The Benefits of "Open" Adoption

A few days ago, when Sunny was mad at me for giving him a consequence for backtalking, he said,

"I can't wait to go to [Foster Mom]'s this summer!"

After he'd calmed down and apologized, I asked him,

"You said what you said about going away this summer because you were mad and you wanted to hurt me, right?"
"Yes. I'm sorry."
"I understand that you were mad, but that wasn't a good choice. Anyway, I'm happy you're getting to visit [Foster Mom]. I'm going to miss you when you're gone for the week, but you're not going to hurt me by talking about going to visit [Foster Mom]. Also, does [Foster Mom] tolerate backtalk either?"
"Oh no she doesn't!"
"OK then."

My only concern about sending him off by himself is the short time he'll be alone on the airplane. I've flown unaccompanied myself as a child for very long flights, and I did well. But then, I've seen other children flying unaccompanied who just sob uncontrollably the whole time. And then there's this story and this story. Yikes! I think he'll be OK as long as he has something to keep him occupied. And we've also had some talks with him about what he should do in case of inappropriate touching.

The trip is going to be great from a financial perspective. I looked into short special needs summer camps at one point, and found a few that sounded awesome and therapeutic, but they all cost about a gazillion dollars. Staying with his foster family, he gets experienced special needs care, at absolutely no cost! If I offered, I know she would refuse. I'm going to send some spending money with him anyway, but she'll probably just send it right back.

NN (Sunny's bio maternal grandmother) has become pretty close to Sunny's foster family. She doesn't have a real visitation schedule anymore, she just comes over when she can to see BB, and sometimes helps Sunny's foster mom by babysitting while she takes other kids to therapy or court dates. So it will be a visit with her as well.

I suppose we have an open adoption, in the sense that we have a totally open relationship with Sunny's foster family. It's been easy to navigate. I check out the questions at Open Adoption Support sometimes, but I really have very few questions I need answered myself. Our relationship with NN is a bit more complicated but still very open. That's really been more like a "classic" open adoption scenario. We have no contact with his bio father and likely will not have any contact for many years. The relationship with his mother, on the other hand, is uniquely challenging because of her death. She's present, but present as an absence. In terms of the logistics of contact and the setting of boundaries, things could not be simpler; in terms of emotions, they could not be more complicated. If she were still alive, Sunny might have more issues about divided loyalties between his "three moms", but he also wouldn't be suffering terribly from the knowledge of questions that will never be asked or answered, words that will never be said or heard...

Sunny is especially fond of his former foster brother, who is now 4 years old. I guess I'll call him FFB. FFB came into foster care as a baby, a little after Sunny started living with his foster family, and they were very close to each other. I think he loves BB in an abstract way, but he loves FFB in a much more immediate way. When I was talking to him recently about BB, he asked if FFB could come live with us too! I reminded him that FFB had another family that he stayed with, so absolutely not.

There's some major drama going on there. Basically, FFB was reunited after a few years with Sunny's foster mom. FFB was no longer a foster child. But the two families kept up a connection. FFB's mother or father would drop him off at his ex-foster mom's home for 3-7 days at a time. Sunny's foster mom has complained about the arrangement to me. She especially complains about that fact that FFB's social skills always got better when FFB was with her, and deteriorated again when he stayed with his mother or father. She talked about constantly giving them advice, but none of the advice seemed to sink in. Then FFB's mother had another baby, and then another baby. She continued dropping them off at Sunny's foster mom's house for long, random periods.

I was at first amazed that Sunny's foster mom kept doing this. She's not a doormat by any means! She explained to me, however, that if she reported the parents for doing this, FFB would probably go into foster care again, and might not end up with her, and she didn't want his attachment disrupted. I don't think I've ever met anyone as pragmatically compassionate as her.

I think a lot of people would want to "teach FFB's mom a lesson" by not giving free babysitting. But Sunny's foster mom doesn't fit that paradigm. She doesn't trust the parents; she doesn't bother trying to control them either, and she doesn't get too emotionally invested in how they live their lives. Que será, será. She's focused more on FFB and what he needs.

Unfortunately, at this point, FFB's mom has too many kids for them all to go to Sunny's foster mom if their case gets opened again. And it looks like the case is about get opened again, from what she tells me. FFB's parents have had years to get their lives back together... years in which they've had a totally reliable source of on-demand, high-quality, free childcare. But it's not happening. It's a depressing situation.  

As a result of FFB staying at Sunny's old house so much, Sunny has been able to keep up a relationship with him. He saw him on our last visit, and he talks to him on the phone sometimes. One of his first questions when he calls up his foster mom is always, "Is [FFB] there?"

I think this goes to illustrate that once someone has been her child for a while, in her mind, they're always going to be her child, whether they live with her or not, or whether they also have other parents.

Octuplet Rage and Foster Care

I'm not interested in attacking or defending the woman who had octuplets. I still don't fully comprehend why she's getting so much attention. I'm beginning to work it out, and the reasons are ugly.

As someone who's going through fertility treatments (albeit pretty mild ones) I know a fair amount about reproductive technology and about what having octuplets involves. It's scary. I would never get into that situation. If I even got CLOSE to that situation, I would hit the big red flashing ABORT button.

I think she made a pretty bad decision. I also think her doctor is unethical and the ART field should be more regulated, much like it is in Europe.

But in a larger context, people make bad decisions all the time... much worse decisions than she's made. There are men who go around creating babies like freaking lawn sprinklers without feeling the slightest sense of responsibility. These men don't end up all over the news. They don't get anonymous death threats because they're "wasting taxpayer money."

The hatred for her is way out of proportion. An article at Racialicious looks at the racial angle, and there definitely is a connection, because some of the vitriol ties into anti-immigrant sentiment. Ultimately, I think it's more like 60% sexism and 30% class and 10% race. She's become the archetypal "bad mother," a scapegoat for societal fear and loathing about women.

I just don't see what she's done to deserve all this rage. One criticism is that she's "stealing from taxpayers". What about all the bailed-out executives who got billions in bonuses? Her media rights will probably be enough cover medical expenses anyway, and even if they're not, any added tax burden is dwarfed by other more successful, less hated thieves.

The most disturbing part is the dehumanizing language toward her children, with so many people calling them a "litter". Whatever you've judged that she's done, they're little babies. Sins of the mother? Come on.

