placement
The influence of birth family
29/03/2010 23:43
Yet another story in the weekend press that examined one premise – whether children convicted of murder can ever live normal lives – and ended up being another tale of tragedy about a child in care.
Kate Legge in The Weekend Australian Magazine (March 27-28 2010, p 17) recounts ‘The story of S’, convicted at 13 of murder, sent to jail but with his anonymity intact. She charts his journey, from care at the age of 6, to rehabilitation efforts in jail, which led to his release and a relationship, parenthood and a steady job. But he was open to the influence of an associate of his family, and embezzled substantially. While on trial he had a relationship with a minor, and is now in jail.
The details are not contained in the article, but S’s background is distressingly familiar. The article states that he was ‘surrendered to a patchwork of residential placements’ and that during a 2 year period ‘he absconded from state care 26 times’. That’s at least every month.
Legge’s last paragraph concludes that despite the rehab efforts, the counselling, the positive prospects he had proven he could create and capitalise on, he ‘couldn’t in the end withstand the primordial tug of a family that had given him up at such a tender age’.
Well, how on earth could he? When no significant family relationship ever took its place when he was a child? When no one taught him how to think, deal or act with his birth family?
If he’d never experienced a positive parental relationship or formed an enduring relationship with one significant adult, then of course his birth parents remain a force to be reckoned with. As Bernie Geary, Victoria’s Child Safety Commission notes, ‘you can’t transplant empathy into a kid who has grown up with a lack of it, as well as poor role models’.
Geary states that is why they need a champion. We would suggest that is why they need a ‘parent’.
Our experience, supported by the advice of experienced workers, is that coming to grips with birth family and their individual circumstances is make or break stuff for most children in care.
Children need an explanation of the circumstances of their being in care, and this must become deeper and more detailed as they mature. Critically, this has to provide a context for them in which to deal with their birth parents. Using S’s case, he was still open to pressure and intimidation from members of his birth family. No one taught him how to deal with those, and perhaps he had no one to turn to for advice?
There is overwhelming evidence that children need a significant positive relationship that is either parental in nature or very close to it. As carers we become substitute parents, and we should never be accused of overstepping that line. By anyone.
We still read anecdotes online of carers feeling like they are under siege from workers and lawyers in the system. Too many carers have to convince a sceptical ‘system’ that they really are able to take on that relationship for the children, not because they have an agenda (desperate to have children, want to adopt, in it for the money).
We couldn’t help but read the article with that sinking feeling. The feeling that the system worked desperately hard to patch up this child. It threw all its skill and best efforts at him, and he showed he could rise to the challenge. The system tried to teach him empathy, and responsibility. But it was too late.
The system let him down when he was 6. He should have learned empathy and responsibility at the knee of someone who cared about him. He is another example of a child who went into foster care drift. His story is made all the more tragic because for a time, it appeared he was going to defy all the statistics.
Kate Legge in The Weekend Australian Magazine (March 27-28 2010, p 17) recounts ‘The story of S’, convicted at 13 of murder, sent to jail but with his anonymity intact. She charts his journey, from care at the age of 6, to rehabilitation efforts in jail, which led to his release and a relationship, parenthood and a steady job. But he was open to the influence of an associate of his family, and embezzled substantially. While on trial he had a relationship with a minor, and is now in jail.
The details are not contained in the article, but S’s background is distressingly familiar. The article states that he was ‘surrendered to a patchwork of residential placements’ and that during a 2 year period ‘he absconded from state care 26 times’. That’s at least every month.
Legge’s last paragraph concludes that despite the rehab efforts, the counselling, the positive prospects he had proven he could create and capitalise on, he ‘couldn’t in the end withstand the primordial tug of a family that had given him up at such a tender age’.
Well, how on earth could he? When no significant family relationship ever took its place when he was a child? When no one taught him how to think, deal or act with his birth family?
If he’d never experienced a positive parental relationship or formed an enduring relationship with one significant adult, then of course his birth parents remain a force to be reckoned with. As Bernie Geary, Victoria’s Child Safety Commission notes, ‘you can’t transplant empathy into a kid who has grown up with a lack of it, as well as poor role models’.
Geary states that is why they need a champion. We would suggest that is why they need a ‘parent’.
Our experience, supported by the advice of experienced workers, is that coming to grips with birth family and their individual circumstances is make or break stuff for most children in care.
Children need an explanation of the circumstances of their being in care, and this must become deeper and more detailed as they mature. Critically, this has to provide a context for them in which to deal with their birth parents. Using S’s case, he was still open to pressure and intimidation from members of his birth family. No one taught him how to deal with those, and perhaps he had no one to turn to for advice?
There is overwhelming evidence that children need a significant positive relationship that is either parental in nature or very close to it. As carers we become substitute parents, and we should never be accused of overstepping that line. By anyone.
We still read anecdotes online of carers feeling like they are under siege from workers and lawyers in the system. Too many carers have to convince a sceptical ‘system’ that they really are able to take on that relationship for the children, not because they have an agenda (desperate to have children, want to adopt, in it for the money).
We couldn’t help but read the article with that sinking feeling. The feeling that the system worked desperately hard to patch up this child. It threw all its skill and best efforts at him, and he showed he could rise to the challenge. The system tried to teach him empathy, and responsibility. But it was too late.
The system let him down when he was 6. He should have learned empathy and responsibility at the knee of someone who cared about him. He is another example of a child who went into foster care drift. His story is made all the more tragic because for a time, it appeared he was going to defy all the statistics.
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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 more than one small, bemused child who landed on our doorstep. The dazed look on their faces was quite hard to face, and we remember our pleasure when we’ve watched it gradually give way to some expression as they become familiar with us.
It’s a good day for your child in care when the only strangers in their life are those outside your family and their birth family, and their circle of friends and acquaintances. Like most kids.
The answer to strangers is permanency. If a child needs permanency then it is up to the system to make that decision and make that decision for them, in a timely fashion. Every day counts.
Then, as carers, you need to hold the line. You will know which relationships mean what to the child. We’ve always tried to make sure workers understand that a child in care is a child who has a birth family they don’t live with, rather than a child in substitute care who needs to conform to some pre-defined relationship with their birth family. We have made sure that any child’s individual interests didn’t get swamped beneath the standard way the system does things. We’ve acted like the 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 more than one small, bemused child who landed on our doorstep. The dazed look on their faces was quite hard to face, and we remember our pleasure when we’ve watched it gradually give way to some expression as they become familiar with us.
It’s a good day for your child in care when the only strangers in their life are those outside your family and their birth family, and their circle of friends and acquaintances. Like most kids.
The answer to strangers is permanency. If a child needs permanency then it is up to the system to make that decision and make that decision for them, in a timely fashion. Every day counts.
Then, as carers, you need to hold the line. You will know which relationships mean what to the child. We’ve always tried to make sure workers understand that a child in care is a child who has a birth family they don’t live with, rather than a child in substitute care who needs to conform to some pre-defined relationship with their birth family. We have made sure that any child’s individual interests didn’t get swamped beneath the standard way the system does things. We’ve acted like the 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.
Can a foster parent ‘over-advocate’ for their foster child?
30/12/2009 23:57
We follow a number of online forums and this came up over at www.fostercarecentral.com. A carer posted that they’d been told they ‘over-advocated’ for their foster child.
Over-advocate? That seems to be legal-speak creeping into the child services area. We are sure we could find some plain english expressions that are much clearer and, quite frankly, a whole lot more honest.
‘An advocate is someone who speaks on behalf of another person, especially in a legal context. … Implicit in the concept is the notion that the represented lacks the knowledge, skill, ability, or standing to speak for themselves.’ (Wikipedia)
So let’s be honest and decipher what that term might mean. As a foster parent, you attend case conferences, and talk with social workers on behalf of your foster child. Depending on their age or their circumstances they might lack the knowledge, skill, ability, maturity or capability to speak on their own behalf.
Can a carer ‘over-speak’, or ‘over-represent’? Are we saying more than we should?
We’d love to hear an honest debate on this one. We’d like to ask the social workers whether they are saying that we aren’t educated or qualified or experienced enough to make a contribution to the discussion about the child’s needs?
Or are they saying that we simply don’t have the right to contribute? Is our role to provide a home and care but leave the decision making to the ‘system’?
Sadly, this sounds like a turf war.
If the social welfare profession is so precious that outspoken foster parents cause grief, then we really need an overhaul. Business deals with outspoken, opinionated customers and shareholders all the time. We judge their contribution according to their talents, but we don’t – and can’t – prevent them from having their say.
We’ve had workers who spent a great deal of energy telling us, with diminishing degrees of politeness, to shut up and get back in our box. We had a role to play, designated by the system, and they were thoroughly annoyed that we didn’t stick to the script.
But interestingly, it’s our willingness to step outside ‘our role’ that sees us maintaining contact with children formerly in our care, long after they have become adults. It’s why we stepped up to help them ‘age out’ of foster care (emotionally, financially and with life skills), when the system, previous carers, and all those passionate social workers had left the scene.
If we applied some innovative thinking to the issue, then maybe the passion with which carers might speak on behalf of a child is a good thing? Business has long recognised that divergent viewpoints and passionate debate, if managed well, drive much better results.
So it gets down to frontline training. In all fairness we believe social workers have a large range of stakeholders to deal with – from authorities, to birth families, to agencies, to carers and beyond. But there are other professions that deal with such a range. The ability to manage people is not taught at university (and if anyone tells you it was, or is, they are lying). It is learned on the job, over many years, and requires both an interest in people and a willingness to be self-aware. Too often the fundamental skill that underpins both of those elements – listening – is absent.
So, listen up. We’ll over-advocate for a child in care as long as we can breathe.
(If you are a carer about to provide care, you might like to print these bullet points out, amend or add to them to reflect what you think you bring to the placements, and give them to your worker.)
And if doing any of that is a challenge, we suggest a great deal more training is needed. We’re happy to assist.
Over-advocate? That seems to be legal-speak creeping into the child services area. We are sure we could find some plain english expressions that are much clearer and, quite frankly, a whole lot more honest.
‘An advocate is someone who speaks on behalf of another person, especially in a legal context. … Implicit in the concept is the notion that the represented lacks the knowledge, skill, ability, or standing to speak for themselves.’ (Wikipedia)
So let’s be honest and decipher what that term might mean. As a foster parent, you attend case conferences, and talk with social workers on behalf of your foster child. Depending on their age or their circumstances they might lack the knowledge, skill, ability, maturity or capability to speak on their own behalf.
Can a carer ‘over-speak’, or ‘over-represent’? Are we saying more than we should?
We’d love to hear an honest debate on this one. We’d like to ask the social workers whether they are saying that we aren’t educated or qualified or experienced enough to make a contribution to the discussion about the child’s needs?
Or are they saying that we simply don’t have the right to contribute? Is our role to provide a home and care but leave the decision making to the ‘system’?
Sadly, this sounds like a turf war.
If the social welfare profession is so precious that outspoken foster parents cause grief, then we really need an overhaul. Business deals with outspoken, opinionated customers and shareholders all the time. We judge their contribution according to their talents, but we don’t – and can’t – prevent them from having their say.
We’ve had workers who spent a great deal of energy telling us, with diminishing degrees of politeness, to shut up and get back in our box. We had a role to play, designated by the system, and they were thoroughly annoyed that we didn’t stick to the script.
