There is an article about a 12 year old foster boy that has spent nine years living in foster care trapped in the system with no hope for a forever home. After nine years in foster care he was placed into an adoptive placement with members of his birth family. Sadly the adoptive placement fell apart and the boy was returned to foster care.
This case brings up a lot of issues of how things could have been different in this case and how to keep other foster children from living years in foster care. While the answers may not be easy for the parties involved but there are some options and responsibilities for some people to assume.
Foster children are being left in care by the system while the biological parents are given a large chunk of the foster child’s childhood to work their plan (time and time again). Come on people, do we really need to continue giving biological parents extended time after time when they are not making a true attempt to do what is needed to get their children back. When does the extended time start to come at the benefit of the foster child? Foster children are being left in care for years while the biological parents do their thing and then one day we start asking why is this child losing the chance of finding a forever adoptive family with each passing year.
How do the biological parents fit into this problem? In most cases when the children are first placed into foster care, they are asked about possible family members that would be willing to care for the children instead of placing them into foster homes. I have not sat through one case plan meeting where the biological parents gave names of family members so they could be approached to care for the children already living in foster care. I find this surprising.
Continued……..
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Children in foster care for YEARS? I find it odd that people either don’t want their children placed with family members or worse yet, family members want nothing to do with helping out the children (but total strangers step up to the plate?). That’s not the way it used to be in our society. I don’t know if the issues are just so much more complicated now or that people are just much more “me” centered. I think that the bottom line has to be that the kids need to start coming first, not just saying that and yet disregarding their needs for permanency because the bio-parents are being uncooperative. In MI there is supposed to be a one year mark where a permanency plan must be placed – TPR and adoption or go home on such and such date. That doesn’t always happen – there are many ways that have been found to get around this rule, including a new judge saying, “I’m not quite familiar with this case, we’ll reconvene in three months”, which happened to us with our foster child who ended up spending two years with us and going back to the same problems he left. The fact of the matter is, if someone is working on getting their children back it should be very clear to everyone involved, none of this “I forgot my appointment” crap. They not only have to attend the classes, therapy, etc. their required to, but they have to BENEFIT from those services – it’s all for the benefit of their child.
Once again same situation where if the bio parents are mad at said family members they will refuse to allow the child to be placed with them. I dont think that they should have a choice in the matter. AS long as they are willing to do what ever DCF says and does not cause conflict with reunification (which I was not against) then it should not be left up to the parents. AND its not like DCF didnt know that I was intrested right from the start to accept them into my home. AS a matter of fact the DCF lawyer and my sis lawyer at the court date when TPR was scheduled they asked me if I was willing to take the children for adoption/placement and of course I said YES. But by then DCF said no and then now GAL (who dont know me and have never met) say no they need to stay with the foster mother for adoption cause they have been there for three years. THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT BUT THE FAULT OF THE SYSTEM AND THEIR WORKERS INCLUDING GAL. So GAL is saying that their best intrest of the children would to be adopted by the single 69 yr old single foster mother with 8 small kids who states that she will continue to foster and treat them the same way she is now HOW SADD IS THAT when they have a WILLING AND ABLE AUNT and UNCLE with two LIKE age children who they know, with a NORMAL FAMILY LIFE SETTING.