A crazy October!

Trying to get my life back under control after the last foster kiddo we had placed with us has been a challenge. Her case broke my heart in ways I didn't even know was possible, and as a result I sort of lost focus and direction for a while. It's not good to lose focus and direction when you have as many balls in the air as I do - I have three munchkins under the age of six who all have multiple (competing) activities, a full time job, another full time job in keeping after my husband (sorry honey if you're reading this), managing a small non-profit, and various projects that help keep me sane (sewing, embroidering, and other crafty type stuff). I also started a small Pampered Chef business just before B came to us, but with the crazy, hectic pace life became with her case and everything else - I let that go by the wayside for a while.

I finally have gotten my head back in the right space - sort of and have gotten my house back in order, some projects that had been lingering taken care of, and I've even dipped my toes back into trying to get my PC business up and running. Things finally seem to feel a little bit more normal again. Don't get me wrong, there are still moments when I miss B so much my heart feels like it will just stop - but I'm adjusting to the fact that her new foster family just isn't on board with allowing us to still have contact with her. I've even managed to tone down the anger I've felt in my advocacy efforts lately (go figure - you KNOW I'm totally missing a filter most days) as I've slowly come to the realization that sweeping change will never take hold in the dependency system - change in this system is more like the glacially slow march of the slowest land snail in the world. But change has been happening, and that's a good thing.

I'm currently working on two pieces that I'll hopefully have up soon addressing the legislation dealing with the adoption interventions language (I'm so happy Senator Detert gets why this is important) and the requirements for placement matching - but those will be slower in coming out because I want to make sure I set the tone properly!

In the meantime, feel free to let me know what's going on in your world - and if you feel the need to add to your kitchen, stop by my Pampered Chef Party page! I'm closing out this party tonight and would LOVE to have your order!

https://www.pamperedchef.com/pws/nolegirl74/guest-landing/8935614397595

Much love to all!

Because telling me to shut up works so well... ask my husband!

So anyone who knows me knows a few things are just part of my genetic makeup. I’m a loudmouth. Highly opinionated. Passionate. I have a super strong sense of justice. I am more tenacious than a Jack Russell Terrier. I like to talk – a lot. I also have a massively bad case of ADHD so I either hyper focus or can’t focus at all. I believe in follow through and good customer service. I will praise you to the ends of the Earth if you do great things, but I will point out when systems or processes are failing (and usually even provide possible solutions). I’m usually happy. I love mornings and coffee and evenings and the occasional glass of wine. And kids… I love my kids. I’m not afraid to be a mama bear when I have to (for mine or others). And the one thing that really makes me crazy is administrators dismissing problems brought to them by consumers without considering that there may be issues with their businesses or processes.

So given this introduction to my personality and quirks, it likely wouldn’t surprise you that I get really frustrated with bad service, lack of compassion, poorly designed systems and processes, and administrators who refuse to see the problems in their service delivery models – or worse yet, see the problems but refuse to acknowledge them or work hard to fix them. If you add an extra layer to the story and know that I’m talking about the provision of services to vulnerable children and their families and the agencies charged with keeping kids safe you can probably predict that when I feel things are not being done adequately to protect kids or help the families charged with protecting them that I probably get a little worked up.

Last Monday I was called in to the “principal’s” office to discuss the “vision and expectations of our system.” Read: I posted a challenge to the local agencies on Facebook that I would demand no less than Gold Standard performance for the kids and families in the dependency system and got called in to discuss that I was being overly critical and emotional and not being the good cheerleader that a lead should be. I knew going in to that meeting that it would be what it was – and despite the fact that I am not a paid employee of the agency or the CBC but rather a volunteer who has only ever tried to help the agency perform its duties more effectively and efficiently – I went anyway to be a team player.