But interestingly, it’s our willingness to step outside ‘our role’ that sees us maintaining contact with children formerly in our care, long after they have become adults. It’s why we stepped up to help them ‘age out’ of foster care (emotionally, financially and with life skills), when the system, previous carers, and all those passionate social workers had left the scene.
If we applied some innovative thinking to the issue, then maybe the passion with which carers might speak on behalf of a child is a good thing? Business has long recognised that divergent viewpoints and passionate debate, if managed well, drive much better results.
So it gets down to frontline training. In all fairness we believe social workers have a large range of stakeholders to deal with – from authorities, to birth families, to agencies, to carers and beyond. But there are other professions that deal with such a range. The ability to manage people is not taught at university (and if anyone tells you it was, or is, they are lying). It is learned on the job, over many years, and requires both an interest in people and a willingness to be self-aware. Too often the fundamental skill that underpins both of those elements – listening – is absent.
So, listen up. We’ll over-advocate for a child in care as long as we can breathe.
(If you are a carer about to provide care, you might like to print these bullet points out, amend or add to them to reflect what you think you bring to the placements, and give them to your worker.)
- We will challenge you on decisions, and we will give you our well thought out opinion on what we see the child going through.
- We will raise issues and suggest decisions that need to be made for you to give us feedback on.
- We will tell you politely if we think you are wrong, and we will become less polite if you ignore us.
- We will expect you to be skilled enough to see the love/compassion we have for this child and understand the depth of our care for the child.
- As time goes by we will expect you to be skilled enough to see the love this child has for us, or the reliance they place on us, and take that into account.
- We don’t accept there is any ‘mark’ to overstep so we will have no tolerance for you complaining, overtly or covertly, about us doing that.
- We will expect that you, as the professional you hold yourself out to be, will be able to assess us and judge us and manage us and collaborate with us.
And if doing any of that is a challenge, we suggest a great deal more training is needed. We’re happy to assist.
National Adoption Awareness Week
27/11/2009 00:02
It was National Adoption Awareness Week mid-November. We would have loved to highlight the event on this site, but were living the equation (simplified, with sincere apologies to all the mathematicians out there):
([Child in care + activities] *JOY300) + work100 + running the family150 = no time to write.
It’s not too late to highlight the message nonetheless. For more details go to the Adoption Awareness Week site. The spokesman is Deborah Lee Furness, an adoptive mum of two. She has commented quite bluntly that adoption in Australia is difficult.
This is from the adoptionawarenessweek.com.au site:
‘There is a perception that Australia has been reluctant to advocate adoption as an option for crisis pregnancies, children stuck in foster care drift, or as a way of keeping siblings together.’
‘Foster care drift’. That’s an interesting choice of words, isn’t it? If it describes children who move from placement to placement to placement, or perhaps children who languish in a placement pending a decision, then what is the goal for them? They shouldn’t drift, should they? Why would we accept that for them?
If you read the Queensland Government’s Charter of rights of a child in care, then the first principle will tell you that the Child Protection Act 1999 establishes that children in care have the right ‘to be provided with a safe and stable living environment’ that ‘best meets the child’s needs’. (We know there is a NSW equivalent, but heaven help us, we searched for it on the DoCS site and ran out of patience. We found flyers describing it here.)
The issue is that ‘stable’ is a relative term, not an absolute one. By that we mean that it is decided in reference to the particular child and their particular circumstances. There is no baseline that can be held to apply universally.
And that is the conundrum. When a family breaks down, or a birth parent can’t cope, all the basic standards of care for a child need to be replaced with a new set. The child’s stability is well and truly interrupted, while the system tries to work out whether the family can be supported and therefore function, or whether it has broken down irretrievably.
So when serious family issues occur, can the system cater for the needs of the family AND the needs of the individual child simultaneously? Equally? Or does one lose out?
We are not advocating an adversarial system. But we are yet to meet an individual or a system (however you define it) that is able to balance the competing needs of two parties, completely impartially, free from agendas.
That’s the court system, you say? We’re not convinced. But even accepting that, perhaps the issue is how long it takes to get a decision from that impartial third party? As we’ve written before, children don’t go into limbo while the adults work it all out. Children often FAIL to do something during times of instability – such as grow, learn, relax, enjoy, love.
We know a number of smart, thoughtful individuals who have been children in care, and we participate in many online forums where those who contribute to the system and those who experienced it come together. A universal theme for many children who experienced care is finding stability.
So here’s what ‘stability’ means in day to day terms for a child in care:
‘We understand you need someone to love you, unconditionally, for a long time, so you see and understand what a long time looks and feels like, and what long-term unconditional love looks and feels like. We know you need to see, experience, feel and understand what it is to have someone who wants, and works for, the very best for you’.
([Child in care + activities] *JOY300) + work100 + running the family150 = no time to write.
It’s not too late to highlight the message nonetheless. For more details go to the Adoption Awareness Week site. The spokesman is Deborah Lee Furness, an adoptive mum of two. She has commented quite bluntly that adoption in Australia is difficult.
This is from the adoptionawarenessweek.com.au site:
‘There is a perception that Australia has been reluctant to advocate adoption as an option for crisis pregnancies, children stuck in foster care drift, or as a way of keeping siblings together.’
‘Foster care drift’. That’s an interesting choice of words, isn’t it? If it describes children who move from placement to placement to placement, or perhaps children who languish in a placement pending a decision, then what is the goal for them? They shouldn’t drift, should they? Why would we accept that for them?
If you read the Queensland Government’s Charter of rights of a child in care, then the first principle will tell you that the Child Protection Act 1999 establishes that children in care have the right ‘to be provided with a safe and stable living environment’ that ‘best meets the child’s needs’. (We know there is a NSW equivalent, but heaven help us, we searched for it on the DoCS site and ran out of patience. We found flyers describing it here.)
The issue is that ‘stable’ is a relative term, not an absolute one. By that we mean that it is decided in reference to the particular child and their particular circumstances. There is no baseline that can be held to apply universally.
And that is the conundrum. When a family breaks down, or a birth parent can’t cope, all the basic standards of care for a child need to be replaced with a new set. The child’s stability is well and truly interrupted, while the system tries to work out whether the family can be supported and therefore function, or whether it has broken down irretrievably.
So when serious family issues occur, can the system cater for the needs of the family AND the needs of the individual child simultaneously? Equally? Or does one lose out?
We are not advocating an adversarial system. But we are yet to meet an individual or a system (however you define it) that is able to balance the competing needs of two parties, completely impartially, free from agendas.
That’s the court system, you say? We’re not convinced. But even accepting that, perhaps the issue is how long it takes to get a decision from that impartial third party? As we’ve written before, children don’t go into limbo while the adults work it all out. Children often FAIL to do something during times of instability – such as grow, learn, relax, enjoy, love.
We know a number of smart, thoughtful individuals who have been children in care, and we participate in many online forums where those who contribute to the system and those who experienced it come together. A universal theme for many children who experienced care is finding stability.
So here’s what ‘stability’ means in day to day terms for a child in care:
- ‘The system’ makes the decision and gives the child certainty about their home.
- The child is able to concentrate on living, and learning, and loving, rather than managing changing living circumstances.
- If you see birth family members, there is no mystery for the child about their whole family.
- The child can deal with all the continuing uncertainty of birth family from the safety net of a loving family.
- The new foster family actively works with the child to help them understand and accept why the child lives with the family. That’s not an impossible task by the way. It never should be.
- The child is not drifting. They are moving forward. And that is the loveliest sight in the world.
‘We understand you need someone to love you, unconditionally, for a long time, so you see and understand what a long time looks and feels like, and what long-term unconditional love looks and feels like. We know you need to see, experience, feel and understand what it is to have someone who wants, and works for, the very best for you’.
How foster children respond to stress
10/10/2009 00:00
By the time I ended up at my first Foster Care home, so much had been taken from me. I no longer had a sense of self, family, belonging, comfort, familiarity, unconditional love, trust, confidence (let’s face it, this comes from stability), and hope! If I use my adult voice I can explain that I was angry, hurt, devastated, abandoned, emotionally disconnected, physically beaten, verbally abused, ridiculed by society and my peers, and completely petrified! I am almost 4 years old.
These words are from Jenny, at www.fostercareinamerica.com. She and her brother Mat write about their memories of childhood. If ever you have stared at your foster child and wondered what is going on, you will find insight here. It’s a unique perspective and we applaud Jenny for having the courage and the energy to show it.
We find those two paragraphs quite hard to read. They represent the stripping away, for a child, of all that they have known. And at 4 years of age, a child has little left.
What is compelling about Jenny’s post is how she talks about the rage that came, unbidden and usually unexpectedly.
These episodes came without warning, calm one minute, and then the rage would surface.
Are you surprised? That a child of four might respond this way?
Mat on the other hand, describes withdrawing, shutting down.
We’ve been highlighting an article from the American Academy of Pediatrics – Developmental Issues for Young children in Foster Care. It has a section on the response in children to psychological stress.
Physical and mental abuse during the first few years of life tends to fix the brain in an acute stress mode that makes the child respond in a hyper-vigilant, fearful manner.
When a child is under acute stress, the typical ‘fight’ response to stress may change from crying – because that was unsuccessful – to temper tantrums, aggressive behaviour, or inattention and withdrawal.
The child, rather than physically running away - the ‘flight’ response, may psychologically disengage. It’s called the freeze response – a child may react to alarm or stress by ceasing any activity. Adults unfamiliar with the child may think they are uncooperative.
We’ve found the article very enlightening, and quite scary. Because it is telling us that these experiences can have a profound impact on a child.
So that’s why we love fostercareinamerica.com. Because Jen shows us how kids can come through. She celebrates the overcoming of adversity for the most vulnerable in society. She shows us it is possible. As carers, faced with a small bundle or anger/anxiety/silence, that’s good to remember.
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. Here’s a sample of what can happen:
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. Here’s a sample of what can happen:
- Members of the foster family are told not to attend. This might be despite the fact that the child is now drawing great comfort and stability from the newly forming foster relationships, and needs them even more when confronted by birth family.
- Any and all members of birth family are entitled to turn up, no notice required. So when a child is dealing with who their birth family members are and the part they play in their life, another one can appear. And just as quickly disappear.
- Social workers take an active role in access and facilitate (or force - depends on your viewpoint) intervention between the child and members of their birth family. These can be quite full on commands to a child, and very difficult for you to manage.
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.
65 Australian children per 1000 are living in out of home care
20/09/2009 21:28
We don’t often see statistics in Australia about children in care. This came across our RSS feed the other week from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
As at 30 June 2008 in Australia, there were 31,116 children living in out of home care (OOHC). That’s 6.5% per 1,000, or 65 children per 1000.
One third were aged 10-14 years, one third aged 5-9 years, 25% were aged under 5 years, and 14% were aged 15-17 years.
This rate and number has more than doubled since 1997 (from 11,600 to the current number). The increase is a result of more children commencing OOHC than are being discharged from it each year. The increased duration of OOHC placements also reflects the increasing complexity in family situations.
Common family situations are low family income, parental substance abuse, mental health issues and family violence.
The majority of children - 95% - aged 0-14 were in home based care. That is split into foster care (48%) and kinship care (45%). A smaller proportion were in residential care (5%), and they were generally older children over the age of 10 years.
During 2007-08, there were 317,526 reports of suspected child-abuse and neglect made to authorities. These figures appear to indicate that the reporting of abuse has increased. Of that number, 194,937 concerned the same children. There were a total of 148,824 finalised investigations recorded in Australia (an increase of 8% on the 2005-06 year).
