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Last summer, I had the experience of being a "Case Practice Reviewer" for the Concord, NH District Office. Even with many years of fostering, police and teaching experience, this was the best spent week I ever had. I was the only one not on the state pay roll. We compared case practices to federal guidelines. The toughest guidelines to meet are the limited moves, maintained in the community, and time limits. Courts and the legal requirements make the time constraints impossible.
It was so refreshing for me to see many positive outcomes and some truly fantastic social work. Some of the best results (adoption, reunification) went beyond the time limit but was necessary to make it work. In one adoption case, the foster parent adopted two but was first very much against it in the beginning. They took the children from a previously failed adoption. When the parents decided, they wanted their grown son to be prepared to take the children if something should happen to them. This took three years. It still brings tears to my eyes as I recall the interview with the mother and daughter.
Reunification took an extra long time for one young couple as they successfully completed the requirements for parenting, employment and living arrangement. They separated, got back together, then married. The strength of their commitment was also evident in this interview.
The tough cases were the children whose parents would only partially complete programs and remained on their addictions. The children were constantly let down and acted up. As a case practice reviewer, I found little documentation about the failed placements. There were a few telephone calls but the official record was often "foster parent request," nothing more. It was impossible to determine whether services were considered to prevent the move.
With our 19 years of fostering troubled teenaged boys, we've had some with more than 30 placements. Our first adopted son is one of these. He came to us as a 10-day placement until a bed became available at another group home. After 3 days, we asked the social worker to wait on the move. At 8 months, our typical time, his behavior became so bad that a move was being considered by the agency. We started the adoption and the agency backed off and celebrated with us the adoption of the now 17-yr-old. It hasn't been and still isn't an easy road now that he is a young adult.
These kids need this commitment. They need a family that will be with them well unto adulthood. Group homes can't do that. Even the private agencies who protend to be the elite, cannot do it without the foster/adoptive parents.
We have always felt that more can be done using foster parents as mentors. Even when the agency tries, so many foster parents feel inadequate to ask for help or advice. Here's where the social woprker can be most effective with a presence of this not only being OK, it is expected.
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