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Originally Posted By Ashley

Although I have not yet been placed with a foster or adoptive child, I was a social worker for adolescents in the addictions field for a long while. I learned that people are like a constantly changing book. The more you learn about them, the more they learn about themselves, and you have to always be expecting something different around the corner. I had many children who were in the foster care system as patients. I never got all the information when they arrived. I had to do session after session with them, work with them to find out what little information they would allow me. Children are very quiet about their past. They don't trust adults and therefore don't often just offer information. But even my children who came from traditional homes were the same way. Their parents never knew the troubles that they had at school, or the neighbor who molested them or the voices they heard when they were alone.

When we went into this process of adoption and foster care, we just assumed that we wouldn't know most of the information on the children. We weren't bothered with many diagnosis. We have seen many of them in the children we have worked with. There were some that we said would not be acceptable. I had some patients every now and then who had no consious and were very violent and aggressive. I had many death threats in my working past. I knew that a child like that had no place in my home. But I did have many wonderful children in my care who were nice kids with a crapy childhood. Those children were the ones my heart went out to. The ones who led me to decide that one day I would persue adoption. It was because of the children who had bad foster homes that we decided we would open our home to foster children and provide one more safe, loving home.

I would say to always assume that you will only have SOME of the information. Plan to learn more about your child than anyone has to that point. When a child feels safe they will then open up. Children don't always feel safe in Foster care. So the foster parents may not pick up on much. And many foster parents aren't trained to pick up on some of those cues. The social workers don't know everything about a child. The biological parents take on an attitude of "I'm not going to tell you anything!" And that is just the beginning. The child may not know what a "normal" family is and that can be very scary. But I have seen many children settle in and do well. You just have to make sure that they get the counseling they need, the love you can give and the safety that comes with a forever family.

Ashley