Pretty sobering figures, don’t you think?
As at 30 June 2008 in Australia, there were 31,116 children living in out of home care (OOHC). That’s 6.5% per 1,000, or 65 children per 1000.
One third were aged 10-14 years, one third aged 5-9 years, 25% were aged under 5 years, and 14% were aged 15-17 years.
This rate and number has more than doubled since 1997 (from 11,600 to the current number). The increase is a result of more children commencing OOHC than are being discharged from it each year. The increased duration of OOHC placements also reflects the increasing complexity in family situations.
Common family situations are low family income, parental substance abuse, mental health issues and family violence.
The majority of children - 95% - aged 0-14 were in home based care. That is split into foster care (48%) and kinship care (45%). A smaller proportion were in residential care (5%), and they were generally older children over the age of 10 years.
During 2007-08, there were 317,526 reports of suspected child-abuse and neglect made to authorities. These figures appear to indicate that the reporting of abuse has increased. Of that number, 194,937 concerned the same children. There were a total of 148,824 finalised investigations recorded in Australia (an increase of 8% on the 2005-06 year).
Pretty sobering figures, don’t you think?
It takes courage to be a foster carer
25/08/2009 23:43
Every so often in life it is worth getting back to basics, isn’t it? We talk about many things on this blog to try and cover as much useful information as we can. But we’ve recently been talking to some new carers, and we know other carers who are about to take a placement, so we thought it might be timely to go back to the beginning for a moment.
Dear New Foster Carers,
Congratulations on your courage. Has anyone said that to you lately? You’ve stepped out to help someone else, in the most personal way possible. You are putting yourself and your family on the front line, giving not just money, or even just time, but yourselves and your relationships and your home.
We hope that your training, and/or your life experience, will have prepared you for what you are experiencing. But don’t be surprised if, as a first time carer, you are stressed, because that’s the most natural reaction in the world.
No matter how well prepared or supported you might be, the first weeks of a placement can be difficult. Foster care can often be described as degrees of difficulty to be honest. But the first weeks, before you start to understand the child, can be positively exhausting.
It takes time. Yes, we know that is the platitude to end all platitudes, but it is true. Don’t judge anything by those first weeks.
Why? Because the child you have just welcomed into your home, with hope and love, may well be dazed, and confused, and untrusting. (We could add many more adjectives here like angry, or scared, or blasé, but it might go on a bit….). He doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him. And depending on his life experience, many of the things that you might take for granted in a child of his age may be missing completely. He may never have learned a lot of the basics. Like how to go shopping with you, how to stay by your side, how to happily come home from the park, how to share with other children. He may never have learned to eat properly. He may not even know how to cuddle. He may not enjoy bedtime or know how to settle himself. He may not have had anyone to teach it to him, you see.
(You can write that paragraph again with age appropriate characteristics, right up until teenage years, by the way. The last sentence will often remain the same.)
So it’s really important for you to remember that now is not the time to be reticent, or noble (‘I can cope. Really I can. Yes, I can.’) You deserve support and answers and advice, so ask for them. Every child in care is unique, and has very different experiences that will have impacted him in different ways. Don’t be afraid of stepping on toes or worry that you will be seen as demanding. The workers are there to support you and this placement.
And we hope that at some stage soon, there will come one experience with this child that will warm your heart, make you feel that it’s all worthwhile. That’s often all it takes to keep you going.
You’ve started a journey. It took courage to start it, and it will take courage to continue it. Keep going. A child will benefit from your courage.
Dear New Foster Carers,
Congratulations on your courage. Has anyone said that to you lately? You’ve stepped out to help someone else, in the most personal way possible. You are putting yourself and your family on the front line, giving not just money, or even just time, but yourselves and your relationships and your home.
We hope that your training, and/or your life experience, will have prepared you for what you are experiencing. But don’t be surprised if, as a first time carer, you are stressed, because that’s the most natural reaction in the world.
No matter how well prepared or supported you might be, the first weeks of a placement can be difficult. Foster care can often be described as degrees of difficulty to be honest. But the first weeks, before you start to understand the child, can be positively exhausting.
It takes time. Yes, we know that is the platitude to end all platitudes, but it is true. Don’t judge anything by those first weeks.
Why? Because the child you have just welcomed into your home, with hope and love, may well be dazed, and confused, and untrusting. (We could add many more adjectives here like angry, or scared, or blasé, but it might go on a bit….). He doesn’t know you, and you don’t know him. And depending on his life experience, many of the things that you might take for granted in a child of his age may be missing completely. He may never have learned a lot of the basics. Like how to go shopping with you, how to stay by your side, how to happily come home from the park, how to share with other children. He may never have learned to eat properly. He may not even know how to cuddle. He may not enjoy bedtime or know how to settle himself. He may not have had anyone to teach it to him, you see.
(You can write that paragraph again with age appropriate characteristics, right up until teenage years, by the way. The last sentence will often remain the same.)
So it’s really important for you to remember that now is not the time to be reticent, or noble (‘I can cope. Really I can. Yes, I can.’) You deserve support and answers and advice, so ask for them. Every child in care is unique, and has very different experiences that will have impacted him in different ways. Don’t be afraid of stepping on toes or worry that you will be seen as demanding. The workers are there to support you and this placement.
And we hope that at some stage soon, there will come one experience with this child that will warm your heart, make you feel that it’s all worthwhile. That’s often all it takes to keep you going.
You’ve started a journey. It took courage to start it, and it will take courage to continue it. Keep going. A child will benefit from your courage.
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.
So, time for the ‘state the obvious’ question:
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.
So, time for the ‘state the obvious’ question:
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!’
Children in care need a pushy parent
13/05/2009 06:41
‘England's care system needs a radical overhaul with the state acting as a "pushy parent" to get the very best for the children in its charge, MPs say.’
We understand the sentiment behind this call in the UK, reported on the BBC in April. Someone needs to – let’s say it like it is – fight for these children, or never give up, just like a parent who loves them dearly.
So in theory, OK. At a system level, the state should put in place the best care for these children, and use its considerable muscle to make sure that level of care is provided.
But the state – a collective, anonymous, corporate entity – cannot replicate a parent’s care. Individual workers of real empathy and talent may bond with and counsel children in care. But let’s hope the MPs haven’t gotten carried away.
‘A report by the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee says the state fails as a "parent" because it does not demand enough from services.’
Good luck to them. We hope the ‘services’ are up to it. As foster parents, we demanded more from our agency. Like a seat at the table in decisions about the child, and an evaluation of whether their ‘one size fitted all’ policy really applied to our child in care. They didn’t like that. Junior manager, senior manager, and agency head honcho. They lined up one after the other like dominoes, to tell us that we were ‘just the carers’ and their policy won.
‘We welcome the government's assertion that it should become exceptional for a young person to leave care before they turn 18, and hope that it will precipitate a culture change in local authorities.’
Well, yeah. Don’t you love how the most obvious principles are restated as if they are the Eleventh Commandment? But think about what the system teaches many of these children, by bouncing them from home to home to home through their childhood. By moving these children so many times, we are actively teaching them that attachment is transient, that they will survive moving homes, and that they really shouldn’t learn to care about a family. And we’re surprised when they leave?
‘(entering the care system) must be seen as a positive experience, but this will only happen if the state can better replicate the warm, secure care of good parents for every child in the system.’
We have cared for children and become the longest term and most enduring relationships in their lives. The younger the child the more chance you have that love, warmth and security overwhelms any conscious memories of earlier unsettled times. And yet too often there seems to be no sense of urgency in finding this for children.
‘For some children care should be seen as "the best available option rather than a last resort", they said.’
Care will be the best available option for children when it is permanent. Stable. And enduring. So maybe we need to have the courage to make a decision for the child’s sake early on. Does the birth parent have a perpetual right to try and get their child back, no matter what? Too often care becomes the last resort when a rehabilitation plan fails. Or too much of the plan with birth parent is visible to the child, before there are any indications it will be successful. And the person who suffers long term damage is the child.
‘…concern for the happiness and welfare of the 60,000 children in care should be at the heart of the system.’
Everyone says this. ‘It’s all for the children’ you hear. Sometimes it can be so piously quoted to justify a viewpoint you feel like shouting. But try to break this principle down to reasonable, sensible decisions that put the child first, and too often policy, process and research get in the way.
We understand the sentiment behind this call in the UK, reported on the BBC in April. Someone needs to – let’s say it like it is – fight for these children, or never give up, just like a parent who loves them dearly.
So in theory, OK. At a system level, the state should put in place the best care for these children, and use its considerable muscle to make sure that level of care is provided.
But the state – a collective, anonymous, corporate entity – cannot replicate a parent’s care. Individual workers of real empathy and talent may bond with and counsel children in care. But let’s hope the MPs haven’t gotten carried away.
‘A report by the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee says the state fails as a "parent" because it does not demand enough from services.’
Good luck to them. We hope the ‘services’ are up to it. As foster parents, we demanded more from our agency. Like a seat at the table in decisions about the child, and an evaluation of whether their ‘one size fitted all’ policy really applied to our child in care. They didn’t like that. Junior manager, senior manager, and agency head honcho. They lined up one after the other like dominoes, to tell us that we were ‘just the carers’ and their policy won.
‘We welcome the government's assertion that it should become exceptional for a young person to leave care before they turn 18, and hope that it will precipitate a culture change in local authorities.’
Well, yeah. Don’t you love how the most obvious principles are restated as if they are the Eleventh Commandment? But think about what the system teaches many of these children, by bouncing them from home to home to home through their childhood. By moving these children so many times, we are actively teaching them that attachment is transient, that they will survive moving homes, and that they really shouldn’t learn to care about a family. And we’re surprised when they leave?
‘(entering the care system) must be seen as a positive experience, but this will only happen if the state can better replicate the warm, secure care of good parents for every child in the system.’
We have cared for children and become the longest term and most enduring relationships in their lives. The younger the child the more chance you have that love, warmth and security overwhelms any conscious memories of earlier unsettled times. And yet too often there seems to be no sense of urgency in finding this for children.
‘For some children care should be seen as "the best available option rather than a last resort", they said.’
Care will be the best available option for children when it is permanent. Stable. And enduring. So maybe we need to have the courage to make a decision for the child’s sake early on. Does the birth parent have a perpetual right to try and get their child back, no matter what? Too often care becomes the last resort when a rehabilitation plan fails. Or too much of the plan with birth parent is visible to the child, before there are any indications it will be successful. And the person who suffers long term damage is the child.
‘…concern for the happiness and welfare of the 60,000 children in care should be at the heart of the system.’
Everyone says this. ‘It’s all for the children’ you hear. Sometimes it can be so piously quoted to justify a viewpoint you feel like shouting. But try to break this principle down to reasonable, sensible decisions that put the child first, and too often policy, process and research get in the way.
How do you become a foster carer?
06/05/2009 22:38
Our blog is about helping you understand all the things that the manuals and the agencies and the blurbs don’t tell you. So we won’t reproduce all the decent information already available from government and non-government agencies – but we will link to it.
If you are thinking about becoming a foster carer, here are our reminders as you go through the process.
Think about your circumstances…
A foster child will probably come to you with issues, depending on their age. You need to be able to give them time and attention. You may need to make up huge deficits in every aspect of their health, education, socialisation, emotional growth. Can you do it? Is your family committed with you in doing this? Do you have the time? Do you have the emotional and intellectual energy?