I wasn't going to post anything, but Torina just put up a rant, and I have to chime in and say that I feel much the same way. Apparently some of the commenters on this case are even saying that her babies should be taken away, which is ridiculous.

I CARE. I care about every kid out there. But those octuplet babies are STILL BEING TAKEN CARE OF. Let's worry about the KIDS THAT ARE NOT BEING TAKEN CARE OF. HELLOOOO!!!! They are all around us! There are 650 kids waiting in to be adopted from foster care in Minnesota RIGHT NOW. If you care about children, what about these kids???

Kids are removed because their parents NEGLECTED THEM, BEAT THEM, SEXUALLY ABUSED THEM. Not because their mom had too many eggs implanted by some idiot doctor. Let's start caring about the kids we already KNOW need us. These octuplet kids, as hare-brained as their mom might be, she hasn't hurt them or done anything criminal yet. So let's move on to the kids who really need us.

And to address another type of comment on this case -- as I've said here before, using children in foster care to condemn parenting choices you don't like can be really exploitative. "The octuplets' mother should have adopted from foster care" -- I don't think so. She sounds way too immature to handle that. I'm adopting from foster care, and I don't go around using my choice as some kind of self-righteous bludgeon, because that's not fair to anyone, including my son. Whenever anyone says "X should have adopted a waiting child instead of Y" I always wonder, have they put their money where their mouth is, have they themselves been through foster care, or have they been involved extensively in some other way? And if none of those things are true, they probably need to shut the hell up, because they're just exploiting the existence of waiting children without helping the situation at all.

Vote For Me!

If you're signed up at http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov and have few spare seconds, vote up or comment on my ideas.

They're too focused and specific to make it into the finals, and I also stuck to creating ones that hadn't already been mentioned. However, the site is going to give them a LOT more exposure than they would have had otherwise.

Encourage Foster Care Adoption - End Tax Credit For Private/International Adoption

I am an adoptive parent of an older child from state foster care. Our adoption costs nothing, and he will receive a subsidy until he is 18 and I will also get a one-time $10,000 tax credit.

This is a good incentive for people to adopt from foster care. There are many older children in the system waiting to be adopted. In the case of my son and many others, the option of placing him with birth relatives was explored for many years, but it did not happen because they were not willing.

The incentive makes sense because if these children are not adopted, the government will spend even more money maintaining them in foster care. The outcome is worse for the child and for the taxpayer.

However, what doesn't make sense is that private adoption (people who pay adoption agencies money for infant adoption from birth mothers) and international adoption parents also receive this $10,000 tax credit.

I am not against these forms of adoption, although I do think they need to be regulated more. However, I don't think they should be subsidized by the government, especially when there are so many older children in state systems waiting to be adopted. The money would be better spent improving and reforming our foster care system.

The private adoption agencies that charge money for adoption just pass the cost of the tax credit on to the parents anyway. They may market babies to parents by saying, "oh, this adoption is going to cost $25,000 but since you get the tax credit it's really going to be 'only' $15,000". Without the tax credit, maybe they would just charge $15,000 anyway.

This tax credit is only a sop to the adoption agencies. It should be ended, and this will save the government money. It should also encourage people to look into FREE adoption of waiting children from the foster care system who might not otherwise have an adoptive home.

Standardize College Accreditation and Regulate "Rip-Off" Colleges

College accreditation in the U.S. is a confusing mix. The highest standard is actually regional accreditation*. Six regional agencies establish accreditation of every school from Harvard to two-year community colleges.

National accreditation is something quite different, and regionally accredited schools usually won't accept nationally accredited credits. Many diploma mills and for-profit schools take advantage of this situation to rip off students.

Many for-profit technical colleges are owned by corporations who spent most of their money on marketing and advertising, not on teachers and students. Their targets are working-class and minority and military and immigrant students. They promise that they can help get student loans to pay the overinflated tuition (when the student could go to a less-flashy, government-subsidized community college for 5% of the tuition). They use “hard sell” tactics, walk the students through taking out large loans telling them they are guaranteed to get some wonderful job with NASA if they sign on the dotted line. Once in, they will attempt to pass you through even if your work is not up to college level. Teachers are encouraged never to fail students in order to keep the tuition stream (composed mainly of student loans) flowing. If students graduate, they graduate with a substandard education that many employers don’t even respect, plus crushing student loans. Many default.

College accreditation needs to be tightened up, federalized and made simpler. And then higher education marketing should be much more regulated. You shouldn’t be able to promise some of the crazy stuff those people promise.**

I suggest that the regional accreditors should be combined into a new federal standard. No matter whether you are studying for a PhD in Philosophy or a community college certificate as an Automotive Technician, you should be guaranteed a minimum standard of education.

All for-profit colleges should be required to provide students with impartial information about tuition, college budgets and probability of credit acceptance. If they make claims about future employment, they must be able to back up these claims. Any college making outrageous promises or using "hard sell" techniques should be fined out of existence.

America is falling behind in many educational areas, and improving our accreditation system should be a low-cost, high-benefit element of any higher education plan.

* read more about accreditation at http://distancelearn.about.com/od/accreditationinfo/a/regional.htm

** Here is one example, among many, of a lawsuit involving such false claims.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DR

Fully Fund Efforts to Combat the Hepatitis C Epidemic

Hepatitis C is the most common blood-borne chronic viral infection in the United States. Once exposed, most individuals remain persistently infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), with 70% developing chronic liver disease and its often life-threatening conditions. At least 4 million Americans currently have chronic hepatitis C, with 25,000 new infections occurring every year. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the death rate from HCV-related liver disease will triple by the year 2019. No other disease burden is expected to increase as rapidly as that of hepatitis C in the coming decade.

Despite these staggering statistics, the federal government has not provided adequate funding or legislation to mount a comprehensive effort against the disease. Only $17 million is spent each year on viral hepatitis programs. This funding is not enough for states to provide testing, surveillance, prevention, and education services – let alone care and treatment for those in need.

My stepfather has lived with this disease for many years. He contracted it as a medic in the Vietnam War. It is estimated that at least 10% of all Vietnam veterans have Hepatitis C. He receives regular monitoring and treatment at a VA hospital, but his long-term future is frighteningly unknown.

