[jgalt]

We foster two children. Per the agency they are developmentally delayed. One just entered school, and is learning so much it makes me very happy. However he is still far behind where he should be. School (grade K) is only 3 hours and I feel he needs every minute of it. However the agency wants to pull him out of school one day per week for parental visits. Apparently afternoon visits are inconvenient for the social worker (it's not even a parent issue).

I am having a fit. I feel this is very detrimental for the child.

So far, I have told the S.W. that if they insist on arranging visits during school time they can provide the transportation. But that didn't seem to phase the S.W. Transportation is 30 minutes each way, I really thought that hammer would work.

Does anyone have any idea what other leverage I have?

[orphanagemom]

Does your school have afternoon Kindergarten?? Is it possible for him to go to that one if you do have it? Good luck!
Jen

[numbr1dbcksfan]

Also in a lot of places Kindergarten isnt mandatory.... so that may not be an issue with them(the SW)....

[jgalt]

Well it looks like I violated a cardinal rule. Never upset the SW. I've been told that I could be labled as non-cooperative, and that would be reason to pull the child. We also received a suprise visit from the SW late yesterday afternoon. So it's not about what is best for the child, but instead what is most convenient for the social worker.

I do appreciate the suggestions. Kindergarten is required, and really needed by the child. Under the No Student Left Behind Act there are certain standards that must be met each year, including Kindergarten. And for a child with no exposure to counting or the alphabet, there is alot to learn.

I don't think the idea of switching to an afternoon class works for a couple of reasons. First, it's full. Second, I think we should seek as much stability as possible for the child, and throwing in a new teacher and set of children would not be beneficial. And third, what's to stop the SW from deciding on afternoon visits in the future?

It's frustrating, as I was simply trying to be an advocate for the child, and now I'm branded as a trouble maker and warned that the children could get pulled. We are the fifth placement for these children, and we love them and hope to adopt them. We will go along to get along. It seems sad to me that the SW would rather move them to another home than move the visits two hours.

Alas, all the help we were promised in our foster care/adoption classes are just proving to be empty promises.

In the meantime we'll do our best to teach him to draw 5's with fat tummies, and 7's with a line coming down from heaven. It's a wonderful experience. I hope I don't lose it because I upset the SW.

[numbr1dbcksfan]

Actually I just checked the CA Dept of Education site and Kindergarten is NOT required in that state. Maybe what you can do is get the lesson plan from the teacher for the day of the meeting and then go over them in the afternoon-after the meeting. That way your little boy will still be getting the information that he needs...and it could be bonding time for you two while working on it!

Also...if you talk to the school, they may make an exception and let you change the class....it would be much easier to change classes this early in the school year than to have to do it later.... Or even for such a small issue to cause him to be moved and disrupt his WHOLE security.

SWs from what I have seen have a whole pile of cases that they have to work with and sometimes you cant make everyone happy. OF course it would have been polite for the SW to tell you when the meetings would be before you enrolled him into a morning program...but I guess hindsite is 20/20...

[Darci]

We just went through the same thing with our 2 foster kids. The older one (2 years behind his age group in school, and definitely behind the rest of his class --1st grade-- academically), was pulled out of school 2-3 times a week for visits. It drove us nuts. It also caused us to be concerned about our privacy (school papers going to visits with bmom could let her know what school he attended).

There was a lot of other things going on, and we tried to advocate for the kids. But, everytime we tried to get anything changed, we were threatened. It actually came down to us risking losing our little guy (been with us over a year) or to let the 2 foster kids go (they had only been here about 2 months). The final straw came when the SWs supervisor called our agency, threatened to pull our kids, and threatened to black list us. We had the kids moved.

Unfortunately, you have to play their games, or just have the kids removed. I was told that dozens of times by dozens of people. For us, it just became too risky to keep them here.

Hope things work out better for you than they did for us.

Darci