Why do you want to do it?
There are no right reasons, but we’ve written before about making sure that you know what you want or need out of it. It can be tough, and let’s be blunt, if you are doing it to meet some need of yours, then you may be disappointed. We fostered because we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to break the self-perpetuating cycle of dysfunction that exists in some families. We know carers who came to fostering when they were unable to have their own biological children. We know other carers who have been very successful at everything they have done in family and career and want to give something back. The assessment process will quiz you on your motivation, so spend some time thinking it through. The more honest you are with yourself about it the better.
Who will help you?
Make sure you have a good support network available. This is no time to be gung-ho. You will need support ranging from a sympathetic ear, to constructive advice, to actual physical assistance. If you are already a parent then you may have this in place. But remember that these children have additional needs. To give them what they need and want means a very intense relationship. You need people looking out for you.
Research
Our blog is Australian, so the resources we will point you to are Australian. But there are equivalent organisations around the world.
There is plenty of information available online from both the Department of Community Services (NSW and other Australian states), and Non-Government Foster care agencies.
To get you started, visit the DOCS website.
General information on fostering
Types of care
What to expect
Non-government agencies provide foster care services and recruit carers. You will be able to click through to their websites for more information.
Note that the links are sometimes to ‘Out-of-home care’, which is another name for foster care.
There are differences in approach, support, structure and process between DOCS and the private agencies. We’ve experienced both over many years, and have made some suggestions on our site before. You need to make sure you know what to expect from the agency. They can over-service you, under-support you, have policies that say one thing on paper and mean something else in practice, and may have vastly differing levels of skills and experience in their workers. You may not be able to avoid the issues but it helps if you know what you are getting into. Just as child and you should be a good match, so too should you and the agency.
If you are thinking about becoming a foster carer, here are our reminders as you go through the process.
Think about your circumstances…
A foster child will probably come to you with issues, depending on their age. You need to be able to give them time and attention. You may need to make up huge deficits in every aspect of their health, education, socialisation, emotional growth. Can you do it? Is your family committed with you in doing this? Do you have the time? Do you have the emotional and intellectual energy?
Why do you want to do it?
There are no right reasons, but we’ve written before about making sure that you know what you want or need out of it. It can be tough, and let’s be blunt, if you are doing it to meet some need of yours, then you may be disappointed. We fostered because we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to break the self-perpetuating cycle of dysfunction that exists in some families. We know carers who came to fostering when they were unable to have their own biological children. We know other carers who have been very successful at everything they have done in family and career and want to give something back. The assessment process will quiz you on your motivation, so spend some time thinking it through. The more honest you are with yourself about it the better.
Who will help you?
Make sure you have a good support network available. This is no time to be gung-ho. You will need support ranging from a sympathetic ear, to constructive advice, to actual physical assistance. If you are already a parent then you may have this in place. But remember that these children have additional needs. To give them what they need and want means a very intense relationship. You need people looking out for you.
Research
Our blog is Australian, so the resources we will point you to are Australian. But there are equivalent organisations around the world.
There is plenty of information available online from both the Department of Community Services (NSW and other Australian states), and Non-Government Foster care agencies.
To get you started, visit the DOCS website.
General information on fostering
Types of care
What to expect
Non-government agencies provide foster care services and recruit carers. You will be able to click through to their websites for more information.
Note that the links are sometimes to ‘Out-of-home care’, which is another name for foster care.
There are differences in approach, support, structure and process between DOCS and the private agencies. We’ve experienced both over many years, and have made some suggestions on our site before. You need to make sure you know what to expect from the agency. They can over-service you, under-support you, have policies that say one thing on paper and mean something else in practice, and may have vastly differing levels of skills and experience in their workers. You may not be able to avoid the issues but it helps if you know what you are getting into. Just as child and you should be a good match, so too should you and the agency.
'Shared parenting' in foster care?
31/03/2009 23:39
The whole ‘shared parenting - isn’t it a good idea’ debate goes on. Caroline Overington reports on a custody ruling where once again, the kids seem to come off worst.
We’re not going to wade into the circumstances of a family breakdown where parents battle over shared care. But there are parallels in relation to children who have been removed from their birth parent/s and still have contact.
Now, let’s restate our position. We’re in favour of contact with birth family. That’s what we signed up for as carers, and we think it’s a good approach. That doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the hardest things to deal with, and challenging for your loved foster babe, but in the long term we think it’s best. The child knows where they came from, knows the reality of their birth family.
But what saddened us about the story, and about a number of the comments on the story from readers, was how it was all about the parents and their rights. What seemed to sit behind this story, and in fact behind the shared parenting principle, Is the assumption that - despite enormous changes in the child’s circumstances - their relationship with a parent shouldn’t, and doesn’t, change at all.
Don’t the relationships change the minute the family circumstances change?
You may face this in your contact with a birth parent.
You may find you have a birth parent who still wants to ‘parent’. Or who feels strongly about their status as parent. They might actively tell your foster child that they still play a role. For an older child or a child likely to be reunited with their birth parent, that’s great. If you have a child who is with you until they are 18 or more, it can be very confronting. For a little one who may not know this birth parent very well, it can be terrifying.
You do need to step in.
You need to be clear about the type of relationship that is appropriate for your foster child. Just as contact with a birth parent is about your child accepting reality, a birth parent needs to accept reality as well. Their relationship changed when the child moved from their care. They need to adjust to that. It might be very hard for them to put the child first. But you must.
A child who has maintained contact with a birth parent can deepen that relationship as they get older. But it should happen when the child is ready to cope with it and wants it, not because all the adults in the relationship are so intent on maintaining ‘their rights’ that the children come last.
We’re not going to wade into the circumstances of a family breakdown where parents battle over shared care. But there are parallels in relation to children who have been removed from their birth parent/s and still have contact.
Now, let’s restate our position. We’re in favour of contact with birth family. That’s what we signed up for as carers, and we think it’s a good approach. That doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the hardest things to deal with, and challenging for your loved foster babe, but in the long term we think it’s best. The child knows where they came from, knows the reality of their birth family.
But what saddened us about the story, and about a number of the comments on the story from readers, was how it was all about the parents and their rights. What seemed to sit behind this story, and in fact behind the shared parenting principle, Is the assumption that - despite enormous changes in the child’s circumstances - their relationship with a parent shouldn’t, and doesn’t, change at all.
Don’t the relationships change the minute the family circumstances change?
You may face this in your contact with a birth parent.
You may find you have a birth parent who still wants to ‘parent’. Or who feels strongly about their status as parent. They might actively tell your foster child that they still play a role. For an older child or a child likely to be reunited with their birth parent, that’s great. If you have a child who is with you until they are 18 or more, it can be very confronting. For a little one who may not know this birth parent very well, it can be terrifying.
You do need to step in.
You need to be clear about the type of relationship that is appropriate for your foster child. Just as contact with a birth parent is about your child accepting reality, a birth parent needs to accept reality as well. Their relationship changed when the child moved from their care. They need to adjust to that. It might be very hard for them to put the child first. But you must.
A child who has maintained contact with a birth parent can deepen that relationship as they get older. But it should happen when the child is ready to cope with it and wants it, not because all the adults in the relationship are so intent on maintaining ‘their rights’ that the children come last.
US laws ban single foster carers
22/03/2009 21:55
We’ve had debates about obese people fostering, and now a number of US states have passed laws that will, among other things, prevent single carers from fostering.
It seems inconceivable that policy-makers would try to limit who can apply, when the most important thing should be finding these children someone to love them.
What’s behind it? The conservative movement considers that the appropriate family is a mum, a dad and the kids.
Well, that’s great. In a perfect world. But most children entering care left a perfect world far behind them, if in fact they ever knew it. Many of them have never experienced the glorious ‘nuclear family’. They wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it. So why should it be the only type of care available?
Maybe, just maybe, the best care for many of these children might be finding one person who loves them. Just one. Who really loves them. And cares about them. Perhaps that’s all it takes?
The authorities have an obligation to seek out the best for these children once they enter care. But that doesn’t mean the nuclear family is essential in all instances. And it doesn’t mean the nuclear family is possible in all circumstances.
Should these children be denied a home where one parent who loves and nurtures them might be more than they have ever had before?
We know many single carers, both foster parents and birth parents. Without exception they are very aware of what they need to supplement, for themselves and for the children, to provide a well-balanced life.
So for a solo mother, that might mean a loved uncle or grandad who provides a strong male role model for the child. And vice versa for a solo father. For children of a solo parent, that might mean close contact with married couples. And so on.
Foster children often deal with a birth family, so their concept of the perfect ‘nuclear family’ is already well extended. We suspect they are not nearly as hung up on the structure of the care they go into as the moral majority. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and often the children accept this more readily than adults.
So we are pleased to see that agencies in Australia consider that sole carers, with the right support, can make excellent foster parents.
For many of these children, a stable home with one loving parent is a vast improvement on what they have experienced.
And provided the child’s education and life experience shows them all the options that make up ‘a family’, their home circumstances should be a positive thing, not a negative.
The US must be well served with carers if they can afford to be so exclusive.
It seems inconceivable that policy-makers would try to limit who can apply, when the most important thing should be finding these children someone to love them.
What’s behind it? The conservative movement considers that the appropriate family is a mum, a dad and the kids.
Well, that’s great. In a perfect world. But most children entering care left a perfect world far behind them, if in fact they ever knew it. Many of them have never experienced the glorious ‘nuclear family’. They wouldn’t know it if they tripped over it. So why should it be the only type of care available?
Maybe, just maybe, the best care for many of these children might be finding one person who loves them. Just one. Who really loves them. And cares about them. Perhaps that’s all it takes?
The authorities have an obligation to seek out the best for these children once they enter care. But that doesn’t mean the nuclear family is essential in all instances. And it doesn’t mean the nuclear family is possible in all circumstances.
Should these children be denied a home where one parent who loves and nurtures them might be more than they have ever had before?
We know many single carers, both foster parents and birth parents. Without exception they are very aware of what they need to supplement, for themselves and for the children, to provide a well-balanced life.
So for a solo mother, that might mean a loved uncle or grandad who provides a strong male role model for the child. And vice versa for a solo father. For children of a solo parent, that might mean close contact with married couples. And so on.
Foster children often deal with a birth family, so their concept of the perfect ‘nuclear family’ is already well extended. We suspect they are not nearly as hung up on the structure of the care they go into as the moral majority. Families come in all shapes and sizes, and often the children accept this more readily than adults.
So we are pleased to see that agencies in Australia consider that sole carers, with the right support, can make excellent foster parents.
For many of these children, a stable home with one loving parent is a vast improvement on what they have experienced.
And provided the child’s education and life experience shows them all the options that make up ‘a family’, their home circumstances should be a positive thing, not a negative.
The US must be well served with carers if they can afford to be so exclusive.
Real life foster care - up close and personal
24/02/2009 20:29
Want to know about foster care?
It’s not often that fostering and children in care, with all the privacy constraints that appropriately go with it, can be so open. If you are thinking of fostering, or are a carer, this Australian Story provides a very detailed and personal view of children in care from the perspective of all parties.
If you missed it on Monday 23rd February on the ABC (NSW):
It will be broadcast again on Saturday 28th February at 12.30pm.
You can read the transcript on the Australian Story site.
Or if you have the bandwidth (both technical and personal!) you can watch it online.
Stay tuned - we will post our thoughts over the next week.
