Another Placement

Since last summer I have had a few possible placements that I either turned down or did not end up working out.  This last call was for a 10 year-old girl who was in immediate need of a new foster home.  They were thinking that she would need to stay with me for about a year before they would be able to find a permanent adoptive home.  The decision making process has gotten a bit easier, I took about a day to think about, realizing that I don't want to commit to staying in Chicago for another year.  I'm ready to move on, to explore new places.  Part of the reason I knew I didn't want to be an adoptive parent is because I don't want that kind of lifetime commitment at this point in my life.  There is still so much for me to explore in life outside of parenthood.

They called back within the week.  They had obtained placement for the girl, but they won't be able to take her until the middle of March.  They asked that I take her for just 3-4 weeks.  It's been about a week and a half now that she has been living with me.  I'm not sure what all the factors are, but it feels a bit easier this second time around than the first.  Perhaps, part of it is me just being a little more prepared, more aware of what to expect.  But I think another piece of it is on her end of things.  Her case worker is more attentive.  It is during the school year and she is still attending the same school where she has connections.  And she's a girl.  All this time I'd been thinking boys would be easier.  But she's so much more vocal and willing to talk about things.  Her moods are more straight forward and predictable.

As much as single parenthood totally changes my life, there are parts of it that I'm liking.  When I was doing my internship in a residential treatment facility, I felt like what I really wanted was to be those kids' parent rather than their therapist.  This second placement is validating that desire.  It's so much more natural being the parent rather than the contrived therapist role.  We do things on her time naturally rather than it being forced into a weekly hour long session.  Within the first week, her stuff was already coming up in her play with me while as a therapist it would have probably taken several weeks for it to surface.

When I'd had the last placement, I'd felt jealous of the respite worker, but really the role of foster parent is just so much more valuable.  The foster parent sees the child daily, experiences real life, the ins and outs of daily experiences.  Granted I still felt a little jealous this past weekend.  My foster daughter spent the weekend with her new family.  I have to spend the week with her, do the hard stuff, enforce bedtime and struggle through homework.  But then she gets to do the fun stuff over the weekend and I become the bad guy.

I suppose that was very similar to my own experiences after my parents divorced.  I loved going with my dad on the weekend but the day to day with my mom were a struggle.  This whole parenthood thing makes me reflect and have more respect for my own parents.  Parenthood is a sacrifice that I'm not sure why so many people make.  Maybe I've just been single so long that I've grown accustomed to my freedom.  As a parent, 18 years of your life are dedicated to those other beings.  You do things for them and your world is centered around them, taking them from one activity to the next, watching their television shows, their music, doing things that are interesting for them.  Perhaps that's one of the reasons my father has had such difficulty finding himself after we were grown.  After those 18 years, it's over and it leaves behind a gap in your life.  The young adult really has no concept of the sacrifices you made all those years and you have to reestablish new interests to fill the gap.  Perhaps the rewards are worth it.

Instant Motherhood

I took a respite care placement.  My first attempt at being a foster mother.  I feel alienated.  It's like here... and a kid gets dropped off at my doorstep, and I suddenly become the sole responsible person.  I have yet to speak to his actual caseworker.  The most responsive person in the organization has informed me that she will be on vacation for the duration of the placement.  I suppose it's no different really than coming home with a new baby, I mean actually, he requires a lot less care.  But this kid has had nearly 10 years of life, 10 years of other people in his life, and suddenly he is depending on a total stranger to meet all his needs.  To balance all her stuff in addition to managing his stuff when previously she couldn't even figure herself out.

Granted I haven't been completely deserted, though it certainly feels that way.  His mentor came and took him for 4 hours today.  But then there's this jealousy, like she gets to take him, do fun things with him, and actually gets paid for it (granted not much, but she still earns some money).  That used to be my role.  I used to provide psychosocial rehabilitation (basically means take a kid out into the community and spend some time with them).  I used to be the nanny (run the household for a few hours, but then leave and get paid).  But motherhood doesn't pay financially.  Sure, as a foster parent I will get a small stipend.  But really, I doubt I'll even break even with the amount I've spend on food and activities.

It's not like regular motherhood either where you can post all your kids pictures on Facebook and share their stories over the phone with your friends.  The foster care world is this secret world where I discreetly post a blog reaching out to the cyber community (which isn't following me since I haven't posted in nearly a year) for some kind of support in this time where I suddenly became a mom overnight.

I suppose that most of all, it's just really saddening.  He made a couple calls the first night, met with his therapist the day after, and his mentor took him today.  But really it just feels like he and I, and it feels a little lonely and like a whole lot of responsibility.

