Do you ever remember a child saying, “Too many people love me?” Have you ever heard an epitaph that read, “Too many people loved me during my life?” Did you ever hear, “I spent too much time with people I loved?” Of course not, what a wonderful thing it is to know there are people who love you and care about you. Knowing there is someone you can call in any crisis gives you a sense of inner security. Children in foster care usually live with broken attachments. In their world, people come and then go, never to be seen again. It must be confusing to hear... more

Do you need to know the long term permanency plan for a foster child in order to accept placement into your home? If you do, it will limit the number of placements you receive as a foster parent. The long term plan is not typically known for at least a month when children first come into foster care. Even then, the plan can change. The caseworker never knows when a suitable relative might come forward asking for the children. While the caseworker might have doubts about certain parents complying with the case plan to have their children returned, sometimes parents surprise... more

Our local newspaper is covering the desperate need for foster parents this month. As Jenna pointed out yesterday, May is National Foster Care Month. The national slogan for the month is “change a lifetime,” referring to the lives of children who enter foster care. It is a change all right. While the final results of living in foster care, usually outweigh the initial horror children experience when entering foster care, they rarely consider throwing a party over the whole experience. The... more

We were all teenagers once, just for some of us it was a little longer ago. Do you remember thinking that your parents didn’t talk right? That is because parents don’t understand or use the current slang that teenagers are using. It has gotten worse because of internet use and text messaging. Now the teenagers have their own abbreviation slang as well. If you have a teenager that you raised from a baby then she might tell you some of the slang. If you have a newly adopted teenager, or a new teen in your foster home, good luck. Chances are, your new teenager wants some privacy and... more

Usually a foster care caseworker is assigned to a new case within two to four weeks of a child or children entering the foster care system. Siblings entering foster care would normally have the same foster care caseworker. By the time a caseworker is assigned to the case, the children have already been in a foster care home for two to four weeks. Hopefully, it is the same home that child protective services (CPS) placed them in the day they were removed, but it isn’t always. Since the children are settling into their new home, the worker doesn’t usually... more

Most agencies now require the completion of numerous training hours to become licensed foster parents to care for children. In Michigan, parents who want to foster children for the Department of Human Services are expected to complete nine PRIDE classes. Each class is about three hours long, which is quite an initial time commitment for two active parents. One of the sessions addresses the agencies expectations of foster parents in the reunification plan. While many foster parents pursue licensing with the hope of adopting a foster child, the agency makes... 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

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