It’s not often that fostering and children in care, with all the privacy constraints that appropriately go with it, can be so open. If you are thinking of fostering, or are a carer, this Australian Story provides a very detailed and personal view of children in care from the perspective of all parties.
If you missed it on Monday 23rd February on the ABC (NSW):
It will be broadcast again on Saturday 28th February at 12.30pm.
You can read the transcript on the Australian Story site.
Or if you have the bandwidth (both technical and personal!) you can watch it online.
Stay tuned - we will post our thoughts over the next week.
Develop and maintain your relationship with birth family
12/02/2009 22:10
We attended a conference once where all the participants were foster parents.
Very few of the parents referred to members of their children’s birth families by name. Instead the terms ‘birth mum’ and ‘birth parent’ were well used. It was so marked that the worker commented on it. Then the worker said something worth remembering. She talked about the importance of maintaining the relationship between foster family and birth family. That is, the adults in the relationship.
She said that foster and birth parents should connect in some way.
You both share an interest in this child after all. But this can be more easily said than done, depending on the birth family and the social workers.
Birth family will almost always have baggage, most of it acquired long before the foster parents came on the scene. While understanding what’s going on can be like working in the dark without your infrared goggles, the birth parent is not your responsibility.
Another complicating factor can be workers who have an agenda about how they think the foster carer/birth family relationship should run. They might discuss this with you, but they might not. You might only see it when the workers try to take control of the relationship between birth family and child. This may range from an active role for the worker at an access visit, to very explicit instructions to your foster child regarding how they interact with their birth family. You, the carer, might even be told not to come to access.
So here are the reasons we think that worker had it right. Apart from the excellent lesson of seeing adults act like adults:
After all, these people are linked by blood to the person you have grown to love. Whatever your view of birth family, the child in your care deserves that you treat that relationship with respect.
Posted by EssentialMum
Very few of the parents referred to members of their children’s birth families by name. Instead the terms ‘birth mum’ and ‘birth parent’ were well used. It was so marked that the worker commented on it. Then the worker said something worth remembering. She talked about the importance of maintaining the relationship between foster family and birth family. That is, the adults in the relationship.
She said that foster and birth parents should connect in some way.
You both share an interest in this child after all. But this can be more easily said than done, depending on the birth family and the social workers.
Birth family will almost always have baggage, most of it acquired long before the foster parents came on the scene. While understanding what’s going on can be like working in the dark without your infrared goggles, the birth parent is not your responsibility.
Another complicating factor can be workers who have an agenda about how they think the foster carer/birth family relationship should run. They might discuss this with you, but they might not. You might only see it when the workers try to take control of the relationship between birth family and child. This may range from an active role for the worker at an access visit, to very explicit instructions to your foster child regarding how they interact with their birth family. You, the carer, might even be told not to come to access.
So here are the reasons we think that worker had it right. Apart from the excellent lesson of seeing adults act like adults:
- The child sees it is not a competition between adults for his or her affection.
- The birth family does not see it as a competition for the child’s affection.
- The child does not feel torn between the two families.
- You develop a good line of communication with birth family.
- You can talk to birth family about any issues that are impacting the child.
- Birth family will listen to you talk about issues that impact the child.
- The child sees that you are willing to really talk with the birth family.
- If the adolescent child doesn’t want any contact with birth family you are able to maintain it, until such time as they are ready to resume it.
After all, these people are linked by blood to the person you have grown to love. Whatever your view of birth family, the child in your care deserves that you treat that relationship with respect.
Posted by EssentialMum
Call for obese kids to be taken into care
04/02/2009 21:35
Sorry for the slight delay in posting. We’ve had lots of changes in the last couple of weeks, not the least of which has been the start of the school year and settling into a new routine.
While we’re on the subject of weight, we can tell you that on the face of it this article made us choke over our low fat breakfast cereal.
The first paragraph reads ‘SEVERELY obese children should be notified to child protection authorities, and even taken into care, if their parents are unwilling or unable to help them lose weight, experts have argued.’
We get REALLY annoyed at the apparent ease with which some ‘experts’ in child services use the term ‘taken into care’ in relation to children. Really. Annoyed.
Many children don’t get the best care from their parents. They don’t get the right diet, or the right attention, or the right education. Where do you draw the line?
We’re not social workers, and we have some sympathy for them in working out where the line should be. But poor parenting is different to negligent or dangerous parenting. The risk with articles like this is that we all end up talking about taking children off their birth families as if it’s a nice little holiday the child might go on.
Well it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be shanghaied by anyone just to reinforce the seriousness of an issue.
The Camper is currently watching a new dog find its way around our house, yard and life. She’s been involved in the whole process of finding and bringing home the new pup. She is very interested because she knows that at a young age she went through the same dislocation. So it has given us a good opportunity to discuss how a dog, and by extension, a child, might feel, and act, and deal.
We want to send a note to all the ‘experts’ to use the words ‘taken into care’ carefully.
We don’t take those words lightly, because we are at the working end of that decision. We have a child in care, and we know the effort we have had to put in to making her feel secure, the deep seated trauma she suffered in being removed from her birth family, and the complexity of her ongoing relationship with her birth family. We have no doubt the decision was the right one for her but we are glad it wasn’t taken lightly.
Taking a child into care is, and should remain, the ultimate act to secure their future.
To suggest that careless, ill-educated or simply lazy parents should be threatened with it is completely wrong. And it encourages the general public, reading a headline, to discount the real impact of such a decision.
Posted by EssentialMum
While we’re on the subject of weight, we can tell you that on the face of it this article made us choke over our low fat breakfast cereal.
The first paragraph reads ‘SEVERELY obese children should be notified to child protection authorities, and even taken into care, if their parents are unwilling or unable to help them lose weight, experts have argued.’
We get REALLY annoyed at the apparent ease with which some ‘experts’ in child services use the term ‘taken into care’ in relation to children. Really. Annoyed.
Many children don’t get the best care from their parents. They don’t get the right diet, or the right attention, or the right education. Where do you draw the line?
We’re not social workers, and we have some sympathy for them in working out where the line should be. But poor parenting is different to negligent or dangerous parenting. The risk with articles like this is that we all end up talking about taking children off their birth families as if it’s a nice little holiday the child might go on.
Well it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be shanghaied by anyone just to reinforce the seriousness of an issue.
The Camper is currently watching a new dog find its way around our house, yard and life. She’s been involved in the whole process of finding and bringing home the new pup. She is very interested because she knows that at a young age she went through the same dislocation. So it has given us a good opportunity to discuss how a dog, and by extension, a child, might feel, and act, and deal.
We want to send a note to all the ‘experts’ to use the words ‘taken into care’ carefully.
We don’t take those words lightly, because we are at the working end of that decision. We have a child in care, and we know the effort we have had to put in to making her feel secure, the deep seated trauma she suffered in being removed from her birth family, and the complexity of her ongoing relationship with her birth family. We have no doubt the decision was the right one for her but we are glad it wasn’t taken lightly.
Taking a child into care is, and should remain, the ultimate act to secure their future.
To suggest that careless, ill-educated or simply lazy parents should be threatened with it is completely wrong. And it encourages the general public, reading a headline, to discount the real impact of such a decision.
Posted by EssentialMum
Too fat to adopt?
22/01/2009 21:58
This UK couple has been told they cannot adopt because the husband is classed as ‘morbidly obese’. This is tricky territory, so we will tread carefully.
The husband acknowledges he is ‘too fat’. The local authority states ‘The council's adoption service has a legal responsibility to ensure that children are placed with adopters who are able to provide the best possible lifelong care’.
We get to play both sides of the debate on this blog. So here they are.
There are many parents who are obese, who smoke, who drink, who do recreational drugs. In most of those instances they are not denied the right to parent their birth children.
So on the face of it, are we applying a double standard to prospective adoptive or foster parents who may not be ‘perfect’?
On the other hand, there are a number of parents out there whose alcohol or drug habits have spiralled out of control, or who have mental health and other issues. They have had their children removed from their care for the children’s safety. Those children have already suffered loss in their lives.
In adoption with a new family, the children deserve to know that the family they are placed with has the capacity to look after them for the long term.
We have seen the effect of multiple moves on children. Some never recover. The Camper has given us her heart, her love and her trust. We know, quite simply, that to break that now would change her life forever.
So if we put the child first, which is a theme of this site, then this couple needs to minimise any risk to their health.
Adoptive or long term foster parents need to be as healthy and strong as they can be, not because the authority says so, but because some small child – who is going to give them his or her heart and trust - deserves it.
We would suggest that it is the same standard that should apply to ANY parent by the way. Raising children is a tiring, strenuous, whole-hearted activity. We find physical health to be key in handling the workload and the stress. It helps us parent better by being able to share physical activity with our children.
So our advice to this couple? Improve your health. There is a child out there who needs you, but they do need you for the long term. You might not have met them yet but you owe it to them already.
Posted by EssentialMum
The husband acknowledges he is ‘too fat’. The local authority states ‘The council's adoption service has a legal responsibility to ensure that children are placed with adopters who are able to provide the best possible lifelong care’.
We get to play both sides of the debate on this blog. So here they are.
There are many parents who are obese, who smoke, who drink, who do recreational drugs. In most of those instances they are not denied the right to parent their birth children.
So on the face of it, are we applying a double standard to prospective adoptive or foster parents who may not be ‘perfect’?
On the other hand, there are a number of parents out there whose alcohol or drug habits have spiralled out of control, or who have mental health and other issues. They have had their children removed from their care for the children’s safety. Those children have already suffered loss in their lives.
In adoption with a new family, the children deserve to know that the family they are placed with has the capacity to look after them for the long term.
We have seen the effect of multiple moves on children. Some never recover. The Camper has given us her heart, her love and her trust. We know, quite simply, that to break that now would change her life forever.
So if we put the child first, which is a theme of this site, then this couple needs to minimise any risk to their health.
Adoptive or long term foster parents need to be as healthy and strong as they can be, not because the authority says so, but because some small child – who is going to give them his or her heart and trust - deserves it.
We would suggest that it is the same standard that should apply to ANY parent by the way. Raising children is a tiring, strenuous, whole-hearted activity. We find physical health to be key in handling the workload and the stress. It helps us parent better by being able to share physical activity with our children.
So our advice to this couple? Improve your health. There is a child out there who needs you, but they do need you for the long term. You might not have met them yet but you owe it to them already.
Posted by EssentialMum
More understanding can mean more insecurity
07/01/2009 22:39
It’s a double-edged sword. An older child might be able to articulate what they feel, what they understand, and what they are confused about in their life and their circumstances. That’s great. But with this understanding comes understanding: there will be more questions about their circumstances, and perhaps more insecurity about what it really means. They might make their own judgment about what they want.
So you may suddenly find you have a small person who doesn’t want to see birth family. A small person who doesn’t want to have a ‘birth parent’. A small person who doesn’t want to be different from their friends.
But the ‘system’ or the ‘research’ will tell you it is good for them to know their birth family. That maintaining contact is positive – that they won’t create some fantasy life surrounding birth family. That reality, however relentless, is good.
For once, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of one of these small people.
Imagine this:
You’ve been moved around a lot since you were born. You’re a resilient kid, so on a day-to-day basis, you manage to smile and laugh and make it look like you are OK. So you’ve learned to be very affectionate, very quickly, with any new people you meet. You take whatever gets thrown at you because you’ve learned that’s how you survive. You might still bang your head on the pillow occasionally at night, because that makes you feel better, but no one hears.
