The End of May

In an attempt to climb out of blogging doldrums, I'm posting two links here to commemorate the end of National Foster Care Month, and the end of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Thought Leader Forum on Disproportionality: This is a very interesting link that someone just left in my comments. it's to a forum exploring issues in racial disproportionality in foster care. I will be going through it and listening to some of the sound clips soon. Here's one that I'm going to find especially interesting, as it touches on a local Atlanta issue: "Ray Torres, executive director of Casey Family Services, explores the impact of disproportionality on Hispanic foster children, as well as the urgent need for Hispanic foster parents to improve outcomes for these children".

Fallout Central: Along with the OCA, Fallout Central organized a swift, powerful and effective defense against recent racist attacks by DJs JV & Elvis. Their show was taken off the air. Yay for victory!

In personal news, things are moving pretty slowly. My husband and I have decided on a lifestyle change that is going to improve our home life while also preparing for the arrival of kids. We'd been getting into a habit of internet surfing at night. From now on once I get home from work, no more internet. We'll be doing more reading together on weekday nights. I know, it sounds like one solitary activity replacing the other, but we both think reading together is much more involving.

I finally finished Stephen Saylor's book, Roma, and I was not terribly impressed with it. I love, love, love his Gordianus the Finder mystery series, and this book was also all about Roman history, but organized as a James Michener-type multigenerational historic novel. Saylor is a great writer but this particular genre is not a good fit for him. Historical fiction and science fiction face exactly the same problem of how to impart background information to the reader. There are many potential solutions, and sometimes nakedly artificial ones are better than forced natural ones. In the detective format, background information comes along naturally as the detective follows the clues. But in Roma, there were way too many passages like this:

"Hello my friend Tortuous Prosus Historicus, what a coincidence running into you at this significant geographic location on the anniversary of an important event that happened fifty years ago to an ancestor of mine."

"Nice to see you too, Expositor Pompus Maximus. You know, a strange fit of amnesia came over me, and I seem to have forgotten all the important political and cultural events of the last fifty years, by Jupiter, so could you go ahead and give me a recap?"

Oh boy do I hate that stuff, but once I skimmed through those passages the rest of the book was not too bad. I do highly recommend his detective series, starting with Roman Blood.

He didn't make it

RIP.

A week later, victim of L5P shooting dies of injuries

Living with Gun Crime

I have some more depressing local news to report. A friend of my husband's was shot in the head late last night and is currently in critical condition. Here is the news brief.

It was a failed mugging. These happen a lot. A friend of mine was shot in the chest near that same corner (he's fine now).

I hate this kind of bullshit, I hate loser thugs who think a gun makes them big men, and I hate guns!

My husband is terribly upset, and we're really hoping his friend makes it through.

I have never experienced gun violence directly, thank goodness, but living in this kind of society means that it's a constant low-grade presence. I feel safe, but I have to make a lot of concessions to feel safe. It would be nice to live somewhere like Japan where you can walk down the street late at night without worrying that some random person will randomly murder you.

Personal Update

I'm still working up to that foster care in Japan post.

In adoption news, our homestudy has officially been state approved. We're now sending off inquiries at the rate of two a day. Some of them we have to take off the list pretty quickly. For example, there was a sibling group legal risk placement that we had to back out on because it turns out we're only licensed for legal risk placements in our own state. So far our caseworker has been very responsive and the process is slightly less painful than I thought it would be.

In local news, right now the whole city of Atlanta is like a giant nasty smoke-filled bar. Visibility is very low. I blame anti-environmentalist peckerheads.

The State of Georgia's own policies—or lack of policies—may be partially to blame for the past month's destruction of a quarter-million acres by wildfires in the southeastern part of the state. At least one prominent naturalist has suggested that the state has historically failed to properly manage the area's vast tracts of timberland.

[...]

