[stevenstwin]

And on a related note, are YOU free to cancel visits if you have plans?
This is driving me crazy, and the more I think about it, the madder I get. My foster son has a supervised visit with the whole family every Sunday at 3:00 - so that means him, mom&dad, and the 2 younger children who are in a different foster home. Well, first of all, this time is a disaster to begin with. It means that we've given up every single one of our weekends for the past 6 months - no going to the city for the weekend, no spending time with family, and no going camping (something we like to do in the summer - and used to go every weekend); because we have to have him back by 3 on Sunday. The thing that REALLY peeves me off, is that when the visits are cancelled, they don't give us any advance notice! Sometimes they are cancelled because the other foster family has plans (so that's why I'm asking - how often should they be able to cancel?), and sometimes it is because there is no supervisor available. The only time they even called was at 10:00 am on Easter morning (a little too late to make alternate plans!) and the last two weekends we've only found out when we GOT there and no-one showed up! At least if we'd known in advance we could have made other plans. I've been told that if we want to go somewhere, we can just not bother bringing A., and the visit will go ahead without him (yet if one of the other 2 parties cancells the whole thing is cancelled), but he is very much against the idea. Do I FORCE him to go camping with us even if I know he's going to be miserable about missing a visit? Or do I try to put him in respite care and go camping without him, so he can go to his visit?

[ECDGA]

I would not sacrifice your family time for these visits. He would probably enjoy this "normal" activity and time spent away from the neighborhood in which his family lives might be a much needed break for him. I can't imagine that this would not be great for all of you--some bonding time playing board games, hiking and around the campfire might do better than any therapy.

[vernellinnj]

My fs's mom has to call the Sw by noon on the day before visits to confirm. If she doesn't call, the visits are cancelled. DYFS provides the transpo for her and her 2 children (in diff foster homes). It doesn't effect me as I do not facilitate visits (I'm at work when they take place - my FS is picked up from the daycare).

I would not stand for your situation. Set the boundaries w/ your SW - you should not have to sacrifice your family time for the visits. Good luckhttp://forums.adoption.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ml4474]

I am in the same situation... At first I would cancel our family plans to make sure fs made all of the visits but after 3 months of doing this with the bio making only 1 visit I stopped cancelling our plans. I am willing to change the day so fs can have the chance to visit with his mother but most of the time she isn't going to show up anyway so its not a problem. I did make the mistake of offering to take fs to see her b/c she had not made any visits in a month and a half. Now, she calls wanting me to bring fs to her every week and apparently the father found out about this and he has started calling wanting the same thing. They live over 20 miles away so it will not become a weekly visitation for us.

I would make your plans and go with your family. If fs gets upset make sure you let hime know that the visit can be rescheduled for, lets say, Monday night. He will still get to see his bios and your family will have some quality time.

[stevenstwin]

I guess that is the worst part of it - I don't really give a hoot if he misses a visit with his parents, who rarely show up anyway! But I really hate for him to miss his visit with the 4 year old sister and 2 year old brother. Especially since the permanency plan for them after the TPR is to be moved to their maternal grandparents 12 hours from here, so he won't hardly see them ever. It's pretty heart wrenching - when they see him, they both run over and cling to his legs, and he's nearly in tears every time he says good bye :-(

[All Boys]

Awh! That is so sad, that he has to be aeperated from his brother, and sister...
I do cancel visits, if we have plans.. But our visits are usually on Monday mornings, they are supervised at our local DCFS office.. I don't think I have ever been notified in advanced of a canceled visit... My fs's bmom hardly ever shows up either... So we get up, and go set and wait for 15 minutes for them to get there, and if they don't show up, we leave, even if they are walking in the door as we are walking out, we still have to leave... That is our judges orders....
Our fs doesn't have any siblings as of yet.. And as of June 19th the judge order that DFCS start the process of TPR on his bmom, and bdad...

[swanzie]

Stevenstwin,

Would it be possible to request visitation be made during the week.. Explain the sw that this is interfering with your summer plans. Even if you make visitation with just other siblings.

I can honestly tell you that I would not do weekend visits at all. I personally don't care if they are after school or whatever during the week - but when hubby is home it is family time and I am not going to schedule visits during family time.

We had TPR trial so we don't have visits any longer (that GOD!) but during last summer I told sw that I wanted a static appointment for either tuesday or wednesday mornings so that we could plan our vacation days. Bio hardly ever showed even though it was set up for her to call and confirm the day prior...but at least I could have something else planned for the day to get the kids out of their funk.

