I have posted about foster children being placed in shelters during the holidays. I would like to share with you a story of two little ones that this happened to. This happens because a lot of foster parents do not take foster placements during the holidays.

A two year old little boy and a baby girl, sibling group, fixing to turn one in a couple of days (which was also a little over a week before Christmas), were placed into foster care. In this case, it was not because Child Welfare chose to remove them. They had been abandoned by their birth mother in a bad situation, and this caused Child Welfare to take custody of the children. The children were placed in the care of their birth father and grandmother. They spent several months with them and then the birth father landed in jail leaving the children solely in the care of his mother.

A couple of days before the baby girl would turn one the grandmother called the caseworker and said, that she did not sign up to care for these children by herself and that she would be dropping them off at the Child Welfare office within a hour. I still wonder how a grandmother could do that to her own grandchildren days before Christmas.

The grandmother was told that her grandchildren would most likely spend the holidays separated and in an emergency shelter but she still went through with leaving them. The caseworker was unable to find a foster placement less than 10 days before Christmas for these two little ones. So, they were placed into an emergency shelter and separated from each other, the baby girl spent her first birthday alone there, and both little ones spent Christmas there separated from each other.

What a way to spend your first birthday and Christmas? To top it off, the brother and sister were not even able to have the comfort of each other. Foster children spending holidays in emergency shelters are too common.

The first of January these little ones were placed in a foster home that became their forever home, I know because I was given the privilege of becoming their mommy. The thought of them in a shelter during the holidays still breaks my heart.


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