I ask that you address this serious public health crisis in three ways:

-- Add language on your website about the hepatitis C epidemic and how you plan to address it.
-- Support a $50 million in Fiscal Year 2009 funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Viral Hepatitis Programs.
-- Support the "Hepatitis C Epidemic Control and Prevention Act *" or similar Act which would create a comprehensive effort by the federal government to address the epidemic.

*http://olpa.od.nih.gov/legislation/109/pendinglegislation/hepatitisc.asp

Nebraska Comment

This is a great comment from that thread I talked about yesterday. I'd really like to mark it here and think about it some more.

# with compassion says:
November 12th, 2008 at 12:44 am

I applaud this forum for the variety and thoughtfulness of opinions offered.

This particular law in Nebraska may need to be revised to accurately reflect its original intent to protect newborns and their mothers. However, the issue of desperate parents who see no other option than to give up their older children is not as isolated as we might wish to think, nor is it going away.

I am a mental health professional working in a state-funded program for teenagers who are beyond their parents' control and still living at home. At least once a week, I hear a parent say, "Have the state come get my child." It is ALWAYS startling to hear. Nearly all of these parents change their minds when they learn that they will face abandonment charges or risk losing their other children. Yet their real and daily struggle doesn’t go away.

In the best of circumstances, parents become actively engaged in treatment; with hard work, real change can be made and relief can be found. Yet too often, I see parents who are already exhausted and frustrated, hoping someone will simply "fix" their child. These are parents who know enough to ask for help and get their kid in a program, but who often turn down family therapy or fail to attend free parenting classes. Parental involvement in treatment is key to success. Some of these parents have physical ailments or mental health issues of their own. Some are single parents already working two jobs whose schedules make it difficult to do the work of family treatment, let alone monitor their child’s whereabouts and well-being. Now factor in that some have children who hit them, steal from them, run away, skip school, abuse drugs, bring strangers into their homes, or have innumerable other mental health or behavioral issues. These parents are demoralized, grief stricken and guilt stricken. Each family has its story and it is simply too easy to label "bad" parents and "bad" kids.

Now picture one of these kids getting pregnant…

A full solution would not just include effective laws, social programs and treatment, but also a reconsideration of how we as a society raise children. Even with treatment, struggling parents and children need extended family, friends, neighbors, and schools to take a real interest, and to offer support when one cannot do it alone. A frightened teen mom, a desperate parent of an out of control teen... how do we let this isolation occur? This is not just a matter for state agencies and law makers. It seems the best response would take place in multiple forums at multiple levels (legal, social, community, educational, family, individual, etc.), although the implementation is apparently not so simple.

I am left with the thought that we should not demonize others for their choices, shortcomings, struggles, or despair. I also agree that we have a society that dictates to everyone that they are supposed to parents yet often fails to address informed decision making about the responsibilities of parenting, or provide resources to those most in need. Sometimes even the best intentioned people find themselves in situations where there seem to be no options. Life does not always go according to plan. Do we alienate, leave it up to someone else, punish or help?

Safe Haven from a Non-Adoption Perspective

Here's a great discussion of Safe Haven (including Nebraska's variation) from a non-adoption perspective.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/11/11/safe-haven/
Psych services are infamously unavailable to the under- and uninsured unless one is a ward of the state. And sometimes when a child becomes a ward of the state services are over-assigned, so families whose employers aren’t as flexible, who don’t have the money to subsidize sliding-scale services, and have existing priorities for other children in the family, find it exceedingly difficult to move toward a successful family reunion. Moreover, family services are starved for cash and their clients are made to feel ashamed for needing their services in the first place.

Should these laws be revised to remove eligibility for children of a certain age to be admitted by parents as wards of the state, or is it better that kids are safely leaving environments in which their parents feel unable to care for them?

I agree with the position that Safe Haven laws protecting anonymity are a sop to the most regressive elements of the adoption industry. Anonymity does not benefit abandoned children in any way. I totally disagree with it. But anonymity is not the only issue involved here, and it's almost beside the point when it comes to older children.

How should parents be punished for abandonment? The question isn't as easy as it sounds. Yes, ideally, they should be discouraged from abandonment by having services offered to them to help keep their children. But what if those services just aren't there, or can't help? You will eventually end up with some cases where parents forced to keep children will then abuse or neglect that child, and the child might end up in foster care anyway.

As some commenters have noted, people with money can abandon their children easily. They send them off to boarding school or residential treatment centers. The poor don't have that option.

A Foster Parent in Need

Nothing much I can add...

Peoria:
Foster mother being sued after fatal fire and
Fire victim overcome by show of support

Valerie Edwards didn't feel her skin burning the morning her house was engulfed in flames.

She was determined to save her foster child, who was trapped in her crib upstairs.

"It was a blaze," said Edwards, who repeatedly entered her burning house the morning of Dec. 26 in an attempt to save 11-month-old Anariah West. "I ran out of the house, got some air, then went back in. All I was seeing in my head was that baby."

Firefighters eventually rescued the infant, but she died later that day of smoke inhalation.

Edwards, 50, suffered third-degree burns and was in a coma for about five weeks. Her house, 821 W. Spring Hollow, was destroyed in the fire, and she is facing nearly $1 million in medical bills, having been through several surgeries and only needing more. Full of pain, both physically and emotionally, Edwards didn't think it could get any worse.

Then last month, Edwards received a letter that she is being sued by Anariah's mother, Tanesha West, who is claiming damages in excess of $50,000 for the wrongful death of her baby.

Edwards and her husband had custody of Anariah and were hoping to adopt her, though Tanesha West was hoping to regain custody at an upcoming court hearing. The couple had adopted West's three other children two years ago, but they were staying with another relative at the time of the fire.

Tanesha West didn't return phone calls for comment, and her attorney, Peter LaSorsa, said he won't comment on ongoing cases.

"I never did anything to hurt her," Edwards said of Anariah on Tuesday as she sat at a picnic table at Glen Oak Park, tears streaming down her burned face.

Edwards' open wounds were attracting gnats that she struggled to bat away with the one arm she can bend, thanks to surgery that loosened the melted skin around her elbow. She wears sleeveless shirts so her clothes don't stick to her unhealed burns.

"I was pulling her back, and her skin was coming off in my hand," said Edwards' daughter Chevodkia Wade, 27, who escaped the fire through a basement window.

