self-awareness
Lift your game carers
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.
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Can a foster parent ‘over-advocate’ for their foster child?
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.
You can't force a relationship
‘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.
Children's sense of time
Continuing our series from the American Academy of Pediatrics article.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
This post deals with children’s sense of time, and how that specifically impacts children in foster care.
Placing children in care might deal with their immediate need for physical care, nourishment, comfort, affection and stimulation. But continuity of care is critical (continuity means continuous or connected). Children need to learn how to bond and trust, and that happens with a stable consistent carer over a period of time. So changes to their carer can be detrimental. Temporary care can, in fact, be detrimental.
And if a child is suffering the consequences of stress and inadequate parenting, then moving them from home to home only makes it worse. This reminds us of the Eggshells comment from Jen who writes about a foster child’s perspective at www.fostercareinamerica.com.
So how do adults deal with change and impermanence? Some restless souls like it. But most of us build on the self-reliance that we have learned, probably from stable and supportive parents and family circumstances, over the years. And we usually have the skill to anticipate and plan for a time when things settle down. We may well have experienced more settled times before, so we know what they look like.
But kids have few life experiences to draw on. They can’t pull out an experience and say ‘well, the last time that happened to me I handled it this way.’ They simply don’t have enough experiences in ‘the bank’.
And they are right in the process of discovering who they are. They don’t yet have a strong sense of ‘self’, not like adults do. It’s being created. A child in a stable family doesn’t have to be anxious about the fundamentals like nurturing, protection, trust and security. So they are free to get on with working out who they are. For a child in care energy is expended on the fundamentals. Who will care for them? Are they safe? Who will protect them? Who can they trust?
And think about how children focus. On the right here, right now. We have enough trouble getting the Camper to plan for the next hour, let alone the next month, year and so on (although the stand-out exception there is her birthday party. That goes into SWAT type planning at least 7 months before the date).
So because young children don’t understand the concept of temporary versus permanent, periods of time are largely incomprehensible to them. The younger they are, the longer the disruption – the more impact it will have.
This section of the report concludes ‘pediatricians should advocate that evaluation, planning, placement and treatment decision be made as quickly as possible, especially for very young children’. They are saying that the clock is ticking - every minute has an impact on the child.
When we hear workers say that their primary focus is on the ‘family’, we worry like hell for the individual children.
Self control, and self interest, for children in care?
An interesting article crossed our desk this week.
It’s from The New Yorker, and it’s about self-control. Or rather, the ability or willingness of some people to delay gratification. The experiment, carried out in the 1960’s at Stanford University, put nursery school children in a room with a treat. The researcher offered that they could eat it straight away, but that if they waited until the researcher came back before eating it, they would get a second treat. A number of children successfully waited, and they used a number of mechanisms to take their focus off the treat sitting before them.
Over time, and with further analysis, the researcher ‘began to notice a link between the children’s academic performance as teenagers and their ability to wait for the second marshmallow’.
We quote: ‘ “What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power or self-control,” Mischel says. “It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.”’
This struck a chord with us. So many stories from children in care highlight how powerless and fearful they felt. So much of a skilled and loving parent’s task should be to teach children how to make situations work for them, to understand the ‘give and take’ or negotiations that they need to undertake for many reasons – safety, happiness, fulfilment, success. And if that kind of care and teaching is missing, how disadvantaged are these children in coping with life?
Often when a child in care comes to live with you, self-control will be an alien concept. They can be completely impulsive, fearful of change and dreadfully upset when any experience they are enjoying ends.
Nowdays, the degree of negotiation that goes on at our house makes us feel a bit like the United Nations. On occasion we have to invoke the ‘just do it’ creed. But after reading this article, we are pleased to see that the our child is well and truly working out how to make situations work for them.
It’s a good day when you see that sense of robustness and, to be frank, self-interest. There is plenty of time to teach them to put others first, but given their background, sometimes you have to actively teach them to put themselves first. They often miss because they are just struggling to survive.
