[mommacass]

K goes to a pre-placement visit this coming weekend and we were not going to continue to foster or adopt. My mom told me on Saturday that my nieces maternal grandmother ( who she has been living with for sometime now) is going to sell her house and move to Georgia. My niece does not want to go, she wants to live with us. She is only a week older than my son (10yrs). CPS got involved with her over a year ago. The only thing I know is that they told her gma that she was not to be alone with bmom and gave bmom some things to do (rehab & counsling). They were never done and nobody has ever come back to check on my niece.
Now I am wondering what I should do. Should I call CPS, cw, my agency, .... Or should I just let her move in and shut down like I planned on it? I would really like to get my niece some counsling. H E L P

mommacass

[Withay]

I would definitely call and talk with CPS. As a foster child, your niece would be entitled to many services that she may not be able to get otherwise. As a foster parent you should not be required to pay for all the counseling she may need.

At the very least, you might be able to find out why the local CPS office never followed up on your niece after placing her with the grandparent. They are, after all required by law to follow-up. Someone has truly dropped the ball in this case, it would appear.

[mommacass]

I talked to the gma today and she said that at this point CPS is not involved, she did say that she has Power of Attorney and she doesn't know how sign that over to us. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

Oh, my niece was never actually a foster child, they just came out and told gma a few rules and left my niece M in gma's care. I guess it was just kinship care.

mommacass

[Withay]

In that case you may want to contact an atty who specializes in child welfare cases and ask their advice. It sounds like the local CPS office set it up as kinship care rather than foster care, a move frequently done to avoid the expense of foster care. Good luck.

[ranoutofnames]

I know in my state (and several others) the only person who can grant decision making of their child to another person is the legal parent. Eventhough gma has POA that doesn't mean she has the right to sign her POA over to another person... likely the bmom will need to be located and have her sign over POA or you'll need to petition the courts to get Guardianship.

Good luck. Sounds like you may want to contact Legal Services in your area. If you don't have the money to hire an attorney you may be able to get advice and assistance through Legal Services. Every state has something like this. There are federal grant monies specifically ear marked for it.

[Tudu]

I am in GA, I had LG of my former fd's child. When we switched it to her aunt all we did was have the parents listed onthe BC sign a form we got from the Probate Court and they went and filed in a different county. Call the courts see what they say.

[allforone]

I am just curious who came out and told grandma some rules and left the child? I know in my state, and I did kinship care, that cps was involved. They were involved with my now ason, who was never technically in foster care, clear up until we completed the adoption over a year later.
If you are able to get custody then I would definatly contact a lawyer. One who has done this before and see what needed to be done.
In no way should you just sit back and allow the mom to be able to have free reign again until she has completed her rehab and gotten her act together.
Always do what is best for the child. Good luck.

[mommacass]

It was a cw from what I understand. I guess since she was already with the gma they didn't put her into the system. That way they wouldn't have to pay out any money.

MommaCass

[athikers]

I would suggest you pursue trying to become niece's foster placement rather than kinship placement. I believe it gives you much more support, finacially and in general and will be a better option long term.

[hkolln]

I agree with everyone here...regarding becoming her foster parent and opposed to her legal guardian. In legal guardianship you'd be responsible for all her therapy and anything financial relating to her. If she's a foster child she should have more services available to her thru the agency.

[mommacass]

Hello everyone, It's been awhile. Lets see if I can catch you up.
We still have our niece M with us going on about 7mo. Mom signed a power of attorney, gma moved out of state. And her dad (my brother) lives 3 blocks from us. Right at first she wanted to go stay with mom every weekend, we put a stop to that. Before she moved in we told her if you make this move you are a part of our family. We were starting to feel more like a boarding school. Mom had a job at first, but I soon learned that she lost it. Of course we get none of this info from M. Mom is still living in gma's house that she is trying to sale. After gma left mom moved two men in with her, If you can call them that. I guess so she has someone to pay the bills. M does real well until she goes to see her mom then we have to deal with some attitude for a day or so. We have had several people comment on the changes that they have seen in her since she has come to live with us. At one point we did go see a lawyer to see if we had the right to keep her from her mom because of the things she does and the people she is around. The lawyer said that mom still has legal custody, but she didn't think that it would be that hard for us to get full custody of her. It was going to cost 4,000 up front, which we don't have, and then we worried about M resenting us for taking her away from Mom. After the meeting with the lawyer I got more curious about her CPS involvment so I called and spoke with the cw. CW told me that since mom signed over POA to gma that was enough for them to step out of it.
I have been taking M to a psychologists for a short time I hope that she will open up to her.
Mom called last Friday before the kids left fo school and I could hear her from the other room while M was talking to her. I think she had been up all night doing drugs. She wanted M to come stay with her, we didn't give an answer at that point. Then almost as soon as M got home from school she called again, we told her we had to think about. Later she called again and she was all mad saying things like what's there to think about I'm your momma that pis___ me off. So finally my husband called her and told her that she had been gone the last two weekends in a row and we thought she need to stay home. Then Saturday she called twice and came by once. Sunday she called a couple of times but we weren't home, when she did talk to her that day mom was telling her she had wanted to pick M up and take her to the movies.
Also we filed for the child support right before christmas that my brother has to pay and no one knows where it is going. Only to find out that mom had also filed for it. We told them that mom is not taking care of the child and has not cared for her in more than a year. So that is pretty much where we are right now. We would welcome any advice you have for our situation. Thanks.

MommaCass

[hkolln]

You may wish to screen the phone calls if they get excessive. Or have them on speakerphone so you can hear everything and stop the conversations if it gets out of hand. Just a suggestion because we dealt with this alot in the early part of the placement. And set some ground rules if you can.

Let's hope everything works out for this child! Glad to hear an update

[mommacass]

We tape all of the calls without either of them knowing. M seems to trust no one and can be very sneaky. So we hope she never has to find out but this was the only way we might find out if anything is going on that might put her in danger. Everytime she is with her mom I worry until she gets back home.
All of our kids want cell phones and we say NO!!!!
M knows we don't approve of them having cell phones and yet she had talked her mom into getting one for her. M even told her mom that we didn't mind (lie). When my husband call mom to tell her M couldn't come over for the weekend she told him that she was going to buy her one and he said that was not a good idea. I bet she will still get her one.