Absolutely Horrifying Foster Abuse in South Dakota

I've been putting together a positive post about a Japanese organization promoting foster care. I happened to stumble across this abuse story in the meanwhile. I think it might pick up a lot of notoriety soon.

I have never heard of such cold and cerebral violation. I hope the abuser goes to jail for the rest of his disgusting life.

How can we give good foster parents the support they need, keep them from burning out, and keep the bad ones from being foster parents in the first place? It would make sense, if we aligned our national budget with better priorities, to pay foster parents a $30,000 base salary with frequent raises for experience, additional training and degrees in child development and special education. Then raise the bar like crazy. Perhaps an extended pre-licensing-approval period including a psychological exam?

Someone like Klaudt who becomes a foster parent so they can violate the most vulnerable children... this should never, ever be allowed to happen.

05/18/2007
Former SD Legislator Arrested On Sex Charges

A former South Dakota lawmaker is accused of molesting his own foster children and legislative pages.

Ted Klaudt, 49, a Republican rancher from Walker, faces a long list of charges: eight counts of rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of witness tampering, sexual contact with a person under 16, and stalking.

Court documents mention five possible victims. Three were foster children between the ages of 15 and 19 who lived with Klaudt's family. One is a cousin of one of those girls, and the fifth is a friend of Klaudt's daughter.

In the most disturbing accusation, the girls say Klaudt had them convinced they could earn up to $20,000 by donating their eggs to a fertility clinic. And even though he has no medical training, the girls say Klaudt did all the supposed "exams" and "procedures" himself.

Former State Representative Ted Klaudt is accused of manipulating, molesting, intimidating and threatening teenage girls who the state of South Dakota paid him to raise.

[...]

Another complaint, this time against Lou Dobbs

Left at CNN.com via this form:

I am writing regarding your news personality Lou Dobbs to complain about his racist insults against Latinos. I received an email from the Southern Poverty Law Center with some shocking information which I am quoting below:

"Despite being confronted with undisputed evidence to the contrary, Mr. Dobbs says he stands '100 percent behind' the claim that there have been 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the U.S. in recent years. What's more, he has attributed part of the increase to 'unscreened illegal immigrants.'

The truth, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is that new leprosy cases peaked in 1985 at 361 and have declined since, even as the number of undocumented immigrants has increased. The source for Dobbs' outrageous leprosy claim is an anti-immigration zealot who once publicly stated that 'most' Latino immigrant men 'molest girls under 12, although some specialize in boys, and some in nuns."

This email was quite alarming to me, because here I was thinking I lived in the 21st century. What's next? Will Dobbs accuse Latinos of spreading the bubonic plague and poisoning our water supply? Stealing babies and mutilating cattle? Perhaps his next plan is to for America to gather them up and burn them at the stake! I cannot believe a modern news channel is supporting this superstitious claptrap.

Until the hate-spewing Mr. Dobbs is taken off your channel, I will not watch it anymore, and will let others know the news contained therein is simply not trustworthy.

Study on Racial Disproportionality in Foster Care

Although there isn't a lot of actual news in this article, it's a great introduction to a very complicated subject. It's going to be interesting to see what the upcoming study says.

I believe there is a lot of systemic racism feeding into this issue. This doesn't mean that white social workers are all running around grabbing black babies. In fact, almost all the social workers I meet are black, but I'd be willing to bet that there is still major disproportionality in Atlanta counties. It's a systemic problem, and the solution is going to take a huge amount of collective work.

Report on Reasons Behind Disproportionate Number of Blacks in Foster Care Due Next Month
Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2007
By: Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com

A long awaited investigation into the causes behind the disproportionate representation of blacks and other children of color in the foster care system is scheduled to be released in late June, according to the Government Accountability Office, which is conducting the probe.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) asked the GAO in September 2005 to investigate the causes of disproportionate placement and to recommend solutions following a report from the Congressional Research Office, which showed that black and American Indian children were about twice as likely to be among the children entering the foster care system than their overall presence in the general population.