So how do you start them on this path? Firstly, we show them how loving parents nurture their children. We show them how we could put them first above everything. They learn, sometimes for the first time in their lives, how it feels to have every need catered for. Through that they learn that they deserve it.
Second, offer them both a reason to do what you want them to do, and an understanding of the consequences. It takes time and it takes energy, and sometimes it will clearly be beyond their understanding and willpower. But they will began to learn how everything is connected, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and that their actions trigger different outcomes.
It’s from The New Yorker, and it’s about self-control. Or rather, the ability or willingness of some people to delay gratification. The experiment, carried out in the 1960’s at Stanford University, put nursery school children in a room with a treat. The researcher offered that they could eat it straight away, but that if they waited until the researcher came back before eating it, they would get a second treat. A number of children successfully waited, and they used a number of mechanisms to take their focus off the treat sitting before them.
Over time, and with further analysis, the researcher ‘began to notice a link between the children’s academic performance as teenagers and their ability to wait for the second marshmallow’.
We quote: ‘ “What we’re really measuring with the marshmallows isn’t will power or self-control,” Mischel says. “It’s much more important than that. This task forces kids to find a way to make the situation work for them. They want the second marshmallow, but how can they get it? We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.”’
This struck a chord with us. So many stories from children in care highlight how powerless and fearful they felt. So much of a skilled and loving parent’s task should be to teach children how to make situations work for them, to understand the ‘give and take’ or negotiations that they need to undertake for many reasons – safety, happiness, fulfilment, success. And if that kind of care and teaching is missing, how disadvantaged are these children in coping with life?
Often when a child in care comes to live with you, self-control will be an alien concept. They can be completely impulsive, fearful of change and dreadfully upset when any experience they are enjoying ends.
Nowdays, the degree of negotiation that goes on at our house makes us feel a bit like the United Nations. On occasion we have to invoke the ‘just do it’ creed. But after reading this article, we are pleased to see that the our child is well and truly working out how to make situations work for them.
It’s a good day when you see that sense of robustness and, to be frank, self-interest. There is plenty of time to teach them to put others first, but given their background, sometimes you have to actively teach them to put themselves first. They often miss because they are just struggling to survive.
So how do you start them on this path? Firstly, we show them how loving parents nurture their children. We show them how we could put them first above everything. They learn, sometimes for the first time in their lives, how it feels to have every need catered for. Through that they learn that they deserve it.
Second, offer them both a reason to do what you want them to do, and an understanding of the consequences. It takes time and it takes energy, and sometimes it will clearly be beyond their understanding and willpower. But they will began to learn how everything is connected, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and that their actions trigger different outcomes.
Contact with birth families is good
We are in favour of contact with birth families – 100%.
There are many reasons why it is beneficial for a child to know their birth family. Here are some of them.
‘Who is my birth mum and/or my birth dad?’
Knowing my origins - It is very difficult for a child, particularly when they start to attend school and families are on the curriculum, to cope with a complete blank where a birth parent’s identity might be. As a carer you need an explanation that increases in detail as the child matures.
‘Why isn’t my hair dark brown like yours?’
A sense of identity - This can be important physically, as the child begins to want to emulate or be part of their second family.
‘I’m only living with you because my birth parent is a rock star’
A sense of reality – as a child grows older they may want to know why they are not with their birth family. Contact can help prevent a fantasy life evolving around a birth parent. This in turn may prevent any ‘play-offs’ between birth and second families. It can be quite devastating for an older child to meet a birth parent and experience their shortcomings. Acceptance from an early age is helpful.
‘Why did my birth parents give me up?'
Understanding and communication - An opportunity for child and birth parent to communicate on these issues can be good. It’s tricky territory, for a birth parent may not be prepared to answer the hard questions, or may be in complete denial about what actually happened and their responsibility for it. That in itself is a useful conversation for a trusted person to have with the child.
