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 a must. Any correspondences you have with the caseworker or anyone else involved should be sent certified mail allowing you proof that it was received by someone at the agency.

Within a few days of the children being removed, the case will most likely already have cycled through a few workers (investigator, placement caseworker, child’s caseworker). The information can and does get lost, misfiled or overlooked. The caseworker looks at the relationship prior to the child being placed into foster care along with the contact while in foster care that you have had with the child.

If you would like contact with a foster child by phone, letters, emails, or visits that is in a foster home you must contact the caseworker to set up any contact with the child. Letters most likely will go through the child welfare office. Going through child welfare is for two reasons. First is to protect the foster home’s location. Second, in some cases letters may be monitored. If the phone calls are long distance to you, most likely you will need to purchase a calling card for the child to use. The foster child may be allowed by the foster parents to have a separate email account where they can receive personal emails. The foster parents can and usually monitor the foster child’s email account. The foster parents can set certain times and days for the child to make phone calls.

More reading:

Family Reunification Over What is Best For The Children?

Two Sides of Kinship Foster Care