Three weeks ago our five year old foster daughter returned home to her birthmother. We have spent the 16 months of parenting her developing a strong relationship with her birth family. Not just developing a relationship with her parents, buts aunts, uncles, significant others, and grandparents as well. We worked on building this relationship for several reasons. First, we had parented this child for nearly a year when she was one and two years old. Therefore, we love her, we have known her for most of her life, and she feels like a member of our family. In addition, we adopted... more

Kinship Placements & Family Involvement in Foster Care

Make contact with the child’s caseworker by telephone letting him or her know that you are willing to provide kinship placement. Follow your phone call up with a certified letter to the caseworker stating your desires to be involved, along with making references to the phone call you had with her, including her name, date, time, etc. Making a paper trail in your contact with the caseworker and your desires to be involved is... more

Kinship placements are mostly left in the hands of the biological parents. Whether kinship placement is used or who is suggested out of the family is in the hands of the biological parents for the most part. For the family member wanting to provide a family foster placement there may be more obstacles for you to overcome if the biological parents do not support you as a kinship placement.

I have been asked how kinship foster placements work, and other information concerning them. The problem... more

Family Reunification Over What is Best For The Children?

A two year old toddler of a 17 year old mother was placed into foster care as an infant. The mother left the child to be cared for by a paternal grandmother. The grandmother would go out drinking leaving the baby in the care of other relatives. The baby went into another family placement briefly which also did not work out. After all of that, the infant was placed into foster care.

He was placed into... more

Family reunification has become a main focus for most if not all child welfare agencies. A lot of agencies have gotten tunnel-vision with this and it seems to be the only goal that a lot of people involved child welfare are even looking at for the children. Yes, children most definitely need family reunification when it is the best thing for them.

Let’s be honest and open about all of this. The overall picture of the family situation and the abuse that the children have suffered needs to be part of this decision.If the child welfare agency has dealt with... more

I have discussed some problems with foster children concerning kinship placement, or family reunification. Now I want to discuss how to protect foster children and how to improve the success of kinship placement or family reunification.

We have to be honest about some parent’s lack of parenting ability. Putting your bleeding toddler back to bed after taking a serious fall because you are sleepy is unthinkable. Did the toddler’s interest lay along with the interest of the mom? She did place... more

We have to stop looking at family reunification and kinship placements with starry eyes, and not evaluating placements before placing a foster child there. We are placing children right back in harm's way by preserving families at all cost. The cost is high. Foster children continue to be abused, and some will die when placed in kinship placements or family reunification.

These children are living in difficult, sometimes deadly situations on a daily basis. Thinking that all families can be one big happy family is a pie in the sky idea, and it is not pratical. We have to be realistic that family reunification will not be the answer for all families, or even a large part... more

I have been asked about how a family member goes about kinship placement and the laws, can kinship placement go over state lines, etc.

Kinship foster care placement is done differently in every state and in some, it differs with each county. Some states are starting to get laws and guidelines on kinship placements. My advice to anyone thinking of providing kinship placement for a relative is to think about how this might change the family dynamic.

If you are a family member that is in the process or their children are in foster care, do not wait on the biological parents to provide names of family members willing to care for the children. Sadly, some biological... more

More facts are coming to light to the missing toddler in Florida that was found in Wisconsin. One thing that was very interesting was that the “foster parent” was not a licensed foster parent. The toddler was placed with a friend of the mother so this would be kinship placement.

The friend providing care for the toddler says that the mother showed up and took the toddler without permission. She did not report the toddler missing or being taken for ten days to the caseworker. The toddler’s mother says that the friend... more

There are cases that kinship care works perfectly while others it brings a whole host of problems to the table. Every family has different dynamics.

Kinship care can be a less traumatic experience for some foster children. A number of families are able to provide care short-term and in some cases for the whole childhood. One situation I know about more recently is a grandmother who provided care for three of her grandchildren. While her daughter got off drugs and got her life together. Her mother was unclear if her daughter would be able to do what she needed to do for her children. She was willing to provide long term care for her grandchildren if the courts decided that the children... more