Firefighters were overcome by flames when they first tried to enter Anariah's bedroom from a ladder outside the house. When they finally got to the infant, her face and neck were severely burned, and she didn't have a pulse. She was resuscitated in an ambulance but died later that day of smoke inhalation.

Edwards and the Peoria Fire Department still don't know what caused the blaze.

"The cause was never pinned down by us or the investigators the insurance company brought in," said Peoria Fire Division Chief Emil Steinseifer. "No one could pin it down, so we all just left it undetermined."

The morning of the fire, Edwards woke to the sound of a smoke detector about 1 a.m. She pulled her 9-year-old niece, Jayla Clark, from the couch. Her nephew, Nikko Clark, 19, and her daughter, Khadjah Edwards, 17, also were in the house but escaped unharmed.

Edwards' husband, Elbert, was at work.

"My neighbor called me and told me my house was on fire and my baby was trapped inside," he remembers. "That was the night my world turned upside down. I lost my sanity."

He said he and his wife treated Anariah like she was their own child.

"We know we didn't do anything wrong," he said, remembering coming home from work every day, dropping his bag and going straight to the baby. "We just wanted to give that little girl an opportunity to make something of herself."

The couple is now living in a small house with their five children and two nephews. Elbert Edwards returned to work just three weeks ago, after battling depression and staying home to care for his wife, who had two jobs of her own before the fire.

"We have missed doctor bills, and a couple times, I didn't have gas to go to Springfield for treatment," Valerie Edwards said, though making a point she doesn't want pity. She's just thankful for her family's help doing chores she can't do anymore and also for strangers who approach her and tell her she's in their prayers.

The Edwards are scheduled to appear in court at the end of September, though they know they can't afford an attorney.

"I'm going to have to walk in there and tell them I didn't kill that baby," Valerie Edwards said confidently.

A fund for the Edwards family was set up this morning through Redbrand Credit Union. Donations may be made in person at any of the three local offices: 201 E. Lake. Ave., 820 Mckinley Ave. in Bartonville or 2910 Court St. in Pekin’s Sunset Shopping Plaza. Donations also may be mailed to Redbrand Credit Union, P.O. Box 4128, Bartonville, IL 61607. Please make checks payable to the Edwards Fund.

Important Foster Care Adoption Links

I'm working up to a longer post about the relationship between international adoption, private adoption and foster care adoption.

In the meantime, here are two important links I came across.

Eos linked to Brenda McCreight's blog. I didn't know she had one, so I'm looking forward to reading through it. McCreight wrote Parenting Your Adopted Older Child, which is one of the books I first read when we started along our road. I recommend it to everyone. It'll scare the bejeezus out of you. It's an incredibly depressing book because it's organized as a series of fictional problems, or issues, and none of them really have clear-cut solutions. One of the most terrifying was a scenario in which a couple adopted a child with no special needs except for ADHD, and they kept saying "but it's only ADHD!" as they slowly lost their sanity and their marriage fell apart.

Reform Foster Care Now, the NACAC blog, links to a major new report from adoptuskids.org: Barriers & Success Factors in Adoption From Foster Care: Perspectives of Families & Staff. I will also be reading through that report and summarizing it here as soon as I can. A while back, I commented on a prior report on the same topic from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute.

The NACAC blog also published this not very encouraging set of numbers.

More Children and Youth Waiting for a Family

The release of the latest AFCARS data shows that even more foster children and youth—129,000 in FY 2006 up from 114,000 in 2005—are waiting for a permanent, loving family. Sadly, the data also shows that more than 26,000 youth aged out of care in FY 2006 without finding a family—higher numbers than we've seen before. Adoptions from foster care remained steady at 51,000, and the overall number of children in care dropped slightly.

Clearly, there is a need for increased federal and state attention to finding and supporting families for foster children who cannot return home. It's time for legislative action that provides federal support of subsidized guardianship, increases access to adoption assistance, and enhances post-adoption support. Changes such as these would all help ensure that every child finds the permanent, loving family he needs and deserves, and that eventually no child leaves care without a legal connection to a family.

Foster Care Adoption Advice for People Starting Out - Part I

I just got a comment I should address now, as it's one that other readers may also be asking. Elaine comments:

... when you adopt from foster care, are you a foster mother first and then after a period of time you can finalize an adoption? Does the foster care system give you support (educational, emotional, resources, etc) during the pre-adoption period? Do you receive any financial support prior to finalization? What if problems arise? I am interested in the whole foster care system and adoptions from it.

There are three ways you can adopt from foster care. This doesn't count long-term foster placements by the way; these are just routes that lead to adoption.

1) Straight fostering. You get a foster license and begin taking foster placements. You can specify what kind of placements you accept. You will be expected to support whatever goal has been decided for the child. When one of your foster children is freed for adoption due to termination of parental rights, you will often be positioned first in line to adopt them.

2) Foster-to-Adopt. You get a foster license and begin taking foster placements, with the understanding that you are in this with the end goal of adopting. Your placements will be "adoption track" placements. This doesn't guarantee that the end result will not be reunification or kinship placement.

3) Straight Adoption. This is what I signed up for. You get a foster license, although it's often modified and different from a regular license. Your placement will be of children whose parental rights have already been terminated.

One of the big issues with foster care adoption is that it's incredibly variable. Some counties or states don't have foster-to-adopt programs at all. You can still foster with the goal of adopting, but your status is the same as any other foster parent.

There are three different kinds of intermediaries to use:

1) Directly through the state. Your local county will probably have the most placements. They will likely focus on fostering and foster-to-adopt. Straight adoption is not their priority. They only place local kids and will not cross state lines. There will be varying degrees of function and dysfunction... counties with less money will have really minimal services, everything is run on crisis mode and removed kids often have to spend the night on a couch in the social worker's office or even in jail. Most everyone I know says that their level of support from the local county/state is horrible, turnover is intense and that they are routinely lied to.

2) Private agency. There are many different kinds. I chose a local, secular agency. Some of the religious ones have restrictions I don't agree with. The large mainstream Protestant ones -- e.g. Lutheran, Methodist -- often don't have restrictions. These agencies contract with the state to place children. They will do a range of fostering, foster-to-adopt and straight adoption. My agency specializes in straight adoption from foster care. These agencies are usually completely free, like the state. You will get varying degrees of support, but I have always heard that you get more support from an agency than you would from the state.

