we disagreed about a particular action, that ‘this is what we do for all our children in care’. One approach suits all? We knew enough other carers to know that wasn’t true.
This issue about labels is really important.
Labels are pejorative. They are loaded with meaning. We have heard of children in out of home care having the term ‘foster child’ flung at them in the school playground in a derisory way.
Come to think of it, maybe the term ‘foster care’ has had its day. What does ‘foster’ mean anyway? Out-of-home care isn’t much better.
Here’s the definition of foster from dictionary.com:
- to promote the growth or development of; further; encourage, to foster new ideas
- to bring up, raise, or rear as a foster child
- to care for or cherish
- British, to place (a child) in a foster home
We like number 3 – to care for or cherish.
We have brought Happy Camper into our family to show her what it means to be cherished. She hasn’t had that before. Make no mistake – she’s been fawned over, and been the centre of attention, and had lots of people spending lots of time reviewing what’s best for her. But she hasn’t been cherished. It’s the strength of that individual care that is making a difference to her life.
We show her what constant, unchanging love looks like, in all its shapes and colours and circumstances. We show her how to receive it and give it. Most people take that for granted.
So we provide family care. The Camper is now part of our family, and nothing will change that even if the circumstances of her care change.
So maybe Family Care is the new description. A new family is caring for this child. What do you think?
Posted by EssentialMum
When is a fairy a good thing?
22/08/2008 00:25
There was an interesting article in the SMH (Weekend Edition, August 16-17 2008) from Lisa Pryor. She was responding to an article in the Age regarding a new book – The Great Feminist Denial – where the author decries letting preschool girls dress as fairies, princesses and ballerinas at birthday parties.
The author, Monica Dux, argues that this just entrenches a narrow view of femininity, focussed on appearance.
As a family with Cinderella, Angelina Ballerina, Snow White, and a number of unnamed fairies in our repertoire, we’d like to share our approach.
It’s all about balance.
We do ballet, so the wonders of the costumes and all that pink stuff are beautifully balanced by the physical activity. Happy Camper understands that ballet is about action and control and exercise. Snow White has been elevated to a superhero in our house, on a par with Spiderman and Superman.
The fairy outfits are usually layered over other clothes, to very funny effect. The froufrou glamour fairy outfit, worn over flannelette pyjamas, topped with a hat and scarf, accessorised with a pair of sunglasses and a bag and finished off with ugh boots, is hysterical. It’s all about dressing up and creating a look, and is usually part of an elaborate imaginative game. The brighter and shinier the outfit, the more Happy Camper loves it.
Dux offers that girls should be ‘active young things seeking out adventure'. We agree - on a daily basis we swim, ride scooters and bikes, kick a soccer ball around a park, wrestle, climb trees, walk dogs, garden. Happy Camper has no qualms about heading to the top of a climbing frame many metres high.
Happy Camper has also been encouraged to have a go at lots of things. It requires some clever risk management in the background naturally, but feeds her confidence and fuels her interest in trying more. She has manned a dodgem car (peeling EssentialMum’s fingers from the steering wheel when we tried to avoid hitting the edge), swung on a sixty foot professional trapeze with a grin on her face, had a go at several climbing walls, bucketed down any giant slide available (the higher the better), ridden horses from Shetlands to 15 hands, and watched in frustrated tears because she was too short to go on the G-force Rocket Ride with the adults.
So we don’t mind the fairy outfits. They are only one part of her imagination and life experience. If she’s still wearing them at fifteen, then we’ll worry.
Posted by EssentialMum
The author, Monica Dux, argues that this just entrenches a narrow view of femininity, focussed on appearance.
As a family with Cinderella, Angelina Ballerina, Snow White, and a number of unnamed fairies in our repertoire, we’d like to share our approach.
It’s all about balance.
We do ballet, so the wonders of the costumes and all that pink stuff are beautifully balanced by the physical activity. Happy Camper understands that ballet is about action and control and exercise. Snow White has been elevated to a superhero in our house, on a par with Spiderman and Superman.
The fairy outfits are usually layered over other clothes, to very funny effect. The froufrou glamour fairy outfit, worn over flannelette pyjamas, topped with a hat and scarf, accessorised with a pair of sunglasses and a bag and finished off with ugh boots, is hysterical. It’s all about dressing up and creating a look, and is usually part of an elaborate imaginative game. The brighter and shinier the outfit, the more Happy Camper loves it.
