[foster_bub]

My wife and I attended court twice over the last week. Once for our foster daughter and the other for our foster sons who are siblings.

I can't understand the court systems and have nothing good left to say about our agency. I'm just unconvinced that they really are looking out for the children's best interest.

Our foster daughter parents have been MIA for the last 4 months. No visits and no contact though they have both of our cell phone numbers. They have done nothing in their case plan other than attend 10 parenting classes. They have no jobs, no stable housing, continue to test positive for drugs and have at least 10 warrants for their arrests in at least 3 states. We're at the 10 month mark in a week. The kicker is that they were found to be partially compliant by the court. How can this be? They've done 1 thing out of 5 which doesn't even come close to being partially compliant in my mind. Now our agency wants to update their case plan to include a psych eval which I'm all for. Dad is bipolar which he's admitted to being and it says that right in the case file that we have on our foster daughter. Why this wasn't part of the original case plan is beyond me. Our biggest fear is if they change the case plan will it allow them more time and shoot us in the foot? I was told by the GAL that our agency planned on going to court in July. HELLO.. that will be the 12 month mark that she came into care! Although the parents did show to court which was amazing in itself not once did they ask about the well being of their daughter.. NOT ONCE! It was one excuse after another on why they couldn't do their case plan, which if you saw it is the easiest plan I've ever seen. So do you all think they'll be granted an extension if they update the case plan so late in the game?

Now on to the boys... UGGGH where to start.

Our boys are 2 of 7 all in care. The good news is that they did change the goal to adoption and plan on formally filing TPR in June. Keep in mind that these kids have been in foster care now for 22 months. Mom was granted a 6 month extension back in August of 06 and the judicial review was scheduled for January 23rd. Well mom got herself arrested in a different county and no one from our agency and the state attorney's office was able to get transportation from jail to court for mom so it was postponed. Mom gets out of jail, then gets rearrested and the cycle repeats itself. Then again! Yes three times over the last 4 months mom is arrested and they can't get her to court! So all in all she and the fathers (there are 2 dads) get an unofficial extra 4 months extension to their case plan which totals 10 months, on top of the year they already had. So the judge, bless her, finally says we're going forward, this is about the kids not the mom! Someone FINALLY sees the light.

Okay, so mom is locked up and will be for at least a year or so. Neither dad has made any effort and have been non compliant in their case plans. Our 2 boys have the same dad, he's challenging paternity on the baby, so right now he's just the dad to E our oldest. Well dad has never show up to court in the past 22 months, and has has no contact or visits with E in the 22 months he's been in care. You guessed it... he showed up to court asking for visitation ... AND IT WAS GRANTED!! Can you say abandonment? The kicker is that there is a NO contact order in place, which neither our agency nor the asst state attorney office could produce which is in the case file we have on E and is the reason the 6 children (before the baby was born) came BACK into care.

My wife and I are sooooooooo against this visitation after he's had no contact in 22 months that I'm just disgusted that no one is trying to stop it. So I send an email over to our NEW case worker.. that's another issue.. stating I have a copy of the no contact order so we can't let the visit go on, she unfortunately sends it to her supervisor (we do NOT like each other)who then responds with the following:

I know this must be a frustrating situation for you to be in. However, the judge ordered this yesterday in court and we cannot disregard her order. The visits will be supervised for one month in the office. The father will not be left alone with the child and the visit will be stopped if it becomes inappropriate. If there are concerns that you have after the visits occur you can address them with the case manager and the GAL.

I don't get it! They have the no contact order but won't go back to the judge saying.. whoa.. this is why the kids came into care.. he beat the heck out of them, pulled on gun on grandpa in front of E .. geez no let's open the doors to visitation.. All after 22 months of no contact and no visits knowing full well how and where he could have contact.

What can I do to make sure if he sets up a visit we don't have to put this child through it?

I'm willing to do anything, I've started drafting letters to the judge, our senator you name it. Any advice is welcome!

sorry this is long.. it's been eating at me for days!

Bub

[TxMom65]

I can certainly understand your frustration. I teach school and have seen many kids abused by family members and it seemed the system let them down. I didn't realize how complex the whole thing was until my husband and I adopted our daughter. She was in foster care for 5 years. FIVE YEARS! The majority of that was 6 month extensions, DNA tests, more extensions, ect.
How very sad for the kids, and you as well.

