Hey, y’all! You may have been wondering where I’ve been lately. I mean…it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. To be quite honest, my life has been a mess. As you may know, earlier this year we made the decision to become foster parents. We went through PRIDE Classes, prepared our home for little ones, and went through all of the steps required to become a licensed foster family. Back in July, we accepted our very first placement, a 3-year-old boy and a then 2-month-old baby girl.
We documented our journey via a podcast entitled Foster Friday. To be quite honest, the further into our journey we got, the more difficult it was to find an opportunity to sit down and record the podcast. Not only because we had our hands full, but because I felt that I had nothing positive to say. You see, being a foster parent is like getting punched in the face repeatedly. For months. Being a foster parent means that you constantly have to go toe-to-toe with someone; in our case it was with the agency.
You would think that getting along with your caseworker and the agency would be simple. After all, these are the people who are supposed to be looking out for the best interest of the child. Unfortunately, we just could not see eye-to-eye with our caseworker. As a foster parent, it is your job to advocate for the child(ren). We did just that and each and every time we did the caseworker acted like we were just getting in the way. So much crap was swept under the carpet and not dealt with. We learned that it was easier for the agency to turn a blind eye than to deal with them.
Today, after spending 4 and a half months with us, our littles were sent home. Despite recommendations from the Guardian Ad Litem and the magistrate to have the kids remain in care until May, the agency did everything in their power to make sure the kids went home today. You see, as it turns out, if a child is not reunified, it reflects badly on the agency. It is considered as a failure if a child has to remain in care. The magistrate gave the biological parents until May to pay $800 worth of traffic tickets so one of them could have a valid drivers license, to be able to have the kids in daycare, to acquire proper bedding for the children and to ensure they have food in their pantry. Rather than listening to these recommendations, the agency is paying for the tickets, daycare, bedding and food for the next six months.
I feel defeated. This is all so disheartening. The agency is just enabling the parents instead of holding them accountable for some of these solutions. So, tonight, instead of laying down in a comfortable bed, in a home with heating and air condition and a fully stocked kitchen, our littles are home with their mom and dad. We, by no means, were trying to keep the kids. We knew all along that they would go back with their parents. We had just hoped they’d be going back to better conditions. Their parents can’t even afford to feed them, at this time. They informed the magistrate that they don’t have any food in their home. These poor kids deserve so much better. I feel as though the system is failing them and there is nothing I can do.
I knew getting into foster care would be an emotional roller coaster, I just didn’t realize it would be quite this bad. At the end of the day, it isn’t about making sure the kid is in a safe home where all of their needs are met, it’s about making sure the agency looks good. After all, reunification is the number one goal and if a kid isn’t reunified then the agency has failed. That, my friends, is garbage.
I took a couple of weeks off a blogging so that I could make the most of our final days with the kiddos. Now that they’ve been reunified, I’ll be able to channel more time and energy into the blog. I look forward to bringing you lots of new blog posts.
You may be wondering… will this be our last foster placement? Do we have the energy to go through all of this again? At this point, I’m undecided. I’ll get back to you on that next week. Until then.