According to that report, theories about racial disproportion in the child welfare system suggest that children of color are more likely to be poor or from single parent homes, which are considered risk factors for maltreatment; that they come into contact more often with social services officials who are likely to report such mistreatment; that biased assumptions likely spur social service employees to report children of color to child protective services, and that children of color have less access to preventive services or conditions that promote permanent placement.

However, the National Incidence Survey, which collects data to measure the mistreatment of children, including incidents not reported to Child Protective Services, have consistently found no link between race and the incident of maltreatment in the general population. National studies show there is no significant difference across racial lines for the number of children who are subjected to abuse and neglect.

[...]

Asian-Pacific Heritage Month PSA

Here's a PSA to get this blog back into a good mood. Go Beau Sia!

No More Entourage (it sucks now, anyways)

I sent a message via this form in response to an episode of Entourage I saw last night after the Sopranos.

Do the writers of the show realize that May is Asian-American heritage month? The last thing I want to see is another example of Asians treated as sex objects servicing their white masters.

I used to enjoy watching Entourage but I have grown increasingly disgusted with the treatment of Asians on the show. Lance's character seemed promising, but the only show on which his character really mattered was one where he was a prostituted sex object. And now the massage parlor episode...

I will not watch this show anymore.

NY Times article on a special needs adoption from China

There was an account in the New York Times today about a mother adopting from China. The child, presumed healthy, was in fact very ill, and after their first meeting, the diagnosis was made that the child would probably be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life. The response is a heartwarming counterpoint to the depressing case I wrote about a few weeks ago.

My First Lesson in Motherhood

[...]

“In cases like these, we can make a rematch with another baby,” the one in charge said. The rest of the process would be expedited, and we would go home on schedule. We would simply leave with a different girl.

Months before, we had been presented with forms asking which disabilities would be acceptable in a prospective adoptee — what, in other words, did we think we could handle: H.I.V., hepatitis, blindness? We checked off a few mild problems that we knew could be swiftly corrected with proper medical care. As Matt had written on our application: “This will be our first child, and we feel we would need more experience to handle anything more serious.”

Now we faced surgeries, wheelchairs, colostomy bags. I envisioned our home in San Diego with ramps leading to the doors. I saw our lives as being utterly devoted to her care. How would we ever manage?

Yet how could we leave her? Had I given birth to a child with these conditions, I wouldn’t have left her in the hospital. Though a friend would later say, “Well, that’s different,” it wasn’t to me.

I pictured myself boarding the plane with some faceless replacement child and then explaining to friends and family that she wasn’t Natalie, that we had left Natalie in China because she was too damaged, that the deal had been a healthy baby and she wasn’t.

How would I face myself? How would I ever forget? I would always wonder what happened to Natalie.

I knew this was my test, my life’s worth distilled into a moment. I was shaking my head “No” before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. “She’s our daughter,” I said. “We love her.”

Matt, who had been sitting on the bed, lifted his glasses, and, wiping the tears from his eyes, nodded in agreement.

[...]

The ending lines could have been written directly to me. Nothing is ever sure. We have to hope for strength.

We would not have chosen the burdens we anticipated, and in fact we declared upfront our inability to handle such burdens. But we are stronger than we thought.

Mother's Day Post

I had originally thought of a long post for the occasion but I just don't have the time. I'm installing a content management system for my mother's website. Not the most sentimental present, but I think it will be much appreciated.

I don't talk about my mother very much on this blog, probably because I have very little to complain about. I mean, I love my dad, but he's nuts. My mother is just an all-around superwoman and her accomplishments are amazing. I'm fortunate to have had a very close relationship with her for 100% of my life.

I'm also giving a donation on her behalf to a great organization called MADRE that advocates for women and families all over the world.

Fugees Soccer in Clarkston

As I mentioned in a post a while back, my mother has done some work tutoring refugee children. She got my husband to start doing it as well. He's been assigned to a boy in the 6th grade who also happens to be on the famous Fugees soccer team!