I came away from that meeting frustrated. I stewed and simmered for a week before writing any kind of response hoping that I could filter out my frustration before presenting any of the recent issues my families had brought to my attention for help. A week later I wrote up the most recent eleven service provision issues brought up in the last 32 days by multiple families. I sent the list to our local CBC leadership as well as the sub-agency leadership responsible for the delivery of the services. My original questions are numbered below – and then I provide the sub-agency responses and my responses back. I will say that I feel like most of the issues were dismissed as unimportant, and I believe this administrator does not want to admit that the performance of his agency is clearly lacking in many areas. I also feel that this is one of the reasons our area has such a critical shortage of homes and families willing to foster our kids. The short-sightedness of agency administrators who refuse to see the operational picture from the eyes of a different set of players only serves to exacerbate the problems that already exist. My hope is that we can work to alleviate these problems so that we can recruit more quality families willing to do the difficult work of fostering our most vulnerable kids!

1. Licensing has informed families that there are two months where none of the training they take can count towards relicensing so that Super Saturday hours and hours gained from the conference can't be used towards their licensing requirements. Is this true?

Sub-Agency Response: We have to submit a completed licensing packet 60 days prior to the license expiring to Big Bend CBC. That packet then needs to be submitted to DCF 30 days prior to the license expiring. However we can not start working on the packet prior to 90 days of the license expiring. Any training done from the time packet is submitted to Big Bend CBC and when the license expires can not be counted. In essence, our foster families have 10 months to actually do their training. I had a conversation with the DCF Regional Licensing Specialist today and she explained it this way. In order to submit a relicensing packet it must be totally complete. In other words we can not add to the packet once in has been submitted. Therefore if a packet is missing training hours it can not be submitted.

My response back: In speaking with another local agency dealing with licensing and training, it does appear that this is an issue for other agencies too, though they've been able to work around some of it with the timing of submission of packets. I have referred this to Carole Shauffer to work directly with DCF to develop a better solution to this issue, but in the meantime, wouldn't it be more ideal if we could allow the training hours to be used for the next renewal period even if they can't be used for the current renewal period? The reason I ask is we're pushing our families to attend Summit and other high level conferences for training, but anyone who has a renewal that falls in late July, August or early September cannot use those hours for training which defeats the purpose of encouraging our families to seek higher caliber training from direct sources like Super Saturdays, conferences and the Summit.

Sub-Agency Response back: We have also asked DCF to look into this issue. Training hours can not be “banked” and applied to future licensing periods. Hours are applied to the licensure period in which the hours were achieved, prior to the submission of the relicensure packet.

2. Omitted – handled (Original question which actually was handled through back channels was: Having no agency-issued IDs for transporters causes unreasonable risk to caregivers is there no way to make a temporary ID or to accelerate the process? Sub-Agency Response: We found resolution to our ID issue. All transporters should have ID’s when transporting. *SIDE NOTE: The initial Sub-Agency response to this item was there was no solution and this wasn’t a safety issue. By pushing back channels, a solution was found that solved the glaring safety issue.)

3. Is it in fact Big Bend's policy to discourage continued contact between children in foster families they have recently moved from? How is this reconciled with the DCF policy on transitions?

Sub-Agency Response: There is no policy to discourage continued contact between children and former caregivers. The decisions are made on a case by case basis depending on the circumstances.

My response back: I understand there is no policy to discourage contact, but there also appears to be no policy or direction to ENCOURAGE continued contact post-transition though the Partnership Plan specifically mentions it in item 9. There may be confusion about this issue with case management and supervisors as I was recently told by a supervisor that this is not promoted once a child leaves a caregiver's home. Maybe we should open this up to more dialog and additional training?

Sub-Agency Response back: As stated above, the decision to allow or not allow is assessed and determined on a case-by-case basis. I am very familiar with the supervisor’s comment to you and it was specific to that one case.

4. Trainers are currently providing misinformation to foster parents (Ex - babysitting requirements, photos of foster kids on social media, haircuts, etc.) I understand there are long term plans for additional training of trainers, but how is this being addressed in the short term to ensure that foster parents are getting accurate information?

Sub-Agency response: We are aware of the one class where there was an issue and it has been resolved. The trainers are now using the normalcy document provided by DCF as a part of the training. Further, Carol covered this issue in-depth at Super Saturday.