House-guests

This summer and fall have been filled with a constant flow of overnight house-guests.  Second week of July, my good friend from Texas, we'll call her "Texas Ninja".  She brought a friend with her the first few days and then her other friend drove in from Iowa for the weekend.  For that visit, Texas Ninja slept on the sofa, and I borrowed a friend's air mattress for the spare bedroom for the Texas Ninja's friends.

Then came "California Drummer" for a weekend in August.  Meanwhile, I was also in the midst of the homestudy process for becoming licensed as a foster parent/home.  So when my father came for a two-week long visit at the beginning of September, I rushed out to get a twin bed the night before he arrived (I hadn't had any bed for my spare room and they stated it would be required prior to my last visit and licensure).

"Roomie" stayed with me for the second week in October, followed by "Redmond Homemaker" with her dog from the 20th to the 25th, and "Omaha Marrieds" for the weekend following.  Needless to say, I am happy to finally have the place to myself with no prospective visitors on the horizon as I settle into hibernation mode for the imminent long Chicago winter.

A year ago I never thought I could live by myself.  Ever since moving away from home after high school to go to college I have always had roommates.  The thought of living by myself scared me.  I thought I would isolate myself, become depressed.  The thing that motivated me the most to get a place of my own was the hope of filling that empty space with that of a foster child.  But it's been nine months now of having my own place and I am still on my own.  And I absolutely love it!

While my father was here for two weeks and I found myself emotionally drained and barely able to function, I wondered, "How will I ever do this when a child is staying with me?"  In these short  nine months I've grown so used to being on my own and having my own space that I'm not sure how I will ever adjust to the change.

It seems that the spring was used as my nesting period, my getting used to living on my own and creating a comforting home environment.  Summer and fall and the revolving door of house-guests were prep for sharing my space with a child.  It really hasn't been all that bad.  In fact, part of the greatness of having my own place has been the flexibility to have people stay over.

In my previous four years of living in Chicago, I have never had such a constant flow of visitors.  Never before has my father been able to have such a long visit due to overstaying his welcome in a roommate's home as well.  It feels good to have the home and stability to provide housing for my guests.  And now I have it to provide a foster child too!

Placement Call

I got another foster care placement call this week.  Somehow saying no was easier this time than last.  Again, she didn't fit within the confines of my "ideal" child mold.  An 11 year-old girl needing a transitory home between her current foster/adoptive family and going home to her biological mother.  Even before speaking to the social worker in further detail, I had a feeling about the motives for the move.  The girl wanted a home where she did not have an attachment to the caregiver so she could reestablish loyalties to her own mother.  So rather than the role of teacher/therapist as I'd hoped, or parent or attachment figure as it would be with the two young children, I would be expected to be in yet another role, more of a friend, at a minimum of an arms length away, nonetheless.

My thoughts were taken back to my own 11 year-old self and remembering how hard my life was even as a child that had not experienced much trauma at that time in my life.  Remembering how volatile my relationship with my mom was even without having a bunch of other foster mothers in the picture too.  Take my feelings of not having my mother as there for me as I would have liked and magnify it by 100 for me to even imagine what this child might be going through.

I had to admit to the social worker that I was a bit triggered.  What happened to the girl that when my parents got divorced at that age wanted to reach out and help others going through similar experiences? When did I become so afraid of pubescent girls?  Probably, just in having been one and knowing how awful I was and not wanting to have to deal with one of me.

Part of me wonders if it might have been good for me.  If I might have been able to work through some of my fears and my own mommy issues.  Another part of me wonders if I'm really not as ready as I thought I was for this and I'll just keep turning down the kids one after another.  But I have to hold on to the hope that the right kid will come along, that there will be a child that I am my most stable self with and that I will still have my own personal growth in that strength, stability, and vulnerability.

What do you think?  Did I make the right decision?  What are your experiences parenting or being 11 year-old girls?  How have your mommy issues effected your decision to be a foster parent?  How does the relationship you have/had with your mother effect your parenting skills?

Deinstitutionalization

We are all well aware that the two systems within which I work are broken.  Mental health/Medicaid system as well as the child welfare system have definite deficits.  Through my process of working in them, I've wondered how they've gotten this way.  What happened to the lunatic asylums and the orphanages that used to house our mentally ill adults and despondent children?