Dux offers that girls should be ‘active young things seeking out adventure'. We agree - on a daily basis we swim, ride scooters and bikes, kick a soccer ball around a park, wrestle, climb trees, walk dogs, garden. Happy Camper has no qualms about heading to the top of a climbing frame many metres high.
Happy Camper has also been encouraged to have a go at lots of things. It requires some clever risk management in the background naturally, but feeds her confidence and fuels her interest in trying more. She has manned a dodgem car (peeling EssentialMum’s fingers from the steering wheel when we tried to avoid hitting the edge), swung on a sixty foot professional trapeze with a grin on her face, had a go at several climbing walls, bucketed down any giant slide available (the higher the better), ridden horses from Shetlands to 15 hands, and watched in frustrated tears because she was too short to go on the G-force Rocket Ride with the adults.
So we don’t mind the fairy outfits. They are only one part of her imagination and life experience. If she’s still wearing them at fifteen, then we’ll worry.
Posted by EssentialMum
We have a new dog and we don’t know anything about her
01/07/2008 20:37
Dogs don't live as long as we do. Some deserve to live longer than they do, given how loving, and loyal, and friendly, and funny they are. If you are going to be a dog owner for life then you have to learn say farewell to old friends and welcome new ones.
After losing a terrific dog last year we have adopted a new dog. She's two - while we love puppies there are always some lovely older dogs looking for a home. Our male dog came to us at 14 months, bonded beautifully and has been a loving pal for 8 years now.
Our new pup came via a friend. And when she arrived, we realised:
So we’ve developed our understanding of this little dog over the last months. Happy Camper has been delighted to find a real little playmate. Fine for a dog.
So how 'disappointing' (you can insert your own adjective here depending on your viewpoint) to tell you that the experience was pretty much the same with Happy Camper. Despite all the networks and information amassed on these children and their families and their circumstances, we knew next to nothing when she came. We had three visits with the previous carers as part of the handover and asked as many questions as we could in the allotted time, but how do you cover a child's life in a couple of hours?
When Happy Camper came to us:
So what do you do?
You don't waste time, at that point, making an issue of it.
You start from where you are. We’ve built Happy Camper’s life again from the ground up, and as she gets older we will increase the information about her family and her past.
But it would be good if all those who work with us, care for us and help us, remember that often we have to dive in, terrain unknown, and sort it out as we go along. That takes guts, and skill, and tenacity, and strength.
Posted by EssentialMum
After losing a terrific dog last year we have adopted a new dog. She's two - while we love puppies there are always some lovely older dogs looking for a home. Our male dog came to us at 14 months, bonded beautifully and has been a loving pal for 8 years now.
Our new pup came via a friend. And when she arrived, we realised:
- We had no detail about where she lived before.
- We had no information about her previous family, other than that she’d been used to children.
- We had no detail about her day-to-day life, her habits, and her routines.
- We didn’t know what food she liked, what treats were special.
- We had no special toy for her.
- We had no understanding of her experiences – what she was used to, what she handled well, what she was unsettled by.
So we’ve developed our understanding of this little dog over the last months. Happy Camper has been delighted to find a real little playmate. Fine for a dog.
You know where we are going with this one ... don't you?
So how 'disappointing' (you can insert your own adjective here depending on your viewpoint) to tell you that the experience was pretty much the same with Happy Camper. Despite all the networks and information amassed on these children and their families and their circumstances, we knew next to nothing when she came. We had three visits with the previous carers as part of the handover and asked as many questions as we could in the allotted time, but how do you cover a child's life in a couple of hours?
When Happy Camper came to us:
- We had the barest detail on her day to day routine.
- We had very few photos of the time she spent with her previous family. We've now raised it with our current (very good) worker to fill some of these gaps.
- We had no toys. Lots of McDonalds giveaways but not one special teddy or doll that was Happy Camper's.
- We had four outfits. Lots of baby clothes from when Happy Camper was 12 months old. Nothing close to an reasonable ‘wardrobe’ for a two year old.
So what do you do?
You don't waste time, at that point, making an issue of it.
You start from where you are. We’ve built Happy Camper’s life again from the ground up, and as she gets older we will increase the information about her family and her past.
But it would be good if all those who work with us, care for us and help us, remember that often we have to dive in, terrain unknown, and sort it out as we go along. That takes guts, and skill, and tenacity, and strength.
Posted by EssentialMum