3) Semi-Independent. If you go this route you pay someone to write your homestudy, pay your own lawyer, etcetera. I'm not familiar with this route so I can't say much about it. I've heard it's extremely difficult. Caseworkers for children don't like to talk directly to parents in the beginning stages.

There are two kinds of kids:

1) Special needs. Almost any child up for straight adoption is going to have special needs. It's a meaning of the term that basically indicates "harder to place". Here's the Georgia definition:

As defined for the purpose of adoption, Special Needs includes:
* African-American children older than one year of age
* Three or more brothers and sisters who need to be placed together
* Children age eight and older
* Children with documented physical, emotional or mental disabilities
* Two brothers and/or sisters, one of whom has a special need

In Atlanta, African-American children between one and eight are only technically listed as special needs. There are many parents who are very excited to adopt them. But in other areas of the state, such as predominantly rural white areas, they might be much harder to place.

I've heard some people say that having race listed as a special need is racist. The way I see it, it's that being a victim of racism is a special need. It simply reflects an ugly reality. Racial disproportionality in the foster care system is a terrible problem.

Special needs children will come with Medicaid and variable monthly subsidies. NACAC has more information.

2) Non-special needs. I don't know much about this area. I think these are infants. They might not get Medicaid or a subsidy, but sometimes they do. If a woman gives birth at a hospital, walks away and never comes back, and the infant is healthy, I think this would be the category.

Some more general guidelines and support specifics:

• Infants and very young children don't go into straight adoption unless they have major real special needs. Fostering or foster-to-adopt is the established route if you are only willing to adopt a very young child.
• The state will often be in "tit for tat" mode with foster parents: if you want an "adoptable" kid, you need to rack up brownie points by taking care of some "unadoptable" ones. The whole dynamic sounds kind of creepy, with everyone exploiting each other. I think that's why some locations don't even have foster-to-adopt programs. It seems like it's better to rely on a core of great foster parents who can whole-heartedly support a non-adoption goal, but there are often not enough of these around.
• When you foster, you are always paid a fostering subsidy. When you are in a straight adoption pre-adoptive placement you also get a subsidy. After you adopt you get a subsidy based on special needs level. Adoption subsidies are less than fostering subsidies; adoption ultimately saves money for the state.
• A special needs adoption gives you a $10-11,000 tax credit. These adoptions don't cost much money, so it's not a reimbursement, it's just a lump sum that reduces your taxes paid. The credit can be taken over several years. If your income is very high it phases out. The terrible part is that if your income is low and you don't pay enough taxes, you might not get the whole amount! Also, if you adopt a larger sibling group, it's very unlikely you'll get the full amount for each child back.
• Children with special needs are covered by Medicaid.
• Any route you take involves extensive mandatory training. My husband and I have taken almost 40 hours of formal training (and much more in informal research). The quality of the training can vary. I thought ours was great but I've heard other people say theirs was terrible.
• Foster-to-adopt can be difficult for people with no children. If you are desperate for a child the emotional impact of returning a child can be stronger. On the other hand, if you already have children, there's another impact to consider... how will they handle having a brother or sister going away?
• There are a million problems that can and do arise. Failed placements or adoption disruption, of course.
• In terms of pre-placement emotional support, I doubt the state will give you anything. The social workers are too busy taking care of immediate emergency needs of children to babysit foster or adoptive parents. You may get more support from agencies. Generally, we're on our own. It can get really depressing. Just look at some of my posts from December. Internet and local support groups are incredibly helpful. I would have quit this six months ago if I hadn't already met people who had done it successfully.
• After placement, support is (again) variable. Respite care is important. The only way to find out about post-placement support is to talk to people in your location.

House Bills to Support on Foster Care

I read about these at the NACAC blog, Reform Foster Care Now. There have been several bills introduced recently which sound like they should be supported. I'll email Hank Johnson about them.

The latest:

Key House Leader Introduces Broad Child Welfare Reform Bill

On February 14, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA), chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support (which has jurisdiction over the nation’s child welfare system) introduced The Investment in Kids Act, which seeks the first comprehensive reform of the U.S. child welfare system in nearly 30 years.

“Every American kid deserves a safe home and a secure life, and in the case of vulnerable children, it is up to us to make sure that happens,” McDermott said.

The legislation (HR 5466) would:

• provide additional funding to help states in their efforts to strengthen families and protect vulnerable children;
• make all foster children eligible for assistance for the first time (only 43% of foster children received federal aid in 2006);
• provide assistance to states to improve and retain their child welfare workforce;
• eliminate the aging out of foster kids at age 18 by extending support to the age of 21; and,
• provide financial support to grandparents and other relatives who want to care for foster children.

These critical changes would provided needed support that help vulnerable children have permanent families, and ensure that those families have the support they need.

Children can't wait. The time for reform is now.

Anna Mae He Case: "Anna Mae Goes to China"

Here's a long article about a major milestone in the Anna Mae He case. I wrote about my reaction to this case last year. My opinion of the Bakers is of course very, very negative. However, I'm glad to note that both families seem to be working together a bit, at least enough to preserve the positive relationship between their daughters.

I just want to note that the tone of the ABC News article is really over the top and offensive at several points. I know that Anna Mae will go through culture shock in China. I don't want to minimize that. But children move between countries all the time. I've certainly experienced it myself. Also, I don't see the news media engaging in this kind of emotional outpouring over the many 9-year-olds who are deported to Mexico after spending their entire lives in this country.

Take this passage:

The child's cultural roots are evident. She thinks Hannah Montana is cool (but can't tell you why); she skates around on retractable roller skate shoes, and at every opportunity, she pulls out her Game Boy. She likes to read, is a straight-A student, and wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.

And how well she fares in her new home in China is the big question on the lips and in the hearts of everyone from her adoptive parents in Tennessee, to judges who have ruled on her case, social workers who have sought to monitor the transition, friends and family of both the Bakers and the Hes, and an international television audience.