You’re a smart kid: you are very tuned in and hyper-aware of what’s going on around you. In many ways you are much older than your years. You are really quite grateful that you’ve arrived at what seems to be a good place – the parents are nice and reasonable and give you a sense that they know how to deal. You try and show how grateful you are. They hug you and tell you that they are happy too, but you’re not sure they really understand how you feel.
But nothing changes over time, and you get to know them better. They are always the same, and you start to cautiously rely on them. And in there somewhere is a funny feeling. You see it in their eyes when they look at you. And you feel it too. You start to really like their hugs and kisses. Their support and approval feels really good. You like school and have some good mates. One day, you begin to hope that this is how it is going to be.
You see your birth family. That’s been fine, up until the last few times when your birth parent started telling you that you were still part of their family and not to forget it. You tried to shrug it off, but birth parent kept telling you every time you saw them. You mentioned it to your foster parents. They said that no one is taking you anywhere. But you’ve had a few nightmares recently where your birth parent came and took you away. You are really not sure that you want to see your birth family at the moment. Maybe you could take a break from them?
Can you imagine that? How would you feel?
Posted by EssentialMum
So you may suddenly find you have a small person who doesn’t want to see birth family. A small person who doesn’t want to have a ‘birth parent’. A small person who doesn’t want to be different from their friends.
But the ‘system’ or the ‘research’ will tell you it is good for them to know their birth family. That maintaining contact is positive – that they won’t create some fantasy life surrounding birth family. That reality, however relentless, is good.
For once, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of one of these small people.
Imagine this:
You’ve been moved around a lot since you were born. You’re a resilient kid, so on a day-to-day basis, you manage to smile and laugh and make it look like you are OK. So you’ve learned to be very affectionate, very quickly, with any new people you meet. You take whatever gets thrown at you because you’ve learned that’s how you survive. You might still bang your head on the pillow occasionally at night, because that makes you feel better, but no one hears.
You’re a smart kid: you are very tuned in and hyper-aware of what’s going on around you. In many ways you are much older than your years. You are really quite grateful that you’ve arrived at what seems to be a good place – the parents are nice and reasonable and give you a sense that they know how to deal. You try and show how grateful you are. They hug you and tell you that they are happy too, but you’re not sure they really understand how you feel.
But nothing changes over time, and you get to know them better. They are always the same, and you start to cautiously rely on them. And in there somewhere is a funny feeling. You see it in their eyes when they look at you. And you feel it too. You start to really like their hugs and kisses. Their support and approval feels really good. You like school and have some good mates. One day, you begin to hope that this is how it is going to be.
You see your birth family. That’s been fine, up until the last few times when your birth parent started telling you that you were still part of their family and not to forget it. You tried to shrug it off, but birth parent kept telling you every time you saw them. You mentioned it to your foster parents. They said that no one is taking you anywhere. But you’ve had a few nightmares recently where your birth parent came and took you away. You are really not sure that you want to see your birth family at the moment. Maybe you could take a break from them?
Can you imagine that? How would you feel?
Posted by EssentialMum
Good things come to those who wait?
21/12/2008 23:26
It seems sometime since I updated you on my journey to become a foster carer.
“Where’ve you been?” you might ask.
Well, I’ve been sitting here waiting. Waiting for the agency to complete their paperwork. Waiting for checks to be completed and returned. Waiting for a worker to get to my name on their list. Now patience is something I oft struggle with and perhaps this is one of those life lessons that is long overdue.
But leaving that to one side, if there is shortage of carers and children who desperately need a home, then I am bemused, nay befuddled, by the lack of urgency with which the system seems to move. Each time I call to follow up and make sure that the agency has all it needs from me, I am met with the same story of how the process works and that they are very busy and will get to me in due course. Does this apparent lack of resources simply mean there aren’t enough workers? Or are there more kids needing care than previously? Or is it that there is a heightened awareness of children at risk which requires greater levels of investigation and the inevitable paperwork which follows.
I suspect it is a combination. So here I sit and wait for my new life to begin and wonder whether there is something else I should be doing in the meantime. I only hope it’s not like “waiting for Godot” for if my memory serves correctly, Godot never arrived.
Yours in anticipation
Dorothy
Posted by Dorothy
“Where’ve you been?” you might ask.
Well, I’ve been sitting here waiting. Waiting for the agency to complete their paperwork. Waiting for checks to be completed and returned. Waiting for a worker to get to my name on their list. Now patience is something I oft struggle with and perhaps this is one of those life lessons that is long overdue.
But leaving that to one side, if there is shortage of carers and children who desperately need a home, then I am bemused, nay befuddled, by the lack of urgency with which the system seems to move. Each time I call to follow up and make sure that the agency has all it needs from me, I am met with the same story of how the process works and that they are very busy and will get to me in due course. Does this apparent lack of resources simply mean there aren’t enough workers? Or are there more kids needing care than previously? Or is it that there is a heightened awareness of children at risk which requires greater levels of investigation and the inevitable paperwork which follows.
I suspect it is a combination. So here I sit and wait for my new life to begin and wonder whether there is something else I should be doing in the meantime. I only hope it’s not like “waiting for Godot” for if my memory serves correctly, Godot never arrived.
Yours in anticipation
Dorothy
Posted by Dorothy
Access
17/11/2008 01:13
Reading our posts, you might suspect that all is sorted in our world. You might not, but in case you do…. We still have our days.
The week after access with birth family can be a challenge.
You might find that something is triggered in your child in care after visits. It might be hard to deal with because it comes from deep inside. The child may not understand it, and as you weren’t there in those early days you may have little chance of unpicking it.
We’ve seen children regress in that post access week. Behaviours will surface that belong to a younger child. Things that they normally take in their stride become major issues.
How do we deal? We don’t play. We move calmly on. We continue with our routines and normal practices. When a child is older, we might give them a look, we might even make a comment. If the child can handle it start the conversation with them about how they are feeling after seeing birth family.
Our single minded trudge through that post-access week (for some years now), is always important to the child, make no mistake. In a life that is probably marked by early change*, they need to learn that there is no change now as a result of seeing birth family. That there is no change with their new foster family. That’s a big step forward.
Posted by EssentialMum
* The kind of change we are referring to is where a child is moved, frequently, from short term carer to short term carer.
The week after access with birth family can be a challenge.
You might find that something is triggered in your child in care after visits. It might be hard to deal with because it comes from deep inside. The child may not understand it, and as you weren’t there in those early days you may have little chance of unpicking it.
We’ve seen children regress in that post access week. Behaviours will surface that belong to a younger child. Things that they normally take in their stride become major issues.
How do we deal? We don’t play. We move calmly on. We continue with our routines and normal practices. When a child is older, we might give them a look, we might even make a comment. If the child can handle it start the conversation with them about how they are feeling after seeing birth family.
Our single minded trudge through that post-access week (for some years now), is always important to the child, make no mistake. In a life that is probably marked by early change*, they need to learn that there is no change now as a result of seeing birth family. That there is no change with their new foster family. That’s a big step forward.
Posted by EssentialMum
* The kind of change we are referring to is where a child is moved, frequently, from short term carer to short term carer.
Can we 'fix' DOCs?
22/10/2008 22:38
Rise in deaths of 'at risk' children (The Australian, Caroline Overington | October 16, 2008).
‘MORE than 150 children who died in NSW last year came from families that were known to the Department of Community Services. The figure, a quarter of all child deaths in the state, represents a 40 per cent increase on the previous year in the number of so-called "reviewable" deaths.’
‘Fix DOCs’ we hear people shriek.
But you can’t fix a problem at the macro level. So you can’t just ‘fix DOCs’.
To solve problems, you need to be very specific about the problems. You need to be honest and open about what causes them. You need to address them quite specifically. But you need to understand how fixing the problem in the middle will impact all the others surrounding it. It is essential that everyone who plays a role agrees on what the problems are and wants to solve them.
So if more children ‘at risk’ died in 2008 than in the previous year, why?
Let’s state the obvious - children were left in a home environment that was dangerous to their life or to their health. The system that is charged with making decisions about what is best for them didn’t act, couldn’t act, couldn’t monitor, or simply couldn’t solve the problems.
Here are some of the questions we think need to be asked:
There is a lot riding on the outcomes of the Wood Commission. Let’s hope that at the first level there has been a very honest assessment of what the problems are that need to be solved.
Posted by EssentialMum
‘MORE than 150 children who died in NSW last year came from families that were known to the Department of Community Services. The figure, a quarter of all child deaths in the state, represents a 40 per cent increase on the previous year in the number of so-called "reviewable" deaths.’
‘Fix DOCs’ we hear people shriek.
But you can’t fix a problem at the macro level. So you can’t just ‘fix DOCs’.
To solve problems, you need to be very specific about the problems. You need to be honest and open about what causes them. You need to address them quite specifically. But you need to understand how fixing the problem in the middle will impact all the others surrounding it. It is essential that everyone who plays a role agrees on what the problems are and wants to solve them.
So if more children ‘at risk’ died in 2008 than in the previous year, why?
Let’s state the obvious - children were left in a home environment that was dangerous to their life or to their health. The system that is charged with making decisions about what is best for them didn’t act, couldn’t act, couldn’t monitor, or simply couldn’t solve the problems.
Here are some of the questions we think need to be asked:
- At what point does the child’s right to a safe, healthy, stable life become more important then staying with their birth parents? Are there government or agency policies that influence these decisions?
- What is the risk to the child and its development if the ‘recovery or rehabilitation’ of a birth parent is slow or troubled by setbacks? Will the child’s life and development be compromised in either the short or the long term by not moving them?
- Do workers feel they have the autonomy to make a call regarding the child’s circumstances? Are they equipped to make the call? Are they supported by the system in making that call? Is the system prepared to deal with calls that may be premature?
- What if the headline we were reading reported an increase in the number of children removed from their birth families? Would we be comfortable with that?
- Are the civil liberties of birth parents over-riding the best interests of the child?
- What resources are available to the birth parents to help them cope with life, family and future? How willing and capable are the birth parents of using those resources?
- Is a system in place that can monitor birth parents’ progress and keep watch on the health and safety of the child? Can the system do this frequently enough to adequately monitor the child? If not, what is the risk to the child?
There is a lot riding on the outcomes of the Wood Commission. Let’s hope that at the first level there has been a very honest assessment of what the problems are that need to be solved.
Posted by EssentialMum
Guarantees in foster care?
09/10/2008 23:51
An article in The Australian (Thursday Oct 2, 2008) ‘Potential carers put off fostering’ (Overington and Trup) reviewed some of the confidential submissions to the Wood Royal Commission. It is well written article.
The first paragraph states ‘Tens of thousands of affluent, educated and responsible couples are ready to take the nation’s abused and neglected children into their care, if only they could be guaranteed that the children would be allowed to stay’.
What an absolute tragedy.
There are tens of thousands of couples that might have missed out on what may be the most rewarding journey of their life? And, more importantly, there are thousands of children who might have found a life with wonderful parents?
Will better education and communication change the perspective of some of those potential carers? Maybe the ‘system’ needs to make a call earlier for some children and place them in a ‘permanent’ home as soon as possible?
We took the journey. These statistics hit home because the littlest statistic is very real to us.
The fact is, you don’t get many guarantees with foster care.
These children are not adopted – you don’t get to take them in and be left alone. You deal with birth families and workers, with the legal construct of fostering. The children themselves may often have issues.