From my internet research I don't find any clear law or act that got rid of those kinds of institutions all at once.  It was all pretty gradual, perhaps first initiated with the Social Security Act in 1935.  And in the 1950s psychotropics came out and greatly reduced the symptoms of mental illness.  In 1963 Kennedy was able to pass the Community Mental Health Centers Act.  He had a special concern with those with mental illness because his own sister had been lobotomized in her early twenties.  Also in the 1960s, the Federal Aid for Families with Dependent Children legislation provided funding and services for preserving biological families and preventing children from being placed in orphanages.  The premise of these two legislative measures was on track, provide services for individuals needing care within the community rather than locking them away in institutions.

Those of you educators out there know the common phrase, "least restrictive environment."  That was our hope with deinstitutionalization, provide environments that were less restrictive and envelop those with disabilities into the community at large.  But somehow, we've let individuals fall between the cracks and are not providing those environments for them.  There are people with mental illness not receiving the proper after-care services, floundering in the broken system.  There are children in the welfare system jumping from one home to another in our efforts to provide them a less restrictive home environment setting.  Though we may have gotten rid of a lot of the evil institutions, it doesn't mean that the people that were in them no longer exist.  They still need our help.

If interested, find out more about:
A legislator whose "reforms" he worked on worsened his son's life (excerpt of this article also published in Washington Post) by Paul Gionfriddo, author of blog entitled, Health Policy

the high concentration of people with mental illness in the Uptown area of Chicago, and

the rise and demise of the American orphanage

Saying No

My first foster placement call came a few weeks ago, prior to being licensed.  During preparation for the licensing they continually ask you what your ideal candidate would be for placement.  I had that rehearsed and figured out, "A boy under the age of 8, probably African-American, with a permanency plan goal of return home."  Why a boy, they would ask, most single woman your age prefer girls?  "Girls are too much drama, I want a child that is more straight forward and will go ride bikes with me and go play outside."

I imagined an aggressive child with a lot of behavior problems in which my patience and experience as teacher and therapist would come in handy.  They had us do exercises in which we would picture our lives  with our "ideal" child.  I picked that age because he would be young enough for me to be bigger than and manage but that he would also go to school while I worked during the day.

But in reality, your "ideal" child does not just appear out of nowhere.  It's not like going shopping or even like going to an animal shelter where you can scan the crates for just the right dog or cat that will fit right in with your family.  They call you regardless if it is "ideal" when they have a family in crisis and a child is in need of a stable home.  I certainly was not prepared for that and most definitely not prior to being licensed.

Nonetheless, I was contacted,  "We have a sibling pair, a four-month old baby boy and his 3 year-old sister who have been at the shelter for the past month waiting for placement.  They are Caucasian which may have been what made them difficult to place.  We can put a rush on your license and see about placing two children with you rather than the one if you are interested in taking them."  So the initial reaction of myself and many I talked to: "A FOUR-MONTH OLD!!!"

After my initial shock, I started imagining what my life would be like.  I would be dealing with night-time feedings and trying to get two small children up and to day-care prior to getting to work and then picking them up, feeding them dinner, and bedtime drama on top of my already draining work environment.  But I was also imagining myself in a role unlike the one I was picturing in with my "ideal" foster child.  Rather than teacher/therapist, I would become an instant "parent" and attachment figure to two very small impressionable children.  I would see a baby develop from infancy on into toddlerhood.  Not only that but I would be assisting in making sure that these little ones continued to  maintain a relationship with their mother who would be doing everything she could to get them back.  It was then that my maternal desires started kicking into overdrive and even before meeting these two little children I was falling in love with them and their mother who had just lost them!

I was ready and willing to take them in but others that I talked to about the prospect were still in a state of shock.  They tried to talk me out of it with realistic expectations of what I was about to walk into.  There was little opportunity for them to gradually come to the state of acceptance and understanding of the situation.  The placement would need to happen immediately, like within the next 48 hours.  It took all by power to call the social worker back, "I regret to inform you that I will not be able to take these two children in."

I was absolutely heartbroken!  Before I even met these children and I was having the hardest time letting go.  It is so hard for me to accept the fact that I will not be able to save every child, that there are a lot of children out there needing stable home environments, but that it is not my responsibility to take them all in.  I have my strengths and weaknesses and placing a four-month old and a three-year old with a single woman who works full-time was probably not in the best interests of the children or for my own sanity.  Sure, I could have done it, I could have somehow managed and been a good temporary mother.  But the timing just wasn't quite right and there's the possibility that I will be the "ideal" placement for some other child down the road.