Here's an interview with their coach.

Here's their website.

These kids are doing great, but they still face a lot of hardship. Life is not suddenly all sunshine and roses now that they're in the US. Many of their families are dealing with PTSD on top of poverty.

I'm proud of my husband. He loves tutoring and has really gotten worked up about the positive male parenting stuff he learned at the conference last month. The volunteer manager is so happy to get a rare male tutor into the program.

Matching Meeting

Our matching meeting was reassuring. A lot of the stuff I knew already, but having our worker repeat it to us in a calm voice made a huge difference.

I now have a list of 30 children from photolistings, and some of them are two-brother and two-sister groups. Our worker explained that she'll send of inquiries and phone messages on all of them. Maybe a third of the caseworkers will get back to her. Often, the listings are out of date. She reminded us that diagnoses and need levels can be unreliable. An unscrupulous foster parent might be exaggerating the need level in order to get a higher state subsidy. Yikes! Conversely, a caseworker or foster parent may be downplaying the significance of certain issues for various reasons. She encouraged us to have her inquire on any child that fit our parameters even remotely.

I've heard stories of people sending off inquiries for hundreds of photolistings before getting back one response that the child's caseworker might be interested in them as a possible placement.

Age: 0-7. Almost all the children on our list are 4-7. Because we're not a medically qualified home, no serious physical disabilities. It's so sad how many of the kids are in wheelchairs or need to be fed through tubes. We don't know sign language or have any experience with severe visual impairment. No mental retardation, or other conditions that would mean the child would only be able to live independently with great difficulty. No FAS or full-blown RAD, or severe psychiatric disorders. Mild to moderate needs for pretty much everything else is fine. We feel especially confident about speech disorders and learning disabilities. We understand many children will have ADHD or ADHD-like behavior (this is a whole other topic I want to write a lot about later, because we have some pretty intense ADHD genes in one branch of our family), attachment issues, grief and loss, massive emotional trauma, tantrumming, etc., and we're doing as much training as possible on the issues we think we can handle. Many of our parameters have an easy justification: children with higher level needs usually need a full-time stay-at-home parent and will say that in their listings.

Applying these parameters still gives me a nasty feeling, like I'm cherry-picking... arggh. That's all I can say. I used to work with mentally handicapped children a long time ago and I especially feel bad about passing over them. They are wonderful. If I had a biological child like some of those children I worked with, I would be fully committed from the beginning... but I feel like I just couldn't dive into the middle.

The ten-year-old is back on our list, though. Our worker encouraged us to put him back in, and my husband and I leaped at the chance.

We had dinner with my parents tonight, and my stepfather asked me when I was going to bring home his fishing buddy! I tried to explain the intricacies of the coming matching stage. Damn, it's going to be tough.

Next week, we're going to another training seminar on transracial adoption. I can't wait to see what the audience demographic is going to be.

Weekend Update

I've been down in the dumps lately. A lot of little projects and long-term goals I have just don't seem to be going well... or going at all.

One major trigger is that I'm not doing ESL this semester. I'd dropped out of the teacher pool in advance in order to be around more for my father. Now that he's long since returned to independence and Japan, I really need to get back into it, or else pick up another volunteer teaching position. That would improve my mood enormously.

On Monday, we're having a matching meeting. We'll get to read through our homestudy and discuss the matching process. Our homestudy approval has been delayed for two annoying reasons: my husband's fingerprints were smudged on the criminal background check paperwork and had to be redone, and my drug test results weren't entered correctly by the lab company. Both of these got fixed quickly and we're now on the record as Mrs. Fresh and Mr. Clean. Amazingly, my husband's teenage mushroom enterprise failed to materialize in the background check. It must have been too old and too trifling. We still have a statement about it in the application, though.