My response back: I appreciate that the trainers are now using the normalcy documents, but we've seen inexperienced trainers providing misinformation in a few other areas and in other classes than just that one you mention as well (ex - when independent living skills should begin and how they are delivered for one). I would like to know what the plan to supplement trainer knowledge is and what the timeline to implementation is so that we can be certain our trainers are delivering the best possible information to our new families. I know you specifically mentioned additional support in how to train, but system-specific knowledge also needs to be more thoroughly developed for individual trainers.

Sub-Agency response back: There will be one more QPT class provided this year which will afford our trainers additional time to come up to speed and resolve any outstanding deficits. This class will be facilitated by Carol Edwards.

5. Licensing counselors are giving inconsistent answers to families regarding requirements (Ex - some families being told drop side cribs with immobilizers are okay but other families are being told absolutely not; also some questions about relocation requirements when families move have been inconsistent).

Sub-Agency response: We addressed this issue with the licensing staff today. They all understand that drop side cribs with immobilizers are okay. What we are telling people is if they have a drop-side crib, go to the manufacturer and get an immobilizing kit. We haven’t told anyone that these cribs are not allowed even with immobilization.

My response back: Drop side cribs are only one example, and I can tell you that there is continued confusion about this one example between various licensing consultants as recently as the end of last week. There have been other instances where information about multiple policy areas has been inconsistent between consultants - maybe we could work on a clarification memo to all of the consultants about the drop side crib requirements (and copy me please) and possibly work on a series clarifying some of the bigger policy areas where changes have recently occurred?

Sub-Agency Response back: Thank you for the recommendations.

6. Omitted - BBCBC/DCF question (Original question was: Questions from families about the transition planning on kids who have PESS eligibility and were recently adopted. Is there a formal policy on how to handle these meetings? Sub-Agency response: I am not sure which meeting you are referring to, however Young adults that were adopted after the age of 16 from foster care or placed with a court-approved dependency guardian after spending at least 6 months in licensed care within the 12 months immediately preceding such placement or adoption met the eligibility requirements. *SIDE NOTE: this is actually not an issue the sub-agency deals with so I can give him a pass here.)

7. Several families are working through issues with school transport of kids who are out of their normal school zone but none of the case managers appear to be well (if at all) versed in helping with getting kids to the school of origin. Is there a policy on how to assist families in obtaining assistance through McKinney-Vento when they have kids in schools outside of their normal zone?

Sub-Agency Response: There have been several children who have been able to remain in their original school because the school system provides the transportation. In those situations the Case Management will have a conversation with Matt McKibbin who talks directly with the school system transportation department to resolve the issue.

My response back: Due to this being a sensitive issue currently with the recent start of the school year, maybe a communication to all of case management as well as all caregiver families would be ideal here to reinforce to everyone that there is a policy/procedure in place and that there is help with this issue available through BBCBC.

Sub-Agency response back: This topic was revisited with all Case Management staff this week.

8. Several families need post-adoption support but are not getting help with getting adoption decrees, birth certificates or information on switching insurance. Since there's a short window to change insurance plans and most people need help with getting kids re-registered for school, is there a current contact that can help speed up assistance?

Sub-Agency response: Adoption decrees, birth certificates and switching insurance should be discussed with the adoption worker.

My response back: There may be miscommunication in the adoptions unit given the number of families who have recently asked for help in this area. Having the adoption worker clarify this with families who have recently completed adoptions may help alleviate confusion? And having the adoptions unit identify families whose adoptions worker recently changed and proactively reach out to those families to see if they need assistance might go a long way in helping increase satisfaction with the families and ensure that the needs of the children are being adequately met.

Sub-Agency response back: Your feedback is noted and appreciated.

9. Many families in the process of adopting have said that they are having to wait several (more than four) weeks to have counselors assigned. Should it take more than four weeks to assign a new counselor for current cases? Who supports the families in the interim?

Sub-Agency response: I am not sure that I completely understand the question. Adoption workers are assigned as secondary workers at TPR if the goal is adoption.

My response back: I believe part of the issue here is the number of people who have recently changed positions. Several families who are in the process of a current adoption have had their worker changed but not had a new one assigned for several weeks. If an adoption worker changes and a new worker is not immediately assigned, who supports the needs of the families and children in the interim?