[hubbyswife]

We wouldn't do weekend visits either.... It's bad enough that they are on Friday late in the afternoons. Bparents have missed a few so now they have to call before noon on Friday to verify that they are going to come.

The bparents want another visit during the week but they aren't doing anything else in their case plan. So I'm not sure if the SW is going to allow that. SW asked us if it was ok and we said yeah as long as you pick up FD and bring her back. SW then said well we can do it at after 5pm. DH stood his ground and said that was too late.

I mean it's great that the bparents are visiting but come one shouldn't they have to do the other required things in their case plan before they get a second visit during the week... It's not just about visiting the kids....

[stevenstwin]

I don't think I'll be able to find a solution that pleases everyone. I contacted the Social Worker, and she said that we can try setting up a visit for just the siblings later in the week. Of course, he REALLY BADLY wants those visits with the whole family together. I'm not too sure why - he has free access to go visit his dad whenever he wants (my second gripe is that the social worker will NOT define for me what is "reasonable". Lately he's been over there FAR too much, and last night he came home with a house key! I keep trying to pin her down on how much is too much, and all she says is "maybe we should all get together to discuss it." WHAT?! So I have to sit there in front of the dad and say that *I* think the visits are excessive? I don't want to have to be the bad guy here, especially if the Social Worker then turns around and says that 8 hours at a stretch is okay with her!) Anyway - he says he doesn't want to miss the Sunday visits, but he also doesn't want to do respite care (and I know his former foster parents would take him for a couple weekends. They are a nice older couple and he likes them okay), so I guess he's just going to have to deal with it. Hope he doesn't make us ALL miserable when we go camping!

[vesw01]

We almost had the same situation. All of a sudden they said that they were going to change visits from tues night to Sat afternoon. We told them we hoped that they had plans for our fd for the entire weekend since we are out boating every weekend and aren't going to change our family plans for this and they would have to provide all the transportation. Her mother does not work, therefore there is no reason to move visits to the weekend..and oddly enough the visits never changed.

[Withay]

I tell the cw when a child is placed in my home that I do visits on Monday and Friday mornings from 10 - 12 ONLY. Tuesday is reserved for WIC. Wednesday is for doctor appointments and Thursday is our day to stay at home. The weekends are for family and friends only.

The cw's all know this (after 4 years) and have no problems with it.

[DianeScraps]

Our visits started to get really hairy with cancellations and such. So I talked to the social worker and we set up a schedule and visits had to be confirmed 48 hours ahead. That really helped

Diane

[gregorysparents]

Visitations are always a pain because it seems like we always had to work with everyone else's schedule - but - no one worked with ours.

We had to start doing Sunday visits back in February with Whyatt. His mom lived at a home for girls and it was their way - their schedule - not ours. We had to take him every Sunday at 8:30 am and then pick him up at 4:30 pm. I would turn around and take him on Mondays from 3:30 - 5:30 pm and then on Wednesdays from 3:30 - 4:30 pm.

Mom was recently placed back with her parents so starting next week I will be doing Wednesdays from 1 to 3 pm. Sounds good - but - the mom and her parents live about an hour-and-a-half to two hours from me (one way).

I had never asked for a dime for mileage or gas when the visits were held in our county. I have asked for assistance (for gas and mileage) with these visits when I start taking him to his mom and her parents home - but - have been told no that it's our responsibility to transport him.

Oh well, life does go on.

Christina

[ml4474]

gregorysparents - I'm shocked that they will not pay you mileage. Everyone I've talked to said that mileage should be paid if you are transporting. I think I might push that a little especially since the trips have gotten to be such a distance. My feelings are that the bios have some responsibility in getting to see their children so I don't say anything about mileage as long as they are meeting me half way.

DianeScraps - Quick question... If the bios do not confirm, do you just assume they are not coming? I am SO tired of driving over to the park to meet with fc bio and her not showing up b/c cause she's shopping at Wal-Mart. Give me a break! Out of the past 4 months she has only shown up once... I've done a lot of driving and plan rearrangements for nothing. I would love to be able to setup something like a confirmation by noon the day of the visit or I just don't make the drive - that sounds SO wonderful

[gregorysparents]

ML4474,

We are being told that transporting children to visitations, dr. appts., other meetings, activities and etc. are part of our "monthly pay". It is part of our "job". Their words - not mine.

At $3+ for a gallon of gas - I had hoped that they would help out some.

Oh, I made a mistake - the visits are from 1 pm to 4 pm. What's a poor girl suppose to do in a town that she knows nothing about for three hours? I can't afford to go shopping!!!!

Christina