First of all, I wouldn't grant the Bakers the title of "adoptive parents". And secondly, there is NOTHING on that list of "cultural roots", besides Hannah Montana, that is specifically American. A Game Boy? I guess only Americans are allowed to have those. They're such an important part of our cultural heritage! It's as if the writers of this piece expect that the day after landing in China, Anna Mae will be forcibly stripped of her American gear, issued a pointy hat and a bucket and sent out into the rice paddies for the rest of her life.

Are you a fan of The Wire?

Then you should check out this book.



I'm incredibly busy but I found some time to start reading this memoir by the actress who plays Snoop on The Wire. She grew with her foster parents, who were great except that they were very elderly and couldn't keep her out of trouble. Like her character, she turned into a junior drug dealer and violent thug. She went to prison for murder but turned her life around when she got the job acting in The Wire.

If you haven't been following The Wire, here's a fantastic video that condenses four seasons into four minutes. A few of the subplots and minor characters get dropped but it really covers all the major stuff.

Foster Care, Ethics and Motivation

This is a scattershot link post to some recent interesting discussions on ethics and motivation in foster care and foster care adoption.

Yondalla: If You Want to Adopt You Should... and Foster Care and Moral Obligation and Another Paradox: Motivation and Obligation

Amanda: What's My Motivation?

The posts reminded me of my year-old post, Adoption from Foster Care and Saving a Child. I revisited it and found I still basically agree with what I wrote.

This is a difficult but important topic. I think many of us are sick of the standard-issue arguments and commonplace sayings surrounding foster care. Foster carers are simultaneously sainted and demonized in mass media and within the adoption sphere. Pushing them to the extremes like that doesn't do any good at all for any kind of reform effort. But it's easier than actually listening to their complex, sometimes conflicting viewpoints... or the even more complex viewpoints of adults who were raised in the system.

Here's a comment I left at Yondalla's that expresses some of my frustration about this.

Hear, hear. I strongly believe in adoption reform in all areas but that particular argument -- "why don't you just adopt from foster care" -- is really irritating. I feel like saying... unless you have some experience with the foster care system already, in some capacity, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. YOU REALLY DON'T. DON'T PRETEND YOU DO. Don't use children in foster care as props in your arguments without real regard for them.

Update and Link to a Post about Social Workers

I've been superbusy recently. I'm working on a family website project involving full installation of a PHP content management system, developing a job-hunt training seminar for a volunteer project and guest blogging at Rachel's Tavern. My workload should die down in a little bit.

I was really wrapped up in the story going on at Foster Parent Maze. If you're one of my readers you've probably been reading over there as well. The problems they had with the lying social worker really touched a nerve with me, since I was lied to as well... although the consequences in my case were much, much lighter. Anyway, thank goodness they have a reprieve.

Also, here's a great new post from Larry at Reflections of a Foster Youth: What Foster Parents Wish Social/Care Workers Knew & Did.

I know there are many good social workers out there. Unfortunately, it seems like the system is rigged to burn out the good ones and float along the bad ones. The situation seems very much like that of public school teachers in poorer districts. There is no easy answer: improvements absolutely have to increase both accountability and stability at the same time.

My caseworker could be a lot worse

I have to stop browsing tonight, because I keep reading things that make me angry... like this.

A New Foster Care Blog

Lawrence Adams, author of Lost Son? A Bastard Child's Journey of Hope, Search, Discovery and Healing, now has a blog called "Reflections of a Foster Youth". I've seen his posts on message boards before, and he has an amazing life story and a lot of insight into the foster care system. Check out this introduction post and this post on foster parents.

Foster Care Adoption, Capitalism and the failure of Charity

There's an interesting dialog started by Claudia from the Adopt America Network. It's a very obvious foster care adoption question. Why do counties and agencies keep recruiting families who are interested in adopting young children? Why do they keep perpetuating a system where a healthy 5-year-old has 100 families interested in adopting, and a 17-year-old has no one, and ages out of the system?

Claudia takes the question in a certain direction.

One of my missions is to recruit families who are willing to life through the horrors to end up to be resilient people of faith who will take on the harder things. As Bart said, quoting Jaiya John this morning, "what we currently have in our country is not a "child welfare" system, but a "help parents get the child they want" system, when it comes to adoption."

[...]

If we were looking at the issue of waiting children in foster care, we would be recruiting families for teens with on probation with an array of mental illnesses. We would be looking for families willing to take large sibling groups. We would be looking for parents willing to parent children with FASD or RAD or sexual acting out or the dreaded "fire-setters."

FosterAbba has already responded with a personal analysis of how her family both can and can't answer the call. I'd like to take it in a different direction, and use a cold, hard, cynical "follow the money" approach. Please don't take this as an attack on anyone involved in the system trying to do good work, but rather a critical examination of the system itself.

I don't think the current system is really geared towards adoptive parents. It's geared towards saving the government money. An adoptive placement costs the government less than a foster placement over the life of the child. An adoptive parent will agree to take over much of the cost and labor of raising a child. Why? What reward do they get? Do they do it out of love? Altruism? Selfishness? It doesn't matter from a cost perspective.

Economically speaking, adoptive parents are not really clients of the government, but neither do they actually work for the government. They're a cross between an intern and a volunteer. They're willing to work for very little material reward, as long as they get some intangible benefits. Foster parents are not full-time workers either; they're more like a cross between interns and temps. Some do it mainly for the money, others do it mainly for the intangible benefits.

You have to keep adoptive and foster parents a little bit happy so that they'll continue to work for you or absorb some of your costs. The children are not as important a priority. They can't go on strike or quit. But if you behave really badly to them, child welfare advocates will sue you, so there are limits. You also have indirect accountability to "client" families. Bad and incompetent behavior might result in unwelcome media attention, lawsuits and bureaucratic shakeups.

I need to detour here and talk about the problems of voluntary charity. I'll disclose that I'm a leftist with an MBA, and I don't like charity but I donate to it… I don't find any of this be contradictory, but I realize it might be confusing to some readers.

The problem with charity is that it relies too much on appeals to the emotions. Successful charitable appeals involve three characteristics: 1) cuteness 2) visibility 3) ego. People are more likely to give money to something cute. Pandas get a lot more attention than beetles. Young children are cuter than older children. Children are cute, but they're often made invisible. Visible problems are easier to address than hidden problems. Issues hidden behind closed doors or looming in the future get less attention, and less money. And then there's ego, which is kind of obvious, what with all the charitable foundations named after rich people.