Sub-Agency response back: There is never a moment when a case is not assigned to a case manager. The thought that it takes several weeks to assign a worker is simply not accurate. Foster and adoptive parent support is a priority to our operations.

10. Parents are being told they absolutely CANNOT transport their kids to dental appointments now that the only people allowed to do this are the case managers or case manager supervisors. Is this true? I had a CHS supervisor email me that it was, but it seems contrary to what we train families to do.

Sub-Agency response: This is an old issue. We have worked extremely hard to ensure that children go to their dental appointments. Due to the extremely limited number of dentist seeing our children appointments are challenging to set. There have been children who have missed their appointment because the caregiver could not take them. We made a decision to ensure that all of the children make their appointment. That decision included staff taking children to the appointments. We certainly hoped that it would provide some level of relief for caregivers.

My response back: This is an issue I've taken to Carole to address specifically with DCF as this decision is in direct violation of the Partnership Plan. I recognize that there are a limited number of dental appointments available and that there has been difficulty in getting our kids to those appointments, but the decision to remove the caregiver from the solution is incredibly short sighted and in direct contradiction with item 14 of the Partnership Plan. Additionally, this change was not communicated to caregiver families when it was made, nor was input for a solution sought from the caregiver families (or the associations who serve them) when the issue was identified. Other areas of the state had similar issues and were able to solve them utilizing their partnerships with the caregiver families - I believe we can address this issue in a way that emphasizes the importance of the caregiver in alleviating anxiety the children may experience with a dental appointment while still allowing the agencies to meet their target goals for getting kids their dental care on time!

Sub-Agency response back: Thank you for your input on this issue. We have had several caregivers thank us for the assistance with transportation. We are certainly willing to revisit this issue.

11. Omitted - BBCBC/DCF issue specifically (Many, many, many families are still saying there are not enough medical providers (particularly specialists) who take the Sunshine plan. I know this is technically an AHCA issue, but since it affects our families we should be being proactive about it. Sub-Agency response back: I totally agree! We have even started taking children to walk-in clinics to meet their needs. *SIDE NOTE: This is a HUGE issue and still needs to be resolved, though the CBC and sub-agencies really have no control over it as it’s an AHCA issue.)

Clearly, there is more work to be done.

Clearly, I’m not going to shut up anytime soon!

A Response Regarding Responsibility

I was corresponding with one of our local Community Based Care (CBC) representatives yesterday about the responsibilities the CBCs have in placement decisions. I was particularly upset by one line of one of the emails I received that stated that "The decision to move a child as well as place a child does not always fall on the CBC's decision makers."

The more I thought about that line, the more upset I got. You see, I think it is a common practice for those of us working in dependency to throw our hands up in the air and declare that something is not our fault because the system is too big and there are so many players that we cannot control everything. I strongly disagree with that idea and think that we each have a responsibility to uphold the intent of the system to make life better for the kids in our care by holding every single player to an extremely high standard - including ourselves. I was so upset by this that I ultimately didn't sleep very well again because I kept dreaming about the issue. So when my teething one year old woke me up for the third time at 2 AM, I never really fell back into a sound sleep. So at 4 AM I composed the following response:

The more I thought about your response last night the more it got me thinking. I wanted to say something that's been on my mind for a few years now as I've worked on a lot of these types of issues both at out local level and statewide (and if you want to get truly technical, even at the interstate level).

You said in your email that the decision to move a child as well as place a child does not always fall on the CBC's decision makers, but I think that it actually does. The decisions themselves may not, but the responsibility to ensure that they are done according to best practices and in the best interests of the children does. That means that while the decision makers are not the people manning the placement phone lines and doing the day to day work of moving and placing children, they are the ones who are working on the policy practices, manning the contract management of the various partner agencies working under the auspices of the CBC's contract, and following up with the quality assurance plans that should show compliance with the state's requirements for the adequate treatment of the children and the families who care for them.

