As strange as it may sound, even foster children are given goals in the reunification plan. The foster children, like their parents, are expected to make progress towards their assigned goals. Their progress is reviewed every 90 days by the court at the review hearings. The goals for the children vary depending on their ages, developmental levels, and needs. It is up to the foster parents and caseworkers involved in the case to assist foster children in achieving most of their assigned goals. This is because most foster children do not have a car or a driver’s... more

Children have been removed from their parents’ home by child protective services. The children have been placed either in a licensed foster home or with an approved relative for temporary care. Unless the children were removed for extreme reasons, the original permanency goal of foster care is usually reunification with the birth family. Within a couple of weeks after the children are removed, the parents will meet with the foster care worker who has been newly assigned to their case. The foster care worker will review the reasons that the children were removed... more

When a child is removed from his or her parental home a judge or magistrate must sign an order allowing it. A child protective service worker usually requests this order, although a police officer may also request it. Once the removal has been approved, the child can be placed temporarily in foster care, a group home, or juvenile facility. That order is temporary, however, and after it is signed, an adjudication hearing must take place within 72 hours. Typically, a foster care worker has not yet been assigned to the case. Therefore, the child protective service worker involved in the... more

If you have provided foster care for children then you already know that every 90 days the case progress has to be reviewed by the court. If the children remain in care for 12 months then the case progresses to permanency planning status, for the children’s long-term goals. This is because regular foster care is meant to be a short-term answer to family crisis. Many studies have proven that children, who just age out of foster care without either being adopted or returned home, do not fare well in adult society. The courts, in their wisdom, have concluded that within 12 months a family... more

A reader posed a question to me after reading a blog I wrote for my daughter on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The blog was a reminder that racism and prejudice are alive and well in today’s world. I suggested that it is up to us parents, to change the world’s thinking, at home one child at a time. We cannot allow our children to make racist comments, repeat, or even listen to racist jokes at home. Educate your children about judging a person by his or her heart, actions, and words, instead of by the color of skin.

Here is the readers comment.

Question... more

You have fostered a child for several months or perhaps even a few years. During this time, you have loved the child as one of your own. The foster child may have even been in your home for such a long time that you can hardly remember what it was like without him or her. Sometimes a child is a really good fit into a home and this one was. There were times during the case plan when you wondered if you might be able to adopt the foster child. The birthparents just were not doing what they needed to do, but lately, in the eleventh hour, they have been doing everything... more

Since I last wrote things have become crazy in my life. I wrote that my mom had a massive heart attack leaving her to undergo open heart surgery that required five bypasses. After my last blog she was admitted back to the hospital due to complications. I thought that things would be resolved in a few days but due to her internal bleeding, it turned into a few weeks.

As these events happen in our life, they are never planned, or at the best opportunity for others. I was blessed with the opportunity to be with my mom in a dark, scary time of her life and assist her into get back into her home where she would feel free and comfortable and to the point of caring for herself. It has... more

There are two ways to go about having foster children placed into institutions. The first one, is the care team will make a decision in what is the best interest of the foster child and if the child needs to be placed into an institution. The decision is not one person’s to make. This type of placement is when the foster child is continuing to have major issues with no improvements and things may seem to worsen. Another reason for this type of placement is when the medications... more

It is so much easier to sit and pass judgment on others instead of working towards implementing change. In my next few posts I will be talking about reasons why foster children leave foster homes.

There is a stigma about foster parents when foster children are placed to an institution. Sometimes this view continues over with adoptive parents also. It is easier to blame the foster parents than to realize that the foster child is so damaged by what she has endured before she came into care.

It is not easy to think of these foster children in such a gloomy... more

Change of placement for foster children affects everyone in the foster home including the child herself, other foster children, foster parents and yes, the biological or adopted children. Without a doubt that moving foster children can and does in most cases causes long term damage. I think most people including foster parents realize that foster children are moved around way too much.

Then on the other hand some people go to the extreme on judging foster parents on the reasoning of foster children needing to be moved as below that was part of a comment on... more