My family used to sponsor a child when I was young, but I decided I don't agree with sponsoring anymore. I just give money directly to Save the Children. Why do I need a thank you letter from a child for my donation? It makes me feel better for a few minutes, but it's really just feeding my ego. The few cents it took to mail me that letter could have gone to more useful purposes.

For me, an ideal wealth distribution system wouldn't involve charity. It would look more like taxes. An equal percentage is taken off the top of your paycheck then distributed by experts -- accountable experts -- to where it does the most good. This system has plenty of potential problems, of course. However, it's the only system where hidden, non-cute, ungrateful sorts of problems have any chance at all of being addressed.

Then there's the problem of charitable volunteers. Anyone who has worked for a non-profit knows that volunteer burnout is a major issue. A volunteer who works for a living can't have their volunteer job as their highest priority. If their family member gets sick, or their paying job is in danger, guess where they have to cut back. On the other hand, if your volunteers are all well-off people who have the resources to put volunteering as their number one priority, your organization starts reflecting a narrower, upper-class set of values and stops being representative of the general population.

For Claudia and the Adopt America Network to succeed in recruiting more parents for hard-to-place children, they need to find people with the right combination of altruism, insight and resources. I think altruism is the easiest part. That's where I stop being cynical… I think almost every human being (except for the true sociopath) has the capacity for altruism. It may not be expressed very strongly, but it's there and it can be stirred up with the right appeal. The insight is much harder. Can you stifle your own impulse to feel protective not just to children who are small, soft and helpless, but also those who are tall, looming and hard-faced? Force yourself to see and even jump into problems that used to be invisible? Know how much you can really handle, without believing you are weak, or a superwoman?

The resource portion makes the goal incredibly difficult. Looking back over my blog you can see how many times I have bitched about the fact that we only have one bedroom for children which means the sibling group would have to be two boys or two girls. I'm not a good example, really, because we're pretty well-off for a middle-class urban couple. But our house that we own is 1050 square feet with a third of an acre yard. If I earned the same amount of money and lived in New York City, we'd probably live in a 500-square foot studio and spend 60% of our income on rent. How can people like us adopt or foster large sibling groups? That's a very literal question. Special housing loan programs would be one partial solution.

Housing becomes much easier if you live in the country, but then you run into the representativeness problem then. For example, given that a) African-American children are disproportionately represented in the system b) African-American parents live disproportionately in urban areas then focusing more on rural placements increases cultural dislocation.

Many people who have the insight and understanding may not have the resources. Our economic system does not place a high value on human services. Elementary school teachers, social workers, foster parents… all professions that are culturally coded as female and low-paying. They're jobs that certain people find very fulfilling. And since they're so fulfilling, we don't need to pay them very much. It's nice to be nice. But if you really want to get ahead in life, be a lawyer or a CEO. That's the general attitude.

Foster care adoption is a dysfunctional system located inside a dysfunctional culture. That's kind of an obvious statement. Kids wouldn't enter foster care, much less need to exit it, if things were better all around.

To get more foster and adoptive parents where they're needed, and to get them to perform better, what are some practical measures that can be taken? By practical, I mean things that don't involve massive changes to society as we know it.

Telling them they need to be more altruistic isn't sufficient. If they answer the call as altruistic volunteers, they'll have high burn-out rates just like altruistic volunteers.

Religion is not sufficient. This is according to what I heard from a plainspoken, very religious woman at an orientation meeting. She said she kept a close eye on the parents who told her that God told them to take the hardest cases. Too often, they would call her up in the middle of the night and say "I can't handle this child, take them back." She joked she would ask them, "Now where is your 'patience of Job?'"

Paying them more money would help a lot. It would also make foster and adoptive parents more representative of the general population. On the other hand, you might get people who do it for the money and not the passion, so more money needs to come with stringent controls and training requirements.

More education would help; not just top-down training, but horizontal information sharing. There are a lot of foster parents blogging and communicating on the web, but I don't trust the internet to be truly representative of the general public.

Stop moving kids around so much. If a child is reunified with their family, but the reunification effort is uncertain, pay the foster carer to reserve the bed. If they are removed again, they go back to the same foster carer. If the child has to be shuttled back and forth, at least it should be back and forth between the same two homes. This would help children and keep foster parent morale higher.

How about a special union? Once you get your foster license and join, you have access to a credit union and special housing loans. The union encourages information sharing and sponsors training events along with the government. It sponsors a youth club "Future Child Welfare Workers of America". The military has ROTC! Encourage the ideal of pride in service. Wear special hats in parades. Offer AA, BA and MA degrees in therapeutic foster care drawing on fields of psychology and child development. Pay people who have those degrees higher wages.

I've heard foster parents complain they have the image of "those people in the neighborhood with too many kids running around a messy yard". Change that image to "the people who have the great union and job security and high standards and fun social events and I want to be one when I grow up." I hear PSAs on college radio that say "you don't have to be perfect to adopt a teen from foster care". It's a good PSA for now. But in the future, it would be nice if the message could evolve into "can you meet a high standard of excellence in child welfare?" from the current "we're desperate, do you have a pulse?"

Of course all these ideas require vast amounts of money which are currently being spent on more important things like the war in Iraq. Sigh... I wish I could end on a more positive note.

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.

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

Conference on Fathers and Men in the Foster Care System

Last week my husband and I went to an all-day conference to catch up on our hours.

We need ten training hours this year to maintain the foster license we'll be getting. Although we're not actually doing foster-to-adopt, we're still under similar rules during any pre-finalization placement. The nice thing about living in such a big city as Atlanta is that there are huge numbers of training opportunities and we can really pick and choose which ones sound most useful.

The conference was all about fatherhood and men. As is usual for these inside-perimeter training events, it was about 75% African-American. All the presenters were African-American men with experience in dual or triple roles: regular fathers, foster/adoptive fathers, child psychologists, social workers. The conference was just incredible and inspiring. It was also inclusive enough that anyone could benefit. Even if you were a white atheist lesbian couple with a daughter, you would go home with a lot of useful, positive ideas.

I did get a little nervous when an audience member happened to bring up the inerrancy of the King James version of the Bible within the first 15 minutes of the conference start. The presenter skipped around that, and from then on all mentions of God, Jesus and biblical values were placed in a context of personalized spiritual foundations.

