[MBear]

This being my first experience in foster care I need help to understand family vs foster family. Baby B has been with us for one year, since she was six weeks old. Parents show up weekly,(separately). Case has been extended til Feb.
My problem is: they are asking parents if there are relatives to get home studies done. In my opinion, if a relative has not stepped up within a year as a kinship placement, what type of relationship can that relative have that makes them more suitable than the foster family at this point? I don't believe unnecessary changes in placement is a healthy move for children. Any suggestions?

[Biblemom]

This is a normal part of the process. They have to show that they made every attempt to place the child/children with family. We are in the same boat at the moment.

[MamaS]

MBear, there are several reasons for the delay.
One possibility is that the parents do not want their extended family to know the child is in care, while there is hope that they can get the child back.
Another -- unfortunate -- reality is that extended family may be more willing to take an older child. It is the foster family who goes through the drug withdrawal experienced by the child, who gets up for nightly feedings, comforts the child through teething, etc. Then, when the child is "easier" to take care if the distant relatives swarm in. It has nothing to do with any affection for or relationship with the child. They may never have even seen the child. But if the child is "blood kin" everyone automatically assumes that the child should go to "family" even if family never went out of their way for the child!

[millie58]

Family may not know. I was on that side of the coin. a friend I grew up with was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in her 20's. Got pregnant; son was put into foster care. She had no contact with family so they didn't know. When they found out, parents adopted him. It's not always what it seems.

[Boulderbabe]

Originally Posted by MBear

This being my first experience in foster care I need help to understand family vs foster family. Baby B has been with us for one year, since she was six weeks old. Parents show up weekly,(separately). Case has been extended til Feb.
My problem is: they are asking parents if there are relatives to get home studies done. In my opinion, if a relative has not stepped up within a year as a kinship placement, what type of relationship can that relative have that makes them more suitable than the foster family at this point? I don't believe unnecessary changes in placement is a healthy move for children. Any suggestions?

Don't ask me. I think that while relatives are awesome when they step up early in the process, it's a brutal and horrible thing to pull a kid away from a home and a family that he or she has been with for so long.

[sergekel]

I am wondering why they wait till TPR is approaching, the child has bonded to the foster family and THEN they ask the bios if there is any family wlling to homestudy?

Why don't they do this when children first come into care instead? Or do they do it then....and then ask again later?

Really stinks to sit on it for a year while the children bond to (what origionally were) strangers and then go hunting down family who, by this time....are now strangers to the child.

?!?

[Boulderbabe]

It's appalling. Doing things this way makes it so much harder on kids.

I think due diligence on relatives should be done the first week the kids are in care!

[spicedmama]

I hope that this thread does not turn into a relatives vs. us thread. There are many reasons why families don't step up or step in and then there may be circumstances that are unknown to the fostering family as to why it takes so long for relatives to step up and/or step in. Each story is different and each family is different.

It's no fun whatever side you are on. Sometimes, you have to wonder, what is really the best for the children.

[Hadley2]

Thank you, spicedmama. There is certainly no basis for prejudging a family situation when the foster family cannot know whether it has a full or accurate story. And it can't, period, no matter what the cw says, it is not her job or place to keep you fully informed and, moreover, she may not know herself.

In general, on this topic, I think it is important to remember that it does the children no good and does the children real harm to judge their origins or family situation "good" or "bad," etc., even when you do know or think you know. Better to simply look at realities--there or not there, functional or not functional, sober or not sober, healthy or not healthy--than to make judgments of or jump to cynical concusions about a person's or family's worthiness that blow back onto and into the self-esteem and self-image of the child you love.

Sometimes, and it can be unfair to the child as well as the family, social services deliberately does not place with family for many reasons--distance is a big one--that have nothing to do with the family's commitment to the child. Sometimes a child does attach so strongly to the foster family that he/she should stay there. That is still a loss for the child and may be "unfair" to the family--just as it may have been truly unfair to the child to not place him/her with family in the first place. But none of this is about fairness to the adults, or shouldn't be: it should be, at each moment in the case, what's best for that child at that moment and the responsible adults' best judgment on long-term.

I think everybody does their best. I think mistakes get made. I think no matter what happens, there is some kind of loss and some kind of gain out of situations that never "should" have happened in the first place. We can only hope that the second outweighs the first for the children.

mamaS's comment, I think, is a bit far-fetched although perhaps her experience, if that is her experience, is the anecdotal exception to the rule. Most families, unless they have other experience with the system (I was a volunteer parent mentor for ss, for example, long before fostering a relative), really don't think in terms of the issues the child would bring into their home, at least not at first, and usually, I think, not until after being counseled on it.

It's a stressful time. You clearly care a great deal about this baby. I hope things work out well for the baby and your family.

