[reapingjoy]

It's a long story how we've gotten to this point, but we have now told CSB that they need to find a new family for M. Her SN are just so much more than we can handle. She was presented to us as completely healthy & developmentally on target which is so far off I can't believe she was in foster care for almost 3 years. Back when we were matched, there were a bunch of families in the running. Of course, this was for a healthy child, so I'm not sure if any of those families are still interested.

Today, I had a meeting with M's SW. She asked me what we were thinking as far as moving her. To be brutally honest (which I didn't tell her), I am so physically & emotionally drained from the stress of caring for her that I am going to need quite awhile to "heal" at this point &, as much as we love her, the sooner they can move her the better for our entire family. I had told them that we wanted to help in the transition to the new family because we got no help whatsoever from the previous FM. I'm beginning to think that they took this to mean we are fine with keeping her for as long as it takes to find a family, even if that is months & months. At one point, the SW told me that she didn't even know if they could find a family who would take a child with her SN & that they could always move her back into foster care if we wanted her moved before they could find a family. Then it makes it seem like we just don't care what they do with her as long as she is out of our house, which is not true.

We had kind of had in our minds July 30th as a date to at least be transitioning. She needs to start in a SN preschool this fall & we think it's best that her new family gets her set up in that from the beginning. But they couldn't even get a preliminary meeting with the supervisors to discuss her case until July 2nd, so I'm figuring there's no way they'll have chosen a new family & be transitioning her by then. I also homeschool & we fell so far behind this spring after she moved in that I have got to really concentrate on the boys' schooling & lesson plans. I usually take a couple of weeks in August to get that together. I don't know how that will happen if she's still here.

So, what do you all think is a reasonable timeframe to give them to move her? And what if they can't find a family??? I know it's not ideal for her to go back into fostercare, but what if they're taking months & months to decide? Also, do you think they would move her back with the former FM even though there were allegations of abuse & the therapist hotlined the FM for a situation that happened during our visit month & we suspect the foster brother was abusing her, and this is the same woman who never got her any help for the multiple SN she has? My friend says it's still a very real possibilty they'd put her back there.

This whole situation is just so hard for all of us & I don't want to make it worse, but I feel like they are going to end up taking advantage of the fact that we are willing to bend over backwards to help this child.

Thanks for any advice you can give!