Of course, one of my questions for the social worker at our last home visit, "Did you place them?  Are they in a good home?"  I was reassured by the fact that she had placed them.  It was not my responsibility, there were other people out there that could hopefully provided a better home than I.  I also asked about the process, "Is it just like this for every placement call?"  Surprisingly, I was a little disappointed by the answer.  The agency I went with does not typically get these kind of immediate return home placement type of contracts.  She told me, "Only about once a year do we have a situation like this one."

So what if I missed my opportunity?  What if my "ideal" child never comes along?

For those of you readers who are also foster parents, what was your placement call?  When was the first time you said no to a placement?

My Newest Endeavor

Ten years ago, the summer of 2002, I took a class entitled Child Psychopathology.  The professor, was a stereotypical looking psychoanalyst, you know, the bearded Freudian type that you see in movies.  Only this wasn’t a movie, he told real life gut wrenching stories about real life children. 

The first day of class he started out by stating that he grew up in a “foster home.”  He then proceeded to let it come out gradually that he was not a foster child himself, but that his biological parents took in numerous children in their home throughout his childhood and adolescence.   These experiences shaped him and motivated him to become a psychologist and his stories in turn impacted and inspired me in such significant ways that I write about it today, some 10 years later.

I had some additional exposure to foster care through student teaching, also in college.  A little girl who was a foster child in a large family was in the kindergarten class in which I worked.  She had one final visit with her mother before her mother had to relinquish all parental rights during the time I worked in that classroom.  In the Head Start classroom I taught in next, I wanted so bad to just take home one of the little girls who always showed up so dirty and hungry. 

Another one of the little girls had horrendous behaviors after having been separated from her mother early on in her childhood.  Though she lived with her mother then at age 4, the earlier separation had been damaging to their attachment and her ability to relate to anybody.  Yet she was one of my favorites.  There was something about providing structure, love, support, discipline, and care to children that so desperately needed it that made me feel so fulfilled.

After college, I had my own classroom, and became acquainted with more four year olds having experienced more trauma in their short lives than I have at age 30.   Another foster child, a little girl and her little baby brother who had an amazing foster mother.  Another one, transitioning into our classroom after having been at a therapeutic preschool due to her sexual abuse and resulting behaviors.  Two different boys living with their grandmothers after witnessing deaths of their respective parents. 

I wanted to do more for these children than I could as their classroom teacher.  I decided to move to Chicago and get my masters degree.  I again choose internships that would provide me the opportunity to work with similar types of children and families.  One of my first clients was a family with 4 foster children under the age of 5.  The foster mother wanted us to work with the kids because of their behaviors.  But the main problem was in the parenting, or lack thereof, of the mother.

I will be the first to admit that there are many problems with our foster care system.  There are people that are in it for the money, though there really isn’t much money involved.  There are people that are ill prepared even if they do have the best intentions.  Often that is what leads to multiple placements and compounded traumas of many children in the system.  Working with those children was my second internship at a residential treatment center for children and adolescents.  Most of the children there had had upwards of 8 different foster home placements prior to being referred to the treatment facility.  If you ask me, that’s a whole lot of rejection and reason to have major emotional and behavioral problems.

So why is it that the people on the front lines have the least amount of training and education?  I realize that book smarts is not everything and that they do have a lot of required training in order to get licensed as a foster parent.  But I can’t help wondering if I might be able to do a little better.  I can’t help wondering if the little guy I wrote my thesis on and worked with at the treatment facility might have turned up with less problems if he had been placed with someone like me to begin with.  I can’t help but wonder if all my experiences, my education, my care and concern might be really great for some family out there needing to get back on their feet.

So all my wondering is finally coming to actually seeing.  Last February I moved to my own apartment with an extra bedroom with the intention of being a foster parent.  Since June I have been going through the licensing process and today was my final visit with the social worker in charge of licensing.  She told me that my license to be a foster parent/home should be coming in the mail in the next few weeks!

Though there are families that go the foster-to-adopt route, it is not my intention.  I do not mean to take some child away from their biological family.  My intention is only to provide a stable home environment for a child whose parents just need to get things together before getting their children back.  I’ve been told that this takes one to two years.  How will you be able to do this, become attached to a child and then let them go back to a less than ideal living situation, I’ve been asked.  You know, I’m not quite sure.  I do know that my belief is that, if at all possible, a child belongs with his or her biological family.  It that child can grace me with his presence for a year or two, my hope is that we will both come out stronger because of it.

What do you think?  Have I lost my mind?  For those of you that are foster parents, how long had you thought about it and wanted it before going for it?  Does anybody else only want to foster and not adopt?  What is your motivation/story behind wanting to do either?