[melissa_bear003]

As long as family members are healthy, I don't see why a child wouldn't be placed with them, or why they wouldn't be given preferance. Family stories, history, etc is something that nobody else can give them.

As has been pointed out, family isn't always contacted when a child first comes into care. Many family members that would be willing from the start simply don't know. I *think* that the parents do get an initial say in who gets contacted, until RU is proven to be no longer an option, and then they broaden the search.

Is it fair to the child? I'd say no. But its also not the fault of the family members either. Some people keep secrets until the last possible moment, so it may appear that family members just burst on to the scene.

I know for us, we've been proactive in ensuring that IF dh's great niece ever comes back into care, we are on her file as being willing to do a kinship placement.

That being said, that's only 1 family member we know to be at potential risk. Dh has other bio sibs that have children scattered about that we really know nothing of, that may/may not be at risk, and could be sitting in care right this moment. If we WERE to get a call about one of them, we'd absolutely step up.

[EAGLE6]

We are a family member who is currently trying to get our nephew. I called within 36 hrs of hearing he went into the hospital w/ broken bones that were unexplanined. My heart sank, because I had a feeling.......

Anyhow, the baby went to foster care even though we contacted the worked so soon. The day I called the CW told me, it's still too early to know if we're even going that route. She took my contact info.

5 days later he was released from the hospital. It was that day she called me (which I was going to call her that day anyhow, because I had heard he was being released and I wanted to know what was happneing). She asked the parents for their input- she brought up my husband and I- and they were both okay w/ us.

Still my nephew went into care. There was no justifiable reason for this. She couldn't "deny" us. She didn't even meet us, come to our home, or do anything else. Rather they sent him to foster care, and said we'd work on figuring this out. Now my BIL and the babies mother get a summons to go to court and the papers state their is no suitable relative placement. I was floored. My husband nor I have ever been arrested or anything, so there is nothing she could of even found w/ a check. I actually thought so hard I thought maybe it was because I was on a payment plan for some taxes I couldn't pay to the state all at once, but that would be just silly since we are sticking w/ our pymt plan. So, there was no reason to say we were not suitable.

Now we do have a meeting tomorrow w/ the parents and CW to try and make a "plan" for placement. Still, this should of been done prior to him being placed since we stepped up 5 days before he was released from the hospital and placed. In our case, it seems as if the CW really just does not want to be bothered, and it's bugging the heck out of me.

Maybe this could be the case more than some realize.

[TxMom65]

My daughter had family members try for several years. When one would not pass the homestudy, another would try. THen another. There was one aunt who tried from day 1 to get her and even went against her own brother just to see that my daughter had the safest home.
I am glad that I can tell my daughter that she there were family members step up to try. So often I hear that "nobody wants these kids". That isn't true the majority of the time in cases I have seen.

[LeighM]

You never know how thing actually went down. CW could have been asking bp all along about family and the bp didn't give names. Sometime bf wait it out in hopes the family member get's their life together. There are 100 reasons why this did or did not happen. I know it is unfair. Our ad pgm wanted to adopt her - she came to all the visits and even hired her own attorney. But she failed her homestudy with the state. She never did the changes to her home that needed to be done. So she went into court with a lawyer that did not know what he was doing, she had no approved homestudy and her petition was thrown out of court.

[hkolln]

In some states they only have to contact certain relatives (in our situation it was all the SW had to do was show proof she called both sets of Grandparents) and if you are extended family that has moved away from or decided to separate from the relatives that are not any good then you never find out til it's way too late. Normally the SW has to prove to a Judge they looked for relatives according to their requirements. It's normally just a process they go thru. I think it stinks they didn't search harder in our case but they did follow their county guidelines. We only found out by speaking to my husbands other sister and she told us by hearing it from their Mom that CPS called her. There are many different reasons hubby has no contact with his mother (lets just say it's not a stable relationship and she has made alot of poor choices raising him).

There could be many reasons why relatives have not stepped up yet. And there could be they have and haven't passed a home study or they are afraid to stepup for one reason or another. I can remember the SW telling us she was surprised we even called her and stepped up because most of the time relatives don't want to go thru the hassles we did. And I can remember in our daughters case the FP's never were told about us being involved til many months later.

I wish they would search early in the case (weeks not months) and get it over with before these kids bond with the FP's and also have the bioparents come up with names of other relatives they feel would be a safe home too. In our case SIL did mention us only while the SW came to visit her in prison after 3 months into the case! At that point we were already involved in getting our foster care license.

They need to search much earlier then a year later! That's way too long to me.

[millie58]

I think it is but, due diligence is going on what bio mom and dad tell workers. Not sure what my friend told workers, but when her mom and dad found out, her son was in process of being adopted. Now, this stinks to high heaven!!! The kid bonded with pre-adoptive parents and vice versa!!