So what is the issue, for the child, around birth family contact?
BALANCE
You can completely undermine a child’s sense of security if contact with birth family overwhelms them and over-rides their daily life. Let’s state the obvious – access for a child who has a good chance of restitution with their birth family, should be very different to that of a child who has been put into the care of the Minister until they reach 18 years.
We believe that the PURPOSE of contact should be an item on any case plan.
The frequency of contact is usually covered, but we’ve not experienced an open and frank discussion about the purpose. We’ve seen this come unstuck when a worker thought they were meant to re-establish the child/birth parent relationship, when the appropriate purpose of access was to ‘maintain contact between child and birth parent’. There is a world of difference between those two objectives.
Understanding the purpose of contact will help you know how access should run.
We saw that world of difference played out in the behaviours of worker and birth parent. The workers pushed a level of interaction, and a set of rules, that alienated the child and increased her insecurity. It also resulted in a birth parent believing they had far more say in the child’s life than was the case. It was left to a more experienced worker to do damage control, and remind birth parent of the reality of the situation. It wouldn’t have happened if the issue had been discussed properly.
Understanding the purpose of contact will help you help the child manage their response to birth parent.
It will help you know which behaviours, from child and birth parent, to support, and what you should hose down. You know the child best, and you know what their life is now, so you are best placed to understand the impact access with a birth parent may have.
We’re going to have the purpose of access firmly on the agenda at our next case conference. We recommend that you discuss this with your worker until you are really clear about what it means. We think it is a useful discussion for any birth parent to participate in. And we especially recommend it as a discussion with any new worker who wants to change some aspect of access.
Posted by EssentialMum
There are many reasons why it is beneficial for a child to know their birth family. Here are some of them.
‘Who is my birth mum and/or my birth dad?’
Knowing my origins - It is very difficult for a child, particularly when they start to attend school and families are on the curriculum, to cope with a complete blank where a birth parent’s identity might be. As a carer you need an explanation that increases in detail as the child matures.
‘Why isn’t my hair dark brown like yours?’
A sense of identity - This can be important physically, as the child begins to want to emulate or be part of their second family.
‘I’m only living with you because my birth parent is a rock star’
A sense of reality – as a child grows older they may want to know why they are not with their birth family. Contact can help prevent a fantasy life evolving around a birth parent. This in turn may prevent any ‘play-offs’ between birth and second families. It can be quite devastating for an older child to meet a birth parent and experience their shortcomings. Acceptance from an early age is helpful.
‘Why did my birth parents give me up?'
Understanding and communication - An opportunity for child and birth parent to communicate on these issues can be good. It’s tricky territory, for a birth parent may not be prepared to answer the hard questions, or may be in complete denial about what actually happened and their responsibility for it. That in itself is a useful conversation for a trusted person to have with the child.
So what is the issue, for the child, around birth family contact?
BALANCE
You can completely undermine a child’s sense of security if contact with birth family overwhelms them and over-rides their daily life. Let’s state the obvious – access for a child who has a good chance of restitution with their birth family, should be very different to that of a child who has been put into the care of the Minister until they reach 18 years.
We believe that the PURPOSE of contact should be an item on any case plan.
The frequency of contact is usually covered, but we’ve not experienced an open and frank discussion about the purpose. We’ve seen this come unstuck when a worker thought they were meant to re-establish the child/birth parent relationship, when the appropriate purpose of access was to ‘maintain contact between child and birth parent’. There is a world of difference between those two objectives.
Understanding the purpose of contact will help you know how access should run.
We saw that world of difference played out in the behaviours of worker and birth parent. The workers pushed a level of interaction, and a set of rules, that alienated the child and increased her insecurity. It also resulted in a birth parent believing they had far more say in the child’s life than was the case. It was left to a more experienced worker to do damage control, and remind birth parent of the reality of the situation. It wouldn’t have happened if the issue had been discussed properly.
Understanding the purpose of contact will help you help the child manage their response to birth parent.