How often do you see a discussion of fatherhood on a high level, coming from theory and daily living at the same time, that …

• treats nuclear heterosexual couples as the majority of families, but not the norm that everyone has to follow?
• includes religion, church life and spirituality without, again, invoking a norm everyone has to follow?
• spent part of the time exploring social problems specific to the African-American community without engaging in the deeply unproductive self-flagellation so often demanded by black uber-traditionalists?
• does not blame single mothers or women in general?
• praises men for good parenting, but demands higher expectations for them?

The main theme of the conference: the role of men is crucial in all aspects of parenting. Sadly, it's so crucial because so many children in the system have already been let down by men in their lives.

I'll try and summarize the information using my notes. This is not quite a summary from A to Z, but more of a highlighting of certain points that really connected for me.

1. A brief introduction was given by an Adoption Unit Manager with the state of Georgia. She introduced herself as a birth mother, who placed when she was 16 and was reunited in 2005, and had a lot of positive things to say about adoption. (I'm reporting this very neutrally).
2. The first presenter talks about baggage that we carry with us as parents. What are our expectations of fathers? How were we raised? We can't turn our children into versions of ourselves, even if they're biological.
3. Many kids in the system think dysfunction is function. However, even "regular" members of society have a tendency to think that way. An example of dysfunction as function… is male infidelity! Why is it so often excused or even praised?
4. An example of an older child who was adopted by a single father. The single father was caring but very strict. The adoption disrupted at the age of 14 when the teenage hormones started spiking up. Very difficult to hold on to a child that age who is 100% determined they'd be better off outside your home. Now in therapy, the child talks about missing the former adoptive father all the time; the boundaries were good for him. Sad story, but on the plus side, at least the child has around five years of positive "functional living" to draw strength from as he enters adulthood.
5. My husband notices some of the elderly foster mothers don't seem to really engage. I imagine they are thinking: "I've been doing this for decades and I'm not going to change a damn thing because some whippersnapper with a bunch of fancy letters after their name tells me to, I'm just going to tune out, get my training certificate and go home". On the other hand, some of them were very engaged and had great things to say. One elderly woman talked about spanking and how she stopped spanking (this is a huge hot-button topic for African-American foster parents) and forcefully said "when you KNOW better, you DO better". Great approach to education and an attitude I totally agree with.
6. Presenter notices sadly there are not a lot of foster fathers in the audience. Many single adoptive fathers and a few gay couples. Single pre-adoptive fathers all know they have to hustle when it comes to training. They are at the bottom of the barrel for placements, so they really need to shine. Overall, not that many pre-adoptives though.
7. During break I chat with the gay couple next to me. We're both liberal religionists and we trade some horror stories about not-so-liberal churches. In one church one of them went to as a child, any unmarried woman who got pregnant had to get up in front of church and apologize to the whole congregation. No such penalty for the father, of course.
8. A lot of talk about education and how crucial men are. A foster dad shares that he is the only male teacher at his school; he also serves as an informal counselor as other teachers send him their discipline cases. When men go to schools, teachers often assume something is wrong, someone got in trouble, but this should be a normal, everyday occurrence! Often janitors are the only males in early education; children often confide their problems to the janitor. If a father eats lunch in the cafeteria, children crowd around him in wonder. Our society does not value education and childcare enough, especially as a male pursuit. I'll give a very feminist "amen" to that!
9. Presenter talks about all the men that have mattered in his life, and all the things he does for his son. He gets a lot of praise for his fathering activities, but points out that what he is doing is not superhuman, and he's only getting a lot of that praise because of the general low expectations for men.
10. Idea of a "safe place" to encourage communication. Make sure they know, whatever the child says in that safe place, whatever bad names they use or emotions they express, they can't be punished for or yelled at in any way.
11. Talk about child custody battles; the practice of some women to deny visitation unless support is paid. Another hot-button topic touched on successfully. The focus is on cooperative parenting. Warns adoptive and foster parents that their relationship might "terminate" and if it does they really have to think about how they will approach cooperative parenting.
12. If children don't get positive male attention growing up, they often seek it later from unhealthy sources. Gangs. Pimps.
13. Sports are great but not a cure-all. The goal should be "structured extracurricular activity involving contact with males". Sport works great for some kids, but if they are not good in teams or physically adept, there are plenty of other options.
14. "it takes a village to raise a child… are you in that village?" What have you done to promote fatherhood/male parenting? If you have a male friend or family member who is not stepping up, if they're given low expectations or no expectations, exert some peer pressure on them.
15. Know what your values are and how you will communicate those values. Be consistent.
16. The second unit I went to was on grief and loss. My husband attended a different one, which was more of a rousing pep talk to our quiet meditation. We could hear them laughing it up next door.
17. Loss in the foster care system is usually "complicated loss". Family members are not dead, but "lost" or inaccessible.
18. Example: foster son who was 7 when his mother went to prison for a long time. Grieved her loss. Reunited when he was 23 and she came out of prison. Currently in jail for something that she did (he took the fall for her). Not a happy story or one with any clear lesson.
19. Men are taught from an early age not to verbalize grief. "Boys don't cry". We should instead give them the message to express their grief and loss. They should express it any way they want as long as it's not inappropriate (e.g. violence against property or people). Some examples: creating art to express loss, breaking up bricks in the backyard with a hammer.
20. Sometimes boys are told "you're the man of the family now" at age 3 or 4! That's too much to handle. You have to help them to be boys.
21. When children are moved from a home, they lose uncountable things. One example: every child has a "secret stash" of small objects that are highly meaningful, maybe under the floorboards or in a stuffed animal. When the social workers come to move the child, guess what gets left behind.
22. Make sure children are allowed to grieve. We kept returning to this vital point.

I met some people from our initial classes again, and had several interesting discussions with other people at the conference. Due to privacy concerns I don't want to get too in-depth about those, even though this blog is anonymous. I'll just say, even though we could fulfill training hours doing online courses and book reports, as some other people from our classes have chosen, I think these in-person events are invaluable. Learning about the foster care system always seems to involve a mix of shining inspiration and horrible despair.

This was such a fantastic event that I wish the material could be made mandatory for a wider variety of people.

My husband told me that the conference gave him a great confidence boost about his impending fatherhood.