[skirbo]

Take the no contact order and mail it to the judge with a politely worded letter that simply says 'This is the no contact order that DCF (or whatever) could not produce for you in court on whatever day in whatever dependency case number.' Be sure that you notate that you sent a copy to *everybody* and then do send copies to everybody. Otherwise it's considered ex parte communication and will be returned to you (with copies to everyone) with that notation on it. What will happen after that is anyone's guess, but the Court is supposed to honor the terms of the most restrictive order.

After 22 months, I think that the chances the father will show up for visitation are pretty slim-after all, it's going to be scheduled during daytime weekday business hours at the office, from what you described.

As for your fd, I'm not sure what state you are in, but in Florida what I would expect to happen is at the 12 month mark, the judge will decide based on the state's recommendation that reunification is unlikely and do a case plan with a concurrent goal.

Sadly, once the parents start anything on their case plan, it's considered partial compliance. If they really get their act together at the 11th hour, the judge may grant an extension, but if they don't do anything between now and the next court date, I wouldn't expect it. Just a concurrent goal, which would be reunification and something else which might not necessarily be adoption.

I understand how frustrating this is for you. Good luck.

Sarah

[tvs4]

Maybe I'm wrong but shouldn't the child's GAL know about the no contact order and make sure the judge has seen it? I assume the no contact order was from the court. Do no contact orders have an "expiration"? I try to remember that CWs and their superviors are NOT lawyers so I would go to the child's lawyer with this since it sounds like a legal issue. I think a lot of CWs think they know the law but they don't. I wouldn't stop until a real lawyer told you to stop.

just my 2 cents.

[kxl164]

There is a no contact order in my case too, but first there is the matter of the dates involved and also there is a matter of jursidiction. In our case, the order is from a different county and granted on a date that, in the eyes of the judge for our county, it is not "standing" in this case as pertaining to the children. The children are on the no contact order, but given the other issues it does not apply.

If there is any question though, send it to the judge and all involved (and the SW supervisor) so that they can make that decision.

As for the progress, like the previous poster said any progress or any compliance with the service plan is considered progress for the terms of a review hearing. I do agree that adding on the psych eval now will slow things down, they should have done it at the review, because unless there is no further "progress" the judge may order termination anyway, but if there is some more compliance and they are asking for something else to be done the judge will probably allow more time.

Frustrating, YES, but usually if they allow an extension it is both to give more time to see if it will work, and also to give the birthparents enough rope to hang themselves with so to speak.

As for the visitation, I agree that it should not happen, but unfortunately the birthparent has the "right" to have visitation with his child/children. If they do not allow him visition it could be grounds for an appeal later, so they think short -term loss, long-term gain in situations like these. They are not thinking of the kids, not because they don't care but because they know that they have to offer this or it runs the risk of putting the child through more months and possibly years of impermanence if they do not.

So sorry to hear that you are so frustrated, but hang in there. It sounds like they are just covering all their bases with the boys case, although I hope that they are doing paternity testing now. And as for your fd's case, I think they know where it is heading but again want to make sure they have all they need for a sucessful termination (why they want the psych eval).

[Bailey071097]

tsv4 is correct! The caseworkers are not attorneys and can not easlily schedule a subsequent court date - they have to go through the DA. The GAL (or ad-litem) can quickly file a motion and be seen again. We have had an ad-litem do this when CPS was not doing what they were supposed to do. Let me tell you... CPS quickly got in line and it got straightened out.

[stevenstwin]

Originally Posted by TxMom65

I can certainly understand your frustration. I teach school and have seen many kids abused by family members and it seemed the system let them down. I didn't realize how complex the whole thing was until my husband and I adopted our daughter. She was in foster care for 5 years. FIVE YEARS! The majority of that was 6 month extensions, DNA tests, more extensions, ect.
How very sad for the kids, and you as well.

That's ridiculous! My foster son has been in and out of foster care for 14 years before they tpr'd - but the longest he was ever in at one stretch was a year (most were a matter of weeks). Well, and now us, I guess - we've already had him a year and a half, and he'll age out of the system as a "foster child", so I guess the poor kid's total will be more than 50% of his childhood!