But you can work towards some certainty, before you foster:
Is there a long-term order for the child? Would you be taking them on long-term? Does this mean until the age of 18 or of ‘maturity’?
What are the birth family circumstances? Is a birth parent working towards getting the children back in a realistic and meaningful way?
What’s the agency’s long term goal? Are they aiming for restitution or permanency planning for the child? What do they see your role as?
Is the placement long term and will the agency support that?
So to all those prospective foster parents - you want guarantees the child is with you to stay? Then get in there and fight for them. Take them in, care for them, love them, bond with them, become their parent. Then you won’t need guarantees, you’ll make them. You’ll face anyone who thinks moving this child might be an option with steely eyed determination. For you are their parent. And for the first time in their lives, these children have an adult to advocate for them. Not just mouth the words, but really do it. With love and care and something at stake.
You have to decide whether you are fostering for you, or for them?
Posted by EssentialMum
The first paragraph states ‘Tens of thousands of affluent, educated and responsible couples are ready to take the nation’s abused and neglected children into their care, if only they could be guaranteed that the children would be allowed to stay’.
What an absolute tragedy.
There are tens of thousands of couples that might have missed out on what may be the most rewarding journey of their life? And, more importantly, there are thousands of children who might have found a life with wonderful parents?
Will better education and communication change the perspective of some of those potential carers? Maybe the ‘system’ needs to make a call earlier for some children and place them in a ‘permanent’ home as soon as possible?
We took the journey. These statistics hit home because the littlest statistic is very real to us.
The fact is, you don’t get many guarantees with foster care.
These children are not adopted – you don’t get to take them in and be left alone. You deal with birth families and workers, with the legal construct of fostering. The children themselves may often have issues.
But you can work towards some certainty, before you foster:
Is there a long-term order for the child? Would you be taking them on long-term? Does this mean until the age of 18 or of ‘maturity’?
What are the birth family circumstances? Is a birth parent working towards getting the children back in a realistic and meaningful way?
What’s the agency’s long term goal? Are they aiming for restitution or permanency planning for the child? What do they see your role as?
Is the placement long term and will the agency support that?
So to all those prospective foster parents - you want guarantees the child is with you to stay? Then get in there and fight for them. Take them in, care for them, love them, bond with them, become their parent. Then you won’t need guarantees, you’ll make them. You’ll face anyone who thinks moving this child might be an option with steely eyed determination. For you are their parent. And for the first time in their lives, these children have an adult to advocate for them. Not just mouth the words, but really do it. With love and care and something at stake.
You have to decide whether you are fostering for you, or for them?
Posted by EssentialMum
Do agencies keep carer lists up to date?
29/09/2008 22:53
We had a phone call recently. A very pleasant young person identified herself as a new case worker with a particular private agency.
We were invited to a social event at the agency, despite the fact that it is a fair while since we’ve had any dealings with that agency.
When we mentioned this, the worker laughed and advised that she must have had an ‘old’ list.
We were surprised.
Does the agency maintain a ‘current’ list of carers? How often is that updated? Who is accountable for updating it? Are files in the agency marked ‘current’ and ‘past’? How do they manage privacy for ‘closed’ files that they no longer have any accountability for? Can any new worker access any closed file?
Oversights do happen. But we are not inclined to give this agency the benefit of the doubt. It is, sadly, representative of the lack of attention to detail from them.
Harsh words? Maybe. We have been known to take a service provider to task for poor service, failure to follow through, or sloppy work. Fine when we are battling over our mobile bill.
But we expect better. We are dealing with a person. How will a child in care feel, many years on, when they read the case conference notes and see the errors? These children are entitled to expect every adult who has been given a role in their life by ‘the system’ to take the utmost care – of them, of their information, of their feelings.
Poor form indeed.
Posted by EssentialMum.
We were invited to a social event at the agency, despite the fact that it is a fair while since we’ve had any dealings with that agency.
When we mentioned this, the worker laughed and advised that she must have had an ‘old’ list.
We were surprised.
Does the agency maintain a ‘current’ list of carers? How often is that updated? Who is accountable for updating it? Are files in the agency marked ‘current’ and ‘past’? How do they manage privacy for ‘closed’ files that they no longer have any accountability for? Can any new worker access any closed file?
Oversights do happen. But we are not inclined to give this agency the benefit of the doubt. It is, sadly, representative of the lack of attention to detail from them.
Harsh words? Maybe. We have been known to take a service provider to task for poor service, failure to follow through, or sloppy work. Fine when we are battling over our mobile bill.
But we expect better. We are dealing with a person. How will a child in care feel, many years on, when they read the case conference notes and see the errors? These children are entitled to expect every adult who has been given a role in their life by ‘the system’ to take the utmost care – of them, of their information, of their feelings.
Poor form indeed.
Posted by EssentialMum.
Questions to ask a prospective foster agency
24/09/2008 00:17
People often ask us for advice on which agency they should approach. Does it matter?
Well, yes, it does.
Agency and carer should be well matched, just like carer and child.
Over 40 years and a number of agencies, we’ve experienced:
Escalating conflict as the worker is stretched beyond their capability, experience or comfort zone. Carers discovering the non-negotiable policies of an agency many years into the placement. Hidden agendas. Workers creating a false expectation for birth parents about the placement, and the long term possibilities for the child. Workers compromising the relationship or interaction between carers and birth family members. Workers insisting on a designated ‘role’ in the foster child’s life without consideration of the carers’ wishes. Workers being completely unavailable. Lack of trust in the carer’s intentions or approach. Lack of negotiation between all parties in creating a case plan for the child.
Of course these are one sided, and many workers could give you a list of carer behaviours that defy belief. But our aim here is to facilitate successful placements for the children, and informed carers are key to that.
If we were to foster again, we'd ask some specific questions. These directly relate to the day-to-day part of the placement. They may sound negative, or too forthright. Like any relationship, everyone expects the best, but it’s the detail and the mismatched expectations that cause the problems.
Here is the list of questions we'd ask an agency:
Posted by EssentialMum
Well, yes, it does.
Agency and carer should be well matched, just like carer and child.
Over 40 years and a number of agencies, we’ve experienced:
Escalating conflict as the worker is stretched beyond their capability, experience or comfort zone. Carers discovering the non-negotiable policies of an agency many years into the placement. Hidden agendas. Workers creating a false expectation for birth parents about the placement, and the long term possibilities for the child. Workers compromising the relationship or interaction between carers and birth family members. Workers insisting on a designated ‘role’ in the foster child’s life without consideration of the carers’ wishes. Workers being completely unavailable. Lack of trust in the carer’s intentions or approach. Lack of negotiation between all parties in creating a case plan for the child.
Of course these are one sided, and many workers could give you a list of carer behaviours that defy belief. But our aim here is to facilitate successful placements for the children, and informed carers are key to that.
If we were to foster again, we'd ask some specific questions. These directly relate to the day-to-day part of the placement. They may sound negative, or too forthright. Like any relationship, everyone expects the best, but it’s the detail and the mismatched expectations that cause the problems.
Here is the list of questions we'd ask an agency:
- What is the agency’s policy in relation to birth family contact? Is the agency working towards restitution of foster child and birth family? Does the agency want to re-establish a relationship between child and birth parent? Or is the agency aiming to maintain contact between child and birth family?
- What is the agency’s policy in relation to the foster child’s relationship with their birth family? Who attends access? What are the policies in relation to what the child should call birth and foster parents? What locations are used for access (agency offices, play centres)? How flexible is this? Do the workers always attend access? At what point might the worker not attend access?
- What is the agency’s schedule for visits and follow up (phone, email) with carers? How often will these occur? What happens if the carers can’t accommodate the schedule? Will this change over time and what will cause it to change?
- Clearly describe the social worker’s role. What are the service levels carers are entitled to expect from all parties? [Service levels are a business concept where the standard of service and the approach are set out and guaranteed. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has service levels. It makes interesting reading.]
- How often do agency workers change? How long is the foster child likely to have a relationship with one worker for? How will the transition to a new worker be handled?
- What do you see the carer’s role to be? How much input will the carer have in developing the case plan for the child?
- Who can carers talk to if they are unhappy with a worker’s approach, performance or policies? What is the process they follow and what is likely to occur? What are the options?
- Does the agency recognise that at some point the carer has the most up to date knowledge of the child? What weight is the agency prepared to give that?
- At what age does the agency recognise the child’s ability to state what they want?
- What is the agency’s policy in relation to adoption by the foster family? Will it consider it on its merits or is the agency opposed to it in principal? What limitations does the agency place on it (child’s age, parents’ situation)?
Posted by EssentialMum
Don't look now: your relationship is not working
18/09/2008 11:43
We had a great conversation recently with our social worker. It was around upcoming activities, holiday birth family contact and arrangements. What made it so great?
We exchanged views with the worker on a couple of issues. We listened to them, they listened to us, and we agreed on an approach that we were both happy with. Importantly, we both agreed that the child’s requirements were the most important ones. With such a clear agreement about the priority, coming to a solution was easy.
Sounds simple really. But it isn’t always.
We’ve experienced worker/carer meltdown. After several harmonious years, we were assigned a new worker who wanted to change the world, change our lives, and start ‘all over again’. We put our views to the the worker. They were never given a hearing. We outlined what part of the proposed changes we couldn't accommodate. We were told we simply had to. Suddenly issues that never rose before become deal-breakers. The agency and its workers had no room for a differing point of view.
So what are your options? We can’t advise specifically, but here’s what we’ve seen.
Often a carer will try to put up with it because they are concerned that the child in care might become caught in the middle. Or they are concerned that any rising tension in dealing with a worker may flow over to the child. Often a carer, faced daily with numerous challenges in caring for the child, will simply roll with it. Too often a carer has no point of reference (or no time to chase a point of reference) to say ‘Is this really acceptable?’
The risk of going with it is that ‘bad situations’ don’t hold steady. They usually become worse. New issues give rise to new levels of conflict and irritation that build.
You need to work out where the relationship will end up.
Can you roll with it and manage around it? Can you stay calm and detached after contact with the worker? Can you manage the worker’s approach (or the agency’s policies) and still be happy with the outcome for your foster child?
If the answer to any of those is no, we’d suggest you act. Explain clearly to the worker your position. Call a meeting with their manager to discuss your perspective. Give it a go and work through suggested actions to resolve it. But if it still doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to take it higher.
Posted by EssentialMum
We exchanged views with the worker on a couple of issues. We listened to them, they listened to us, and we agreed on an approach that we were both happy with. Importantly, we both agreed that the child’s requirements were the most important ones. With such a clear agreement about the priority, coming to a solution was easy.
Sounds simple really. But it isn’t always.
We’ve experienced worker/carer meltdown. After several harmonious years, we were assigned a new worker who wanted to change the world, change our lives, and start ‘all over again’. We put our views to the the worker. They were never given a hearing. We outlined what part of the proposed changes we couldn't accommodate. We were told we simply had to. Suddenly issues that never rose before become deal-breakers. The agency and its workers had no room for a differing point of view.
So what are your options? We can’t advise specifically, but here’s what we’ve seen.
Often a carer will try to put up with it because they are concerned that the child in care might become caught in the middle. Or they are concerned that any rising tension in dealing with a worker may flow over to the child. Often a carer, faced daily with numerous challenges in caring for the child, will simply roll with it. Too often a carer has no point of reference (or no time to chase a point of reference) to say ‘Is this really acceptable?’