We all know that there are five thousand working parts to dependency and that the system is incredibly fluid. As a result, many times there are no true "textbook" cases, but there are human considerations for which to account. The two most recent cases I've brought to your attention do have some similarities to each other despite their being polar opposite examples - the similarities are that the consideration of the impacts to the kids and the families caring for them of actions on the part of placement and/or case management were not adequately addressed. This means that the families who were caring for children were treated with little respect. Because care giving families are not automatons who are simply paid babysitters we should afford them the respect they deserve - even in times of turmoil and quickly changing priorities. If the system wants to be able to treat families without that kind of respect, then my recommendation would be to scrap the foster home model completely and hire part-time babysitter providers who would be available at the drop of a hat, would not work as advocates for the children, and wouldn't mind being treated as "less than" - though I would caution that the expenses associated with that model would be incredibly high - both monetarily and otherwise. No one is advocating for that type of model to be put into place because everyone realizes that a home setting is truly the best setting for kids who come into care - but to keep the current model working at optimal efficiency, we need to make sure that we're being sensitive to the needs of the families in whom we place such trust. It's spelled out very clearly in the Partnership Plan. It's touted at every conference and every QPI call. We need to do everything we can to live what we preach.

My hope is that by providing the examples of cases where the system was not working optimally, we can ferret out the places for improvement and take ownership of the improvement processes. My goal is to help every single family we bring into the system, whether it's a biological family, foster family, relative or non-relative family experience the very best parts of the system without re-traumatizing them any further through poorly implemented or inadequately thought out processes.

I hope you can see where I believe that the CBC's decision makes do have the responsibility to ensure that placement decisions are done properly and with the interests of the folks directly involved (ie the children AND the families) are taken into account - not just the convenience of the transporters and case managers.

Thanks, and I'll chat with you soon, I'm sure!

I haven't gotten a reply yet - but I'm quite certain I've managed to irritate at least one person today (even though that was not my intent - honest!)!

Fostering Questions

I was asked some questions about why I decided to become a foster parent. Here are my answers!

Why did you become a foster parent?

I am an accidental foster parent actually. When my husband and I decided to start a family we ran into issues with fertility which meant that we were unable to have children biologically. We started looking into the process of adoption and decided to take the MAPP class to adopt from Children’s Home Society. My husband and I were originally only going to look into adoption when we decided to take the MAPP class, but once we got into the class and the instructors started talking about the desperate need for homes for children in care, it awakened a whole slew of feelings I had been carrying around underneath the surface about the events that unfolded in my own family. You see, while I am the only child of my mother and father, my mother had three other children in subsequent marriages – each of whom ultimately ended up in foster care themselves. Of my siblings, I alone escaped the chaos and destruction of our family and then the foster system relatively unscathed. Relatively being a subjective term here!

My husband and I committed to taking the MAPP class every Saturday for four weeks to learn what to expect from adoption and what kinds of behaviors and medical issues to expect from kids in state care. There was a lot of homework and forms to fill out, and it was a truly eye opening experience learning about the absolutely horrific things people can do to children and to each other. Much of what they discussed in class I had experienced myself in my own childhood as my mom and stepfather were abusive alcoholics, but the range of various abuse and neglect cases the instructors presented in class literally took my breath away. Aside from learning specific information about the types of trauma and abuse children who come into care suffer, we also had a lot of work to do personally by preparing ourselves to be able to handle the types of behaviors that may arise as a result of that trauma and abuse. This was also an exercise in strengthening our relationship because it forced me and Evan to deal with things about ourselves and our pasts that we would likely never have revisited if not forced to. I mean… my parents were a nightmare… and I would have been happy to leave things in the past, but we had to learn to deal with our own childhood issues to be able to help children that may be placed with us to deal with theirs.

After the second week of class, my husband and I decided that we would not simply go into the adoption track, but chose rather to become foster parents instead with the idea that if a child needed a secure home we would provide that. We also thought that if it was meant to be for a child to stay with us long term, that we had already decided we would be willing to adopt as well – and ultimately of the dozen children we’ve fostered in the last five years, we adopted three of them.

Tell us a moment in your life that led you to take part in foster care.