It will help you know which behaviours, from child and birth parent, to support, and what you should hose down. You know the child best, and you know what their life is now, so you are best placed to understand the impact access with a birth parent may have.
We’re going to have the purpose of access firmly on the agenda at our next case conference. We recommend that you discuss this with your worker until you are really clear about what it means. We think it is a useful discussion for any birth parent to participate in. And we especially recommend it as a discussion with any new worker who wants to change some aspect of access.
Posted by EssentialMum
More understanding can mean more insecurity
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
'I am a foster child'
How should children in care refer to themselves? How should you introduce them?
We don’t do labels.
So no child in care is ever, ever described to anyone as a foster child or a child in care. They are our child. Generally only those who need to know are told their status. And for anyone who needs to know (doctor, teacher), the basic facts are sufficient and explain all that needs to be said.
Foster care is the child’s legal status. So why should that be what describes them?
We sometimes used to feel like the system gives these children a secret stamp – only visible to it – that said ‘Child in Care’. Different rules apply to ‘normal’ children. This feeling wasn’t helped by the workers’ frequent response, when we disagreed about a particular action, that ‘this is what we do for all our children in care’. One approach suits all? We knew enough other carers to know that wasn’t true.
This issue about labels is really important.
Labels are pejorative. They are loaded with meaning. We have heard of children in out of home care having the term ‘foster child’ flung at them in the school playground in a derisory way.
Come to think of it, maybe the term ‘foster care’ has had its day. What does ‘foster’ mean anyway? Out-of-home care isn’t much better.
Here’s the definition of foster from dictionary.com:
We like number 3 – to care for or cherish.
We made a commitment to bring a child into our family to show them what it means to be cherished. Often they won’t have had that before. Make no mistake – often they have been the centre of attention, and had lots of people spending lots of time reviewing what’s best for them. But they won’t have been cherished. It’s the strength of that individual care that makes a difference to their lives.
We can show children what constant, unchanging love looks like, in all its shapes and colours and circumstances. We can show them how to receive it and give it. Most people take that for granted.
So we provide family care.
Maybe Family Care is the new description. A new family is caring for this child. What do you think?
Posted by EssentialMum
We don’t do labels.
So no child in care is ever, ever described to anyone as a foster child or a child in care. They are our child. Generally only those who need to know are told their status. And for anyone who needs to know (doctor, teacher), the basic facts are sufficient and explain all that needs to be said.
Foster care is the child’s legal status. So why should that be what describes them?
We sometimes used to feel like the system gives these children a secret stamp – only visible to it – that said ‘Child in Care’. Different rules apply to ‘normal’ children. This feeling wasn’t helped by the workers’ frequent response, when we disagreed about a particular action, that ‘this is what we do for all our children in care’. One approach suits all? We knew enough other carers to know that wasn’t true.
This issue about labels is really important.
Labels are pejorative. They are loaded with meaning. We have heard of children in out of home care having the term ‘foster child’ flung at them in the school playground in a derisory way.
Come to think of it, maybe the term ‘foster care’ has had its day. What does ‘foster’ mean anyway? Out-of-home care isn’t much better.
Here’s the definition of foster from dictionary.com:
- to promote the growth or development of; further; encourage, to foster new ideas
- to bring up, raise, or rear as a foster child
- to care for or cherish
- British, to place (a child) in a foster home
We like number 3 – to care for or cherish.
We made a commitment to bring a child into our family to show them what it means to be cherished. Often they won’t have had that before. Make no mistake – often they have been the centre of attention, and had lots of people spending lots of time reviewing what’s best for them. But they won’t have been cherished. It’s the strength of that individual care that makes a difference to their lives.
We can show children what constant, unchanging love looks like, in all its shapes and colours and circumstances. We can show them how to receive it and give it. Most people take that for granted.
So we provide family care.
Maybe Family Care is the new description. A new family is caring for this child. What do you think?
Posted by EssentialMum