The risk of going with it is that ‘bad situations’ don’t hold steady. They usually become worse. New issues give rise to new levels of conflict and irritation that build.
You need to work out where the relationship will end up.
Can you roll with it and manage around it? Can you stay calm and detached after contact with the worker? Can you manage the worker’s approach (or the agency’s policies) and still be happy with the outcome for your foster child?
If the answer to any of those is no, we’d suggest you act. Explain clearly to the worker your position. Call a meeting with their manager to discuss your perspective. Give it a go and work through suggested actions to resolve it. But if it still doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to take it higher.
Posted by EssentialMum
Which agency should I foster with?
31/08/2008 23:10
Who should I approach? I’m really interested in fostering, but I’m not sure which agency, public or private, I should go through. What’s the difference?
This came into focus when we caught up with a friend last weekend, who reminded us that she was interested in long term fostering, and wanted our advice on where to start.
Let’s take a big step forward. When you have a child in care, one of the most important aspects of that placement is a real ‘meeting of the minds’ between carer and agency. You may have challenges with the child. The last thing you need is conflict or frustration with the agency that monitors and supports you.
‘Meeting of the minds’ is actually a legal concept that underpins contract law, but we’ve found it works well in business and life. Are your thoughts aligned? Do you want the same thing? Are you working towards the same outcome?
In our experience, the best agency/carer relationships have the following features:
Posted by EssentialMum
This came into focus when we caught up with a friend last weekend, who reminded us that she was interested in long term fostering, and wanted our advice on where to start.
Let’s take a big step forward. When you have a child in care, one of the most important aspects of that placement is a real ‘meeting of the minds’ between carer and agency. You may have challenges with the child. The last thing you need is conflict or frustration with the agency that monitors and supports you.
‘Meeting of the minds’ is actually a legal concept that underpins contract law, but we’ve found it works well in business and life. Are your thoughts aligned? Do you want the same thing? Are you working towards the same outcome?
In our experience, the best agency/carer relationships have the following features:
- An ‘aligned’ vision of what is best for the child. Put simply, you all agree on the basics - of care, access, support etc.
- A fair and open process of deciding what is best for the child. Think about what happens. The carer takes a child in. The child needs to settle, to trust, to learn, maybe even to learn to love. The timeframe varies but most long term carers become the people who know the child best. We live with them. Put our ‘on the ground’ experience with an experienced, thoughtful, objective social worker, provide willingness to discuss an issue and decide an approach together, and the results can be constructive.
- Room for individuality. These children need to be treated as individuals who matter. Too often their needs as an individual have been completely ignored. This is not uncommon in their birth family circumstances, but surprisingly can also occur in short term placements, where the focus might be on their physical needs. So any approaches or policies should be adjusted for the individual child. For example, the policy that ‘Our approach is that children in care call their birth parent “X” ‘ becomes ‘While generally our policy is that children in care call their birth parent “X”, in Y’s case we agree that….’
- Mutual respect. This needs to happen at the individual level. The PERSONAL level. Carers need to be able to respect the social worker assigned to their case, and workers need to respect the capabilities and experience of the carers. All parties need to demonstrate this – in what they say, how they listen to each other.
- Support. Depending on the needs of your child, you may call on the agency for support. They should be there when you need it. With what you need. And on the other hand, they shouldn’t be in your ear every week with demands and actions and policies and plans. Unless that's what you want.
- A willingness to listen. From all parties. This means that a proper conversation is going on.
- Recognition. Some recognition of the child’s progress really makes a carer feel good. More importantly, a ‘good’ placement, and the carers’ part in that, should go to the carers’ credibility. If the child is thriving, learning, growing, loving and happy do you think we might just know what we are doing?
Posted by EssentialMum
Stop - and reflect
17/08/2008 21:50
One thing we’ve learned to do is stop, and reflect.
Think through where you have been, and where you’ve come to. Look at the child with clear eyes and see what you’ve achieved. There will always be challenges – have a chat with any other mother or father of a similarly aged child and you will find they deal with many of the same issues.
The challenge is that you may have a few extra. They will range in severity. At the lower end of the scale you will find yourself wondering how much of the behaviour is due to the child’s past, and how much of it simple six year old passion. There will come a point where you consider that the child has lived with you long enough to treat the behaviour as simple six year old passion. It’s a wonderful day when you all reach that point.
At the other end you’ll wonder how to ever manage this child’s behaviour. Faced with an endless challenge, stop and reflect. You will find some milestones along the way that help you take a breath, feel some satisfaction in what you have all achieved, and soldier on.
And just occasionally, we hope you feel real joy in what you are doing. Because we do, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
While we have much to be happy about in respect of the child’s progress on all fronts, best of all is our relationship. While Happy Camper’s cheeky streak may drive us mad, we are quite delighted at the confidence and intelligence that fuels it. We let her test the boundary, we explain the limits, we let her find them, we pull her firmly into line every so often, then we ease off. It’s an ongoing process.
So what underpins it all is love. When you hold this child in your arms and feel your heart turn over, you stop, and reflect. The child will know that when they reach for you they will find love. That helps keep you going.
Posted by EssentialMum
Think through where you have been, and where you’ve come to. Look at the child with clear eyes and see what you’ve achieved. There will always be challenges – have a chat with any other mother or father of a similarly aged child and you will find they deal with many of the same issues.
The challenge is that you may have a few extra. They will range in severity. At the lower end of the scale you will find yourself wondering how much of the behaviour is due to the child’s past, and how much of it simple six year old passion. There will come a point where you consider that the child has lived with you long enough to treat the behaviour as simple six year old passion. It’s a wonderful day when you all reach that point.
At the other end you’ll wonder how to ever manage this child’s behaviour. Faced with an endless challenge, stop and reflect. You will find some milestones along the way that help you take a breath, feel some satisfaction in what you have all achieved, and soldier on.
And just occasionally, we hope you feel real joy in what you are doing. Because we do, and it’s the best feeling in the world.
While we have much to be happy about in respect of the child’s progress on all fronts, best of all is our relationship. While Happy Camper’s cheeky streak may drive us mad, we are quite delighted at the confidence and intelligence that fuels it. We let her test the boundary, we explain the limits, we let her find them, we pull her firmly into line every so often, then we ease off. It’s an ongoing process.
So what underpins it all is love. When you hold this child in your arms and feel your heart turn over, you stop, and reflect. The child will know that when they reach for you they will find love. That helps keep you going.
Posted by EssentialMum
Children don’t go into limbo while the adults sort themselves out
07/07/2008 01:07
Kate de Brito’s blog at news.com.au had an interesting topic. This week’s post was ‘Should I report my sister to child services?’ (If you click through don't be surprised to find some fairly blunt posts and comments on all manner of subjects).
The person who submitted the question – which was whether she should notify the authorities about her sister’s home situation - outlined what is essentially a scenario of children at risk, and asked for advice. There was plenty.
Many contributors were simply stunned. Given what is reported on the news most weeks that's surprising, but there you go. Many thought a good home clean-up/talking to/scare for mother was needed. Most of those missed the complexity of the situation and mother’s state of mental health and, we think, the reality that we are dealing with people here. And there were some well-reasoned and thoughtful responses.
The piece the readers had the least information on was what the family had done or was doing. There were a number of comments about what the family should do in such circumstances. That’s not an easy one to answer.
But surprise - the bogeyman was the authorities. While Kate recommended an initial approach to find out options, and a contributor pointed out that there is quite a process that the authorities follow before any decisions are made, many contributors put notifying the authorities as a last resort.
We can understand why many people assume the worst – of the system and the authorities. We can see why people feel that once they launch this juggernaut they will have no input and no control. A systematic approach, by its very nature, often works to exclude those who don’t understand it, or don’t have the skills the system requires to deal with it.
We have argued with social workers and stood our ground when we have a different view of what’s proposed for a child in care. Some workers made it clear that they thought we were being uncooperative because we dared to disagree with them. We believe we were doing our job and treating our child like the individual they are. It takes courage and smarts and tenacity to hold the line.
As a carer, you can feel torn by all these viewpoints. We think there is a guiding principle that helps. It’s certainly helped us work out what really matters.
Put the child first
Usually stated by all parties but not always done. We’ve heard a complacent ‘we advocate for the child’ from a worker. What the worker had conveniently forgotten was that she advocated for the child within the well prescribed, bog standard framework of the agency. And the agency had its own agenda. Funnily enough, some of that bog standard framework was in conflict with DOCS' approach.
So what’s the point?
There’s a point where the child’s needs outweigh those of the birth parent. Many of the posts on Kate de Brito’s blog advocated assistance for the mother. Absolutely. But make sure the children are OK while that process is going on.
Because children don’t go into limbo while the adults sort themselves out.
Posted by EssentialMum
The person who submitted the question – which was whether she should notify the authorities about her sister’s home situation - outlined what is essentially a scenario of children at risk, and asked for advice. There was plenty.
Many contributors were simply stunned. Given what is reported on the news most weeks that's surprising, but there you go. Many thought a good home clean-up/talking to/scare for mother was needed. Most of those missed the complexity of the situation and mother’s state of mental health and, we think, the reality that we are dealing with people here. And there were some well-reasoned and thoughtful responses.
The piece the readers had the least information on was what the family had done or was doing. There were a number of comments about what the family should do in such circumstances. That’s not an easy one to answer.
But surprise - the bogeyman was the authorities. While Kate recommended an initial approach to find out options, and a contributor pointed out that there is quite a process that the authorities follow before any decisions are made, many contributors put notifying the authorities as a last resort.
We can understand why many people assume the worst – of the system and the authorities. We can see why people feel that once they launch this juggernaut they will have no input and no control. A systematic approach, by its very nature, often works to exclude those who don’t understand it, or don’t have the skills the system requires to deal with it.
We have argued with social workers and stood our ground when we have a different view of what’s proposed for a child in care. Some workers made it clear that they thought we were being uncooperative because we dared to disagree with them. We believe we were doing our job and treating our child like the individual they are. It takes courage and smarts and tenacity to hold the line.
As a carer, you can feel torn by all these viewpoints. We think there is a guiding principle that helps. It’s certainly helped us work out what really matters.
Put the child first
Usually stated by all parties but not always done. We’ve heard a complacent ‘we advocate for the child’ from a worker. What the worker had conveniently forgotten was that she advocated for the child within the well prescribed, bog standard framework of the agency. And the agency had its own agenda. Funnily enough, some of that bog standard framework was in conflict with DOCS' approach.
So what’s the point?
There’s a point where the child’s needs outweigh those of the birth parent. Many of the posts on Kate de Brito’s blog advocated assistance for the mother. Absolutely. But make sure the children are OK while that process is going on.
Because children don’t go into limbo while the adults sort themselves out.
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?
Here’s how your placement might often commence:
You don't waste time, at that point, making an issue of it.
You start from where you are. You build the child’s life again from the ground up, and as they get older you increase the information about their 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.
More information is a blessing. Thanks.
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?
Here’s how your placement might often commence:
- You have the barest detail on the child’s day to day routine.
- You have very few photos of the child.
- You have no ‘when you were small’ stories.
- You have no toys. Often lots of McDonalds giveaways but not one special comfort toy.
- Clothing is poor or non-existent. We’ve seen short term carers view clothes as a communal resource - kept for the next child they care for.
You don't waste time, at that point, making an issue of it.
You start from where you are. You build the child’s life again from the ground up, and as they get older you increase the information about their 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.
More information is a blessing. Thanks.
Posted by EssentialMum