I've sent our caseworker some photolistings I've been looking at. I ran them past my husband and we had to drop one off, which was very sad. I am sure we'll have many such difficult decisions in this coming stage. The boy was above our age range, at 10 years old. There was something about him that we would have been uniquely qualified for, but he also had a serious diagnosis of something that we're not very qualified for.

My husband pointed out that when the boy hit the difficult age of 12-13 he would have been with us for only a couple years, and the situation might get out of our control. That was something I'd never thought about, but it makes sense to me. I realized I might feel more secure parenting a kid on the other side of puberty, say 15 to 17.

It's terrifying jumping into this kind of stuff as new parents, knowing so little about the children who'll be coming to you.

I've heard that the first three years are crucial in childhood development. I've also heard conflicting ideas. "Raising a little kid is easy, just keep them warm and fed and hug them. The hard part is when they get older and start asking tough questions and going through identity crises."

My mother just tells me I was a perfect kid and being a mom was always like a walk in the park. It's nice to hear, but not especially helpful when it comes to triage and thinking of all the stuff that could go wrong.

I think we'll stick with the range of 0-7. In realistic terms this will probably translate to a 4-7 range, unless a foster-to-adopt situation comes up.

Housing Aid for Parents Adopting from the Foster Care System

I was recently made aware of this program because an adoptive mother on another forum recently bought her house this way. It's too bad that only New Jersey and a few other states have programs like this.

There are very strict rules about the pre-adoptive period when adopting from foster care. I've written about this before, but in Georgia, siblings are not allowed to share a bedroom past the age of three if they are of opposite sexes.

I can only imagine the hardship this causes in very high-density urban places. Let's say you have adopted a boy from the foster care system. The boy has two sisters, and a year later they also end up in the foster care system. The parent really wants to keep the family together, but they don't happen to have an extra bedroom in their small apartment. If they don't adopt the sisters, they could end up in an adoptive home several states away, or even a group home if they're older.

The parent could make do for a while. Perhaps they could screen off part of the living room and set up a sofabed. They'll work hard and in a year they'll be able to get a bigger place. Families make do like this all the time. It's not ideal but it's not terrible. However, pre-adoptive rules may disallow this kind of arrangement.

It would be almost impossible for a moderate income person living in an urban area to adopt some of the available sibling groups. Groups of five, six, seven kids... they deserve to stay together, but how? They get split up, or else stay together, but shuttled back and forth among the few foster families who have a really big house.

There's a great need for these kinds of programs.

Commissioner Levin Relaunches Program to Benefit At-Risk Youth

[...]

The expanded Home Ownership for Permanency Project (HOPP) was created by DCA and HMFA to help children placed in foster care due to the loss of one or both parents, abandonment, abuse or neglect. The program benefits children who are available for adoption but are unable to be placed due to a prospective family’s lack of adequate and affordable housing.

"HOPP gives families with poor credit the ability to make needed home improvements that will allow them to adopt or become legal guardians through the Division of Youth and Family Services or a state-licensed adoption agency," Commissioner Levin added. "Through the program, we can encourage adoption that would otherwise not be possible, allowing families to remain together and creating permanent homes for at-risk and special needs children."

HOPP is available to individuals and families who have made a commitment to adopt a child or children, and grandparents or relative caregivers who have legal guardianship. Eligible participants receive services such as below market-rate first mortgages, second mortgages for home improvements to accommodate the needs of adoptive children, and refinancing of first mortgages.

HOPP was created through a partnership with DCA, HMFA, the New Jersey Department of Human Services, the Division of Youth and Family Services, and the Catastrophic Illness in Children Relief Fund Commission.

"Together, we are lending a helping hand to adoptive or foster families by offering them financing to provide good homes for children in need," Commissioner Levin said. "This not only ensures the affordability of housing and rehabilitates homes for the state’s hardworking families – it rehabilitates the lives of children who are desperately in need of families that can love and care for them."