Okay, so I feel I need to get something off my chest! This is a book, sorry!! Not sure how many of you watch the news last night about Unfair Practices with Foster Kids and in the Fostercare System. First, not sure how many of you know but I am a foster parent! I have been for a couple years. Although I do believe our system is very broken, I feel the way it was portrayed last night was on many levels incorrect and I have witnessed this first hand. We sadly have many many children in the fostercare system! Foster parents are paid minimal to take these children in their homes, include them in their families and try to do the very best they can for them in a time in their lives when either no one has ever, or for some reason is unable to at that time, provide for their financial and emotional needs. These children are generally angry, sad, have emotional and physical needs and just plan have had no direction in what is socially acceptable and what makes them good citizens. Foster parents do this because we see the need and it is heart breaking.... Unfortuanely, unlike the news tried to portray last night, the social workers, the gov, etc. do not go out and look for innocent mommies and daddies to take their children away! There is not some conspiracy out there that is wanting to pull these children out of loving homes. On the contrary... these are overworked, underpaid social workers that have the wonderful and heartbreaking job of each time a confused, hurt child has to be pulled out of their home at all hours of the day or night and placed in a unfamiliar home for their own safety, gets to do the deed! Last night on the news, that gal made it sound like she was a victim of an unfair bunch of mean gov. workers that wanted to take her child! Keeping in mind, she too was a foster child, protected by our system through out her life! There is a reason these kids end up and fostercare! Another very false statement she made was that the kids have no representation.. this is VERY incorrect! I have had kids in my home that have had their OWN appointed attorney and every child in my home has a guardian at litem, that is a volunteeer that goes to every court date, comes and visits monthly and is there only for their needs and rights! These are people that stand up for these kiddos at every turn, making sure they are safe in their fosterhome and getting their needs met and listening to their feelings about their situation. If that isnt enough, they also have mom and dads appointed attornies, generally mommie and daddy each have different attornies, fighting for them. And if that isnt enough their foster parents doing everything possible to help them! Again, not that I am not saying this system does not have flaws... I have dealt with alot of parents that love and ache for their children! The differece is, these seem to be the same parents that also admit they fell down on the job or dont have the skills to parent and need help. (which is provided to them) These are also the parents that do everything they can to see their children and do what is required to make their home safe for their kids! They make very few excuses, although maybe frustrated with the situation, they are grateful there are social works, foster parents etc. to help their children and help them get what they need to get healthy! Unfortunetly, there are ALSO those that say with their mouths they love their kids, and the gov. has no right taking them and they are victims! Those are generally the ones that dont show for visits for some well thought out excuse or another, and dont follow their paid for treatment and parenting plans. Unfortunately, the later is the more common and the fostercare system still bends over backwards to give them chance after chance dragging kids through broken promise after broken promise all in the name of fairness for these parents! This is where it is unfair to the kids! We have a mess... unfortunately there are more kiddos and families that need direction and help then there are social workers and foster families. If I could name the largest flaw in our system I would have to say it was the many chances given those parents that DONT ache for their children! Our system tries everyway possible to keep families together! I have watched this be the worst thing for the child and the best thing for the child. This is the area that is very broken!! If congress needs something to fix they need to start here!!! There are and have definitely been mistakes made... The media is very good at exploting these.. As hard as social workers try there have been kiddos and families that have fallen through the cracks. If you truley understood the load and the reality of the life or death situation the social workers carry daily you would look at the percentages, with the load they carry the few horrible situations that come out in the media do not compare to the many success stories the media doesnt bother to publish! Shame on them... The people involved in helping these families and these kids rarely hear anything positive about their efforts, unless from each other, and they just keep on keeping on. Thats something maybe the media should talk about!! Maybe as a community we should be helping these kids, social workers, families.. Theres is a handful of people I know and business I know that make helping fosterkids part of their financial plan. They put on Christmas parties, backpack parties make blankets and bring toys for kids that have nothing. They try to make these kids lifes as normal as possible! Instead of judging the things that are possibly broken maybe the media should talk about the huge need and try and help with support. Maybe not as interesting as critizing but it could make a huge difference!
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:46:04 +0000
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