As my husband and I were going through licensing, we read more and more stories about the abuses children were experiencing. I had endured many of those same things myself and spent the majority of my adult life trying to work through the feelings of fear, worthlessness and anger that I felt as a result of how my parents behaved and treated me and my siblings. When I was an early teen, I finally got free of my mother and step father when my paternal grandmother and aunt stepped in to care for me. But my siblings were not so lucky and had to stay in the situation they were in. They were parentally kidnapped by their father and were missing for several years before ultimately being removed by DCF in another state some years later after my stepfather tried to murder my sister. I was still too young really to step in to try to save my siblings, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to. I was in my early twenties when my siblings came into the care of DCF in Massachusetts, and as a result of the abuse I had grown up in as well, I was not a mature twenty something – more like an angry teen. I was not equipped to handle the behaviors my siblings exhibited nor was I equipped to handle the emotional needs they had. I was not able to take them in or help them recover from their ordeal – but neither really was the system of care they were in. Both of them ended up in multiple foster homes and group home settings – and both of them ended up aging out of care with no safety net in place. My youngest sister ended up in the same situation as things between our mother and her father continued to deteriorate and DCF Massachusetts stepped in to remove her as well. After dealing with my own failure to help protect my own siblings, when faced with the idea that I could do something now to help keep this from happening to another child, I knew that we could help - even if we only ended up helping one child, I felt like it could help me heal some of the old wounds I still felt about my own siblings.

What do you think the state of the child welfare system says about Florida, and about the times we live in?

Anytime you deal with a vulnerable population and you fail to protect them, it says something very sad about your society. In Florida, we have not done even an adequate job of protecting our vulnerable populations – particularly our children. We’ve had an increase in the number of children and families on the radar of DCF yet we’ve not funded services to these children adequately. The staff charged with working these cases (whether CPIs, case managers, transporters, supervisors) are not trained very well, they do not have the tools necessary to do their jobs efficiently, and sometimes they cannot get to everything that needs to be done. As a result, what happens is we have this group of children and families on our radar who we know need help. We know they’re in danger. Yet we do not have the mechanisms in place to keep harm from coming to them. And I am not saying that money is the salvo to fix the problems here – it’s not. It’s about supporting the children and the families who care for them appropriately – which means supporting the people working in the system of care – all of the people working in the system of care, not just the child protective investigators (though that is a good start).

We also have a backwards mindset as a state when it comes to child welfare. We continue to see children as an extension of their parents – chattel almost – rather than seeing them as human beings who have rights themselves. So instead of working to do what is best for the children to help them grow up strong and healthy, we place the emphasis on keeping a family together – even if that means keeping a child in a situation that is dangerous or unhealthy. I hear judges and legislators talking about cases of termination of parental rights as the death penalty of child welfare cases, but these same judges and legislators do not live in the homes with the children and see the physical and psychological devastation the effects of a broken system of care have on their daily life and ultimately who they grow up to be. We know the research shows that exposure to violence and neglect have a detrimental effect on children, yet we somehow have come to the conclusion that we do more harm or damage by removing children from these situations – and I think we’re wrong about that in some cases. I’m not saying we should take all children away from all families – but I definitely think that the notion that some situations can be fixed by an inadequate safety plan is tantamount to sticking our heads in the sand to a real and dangerous situation – one that has lifelong, real life consequences!

I also think by not fully funding and fully supporting our system of child welfare that we’re re-victimizing the children we’re trying to protect. I’ve been the parent who had to comfort a child whose nervous system was shot from so much prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol that they could not adequately regulate basic life processes. Yet when that same set of parents had their sixth child (all five of the others were already in care), the state had to scramble and work really hard to prove to a judge that the situation this child came into was extremely dangerous for that child to go home to – and they almost we not able to remove her because the judge felt like the extreme history of drug and alcohol abuse, chronic homelessness, mental health issues and domestic violence were not a safety issue. I’ve had to pick the pieces up for an eight month old child after they’ve had to spend ten hours on the road to a visitation with a biological parent twice a week – only to not have their diapers changed but once and fed only four ounces in that time by the transporter, visitation supervisor, case manager and biological parent. When we fail to remove children from situations that are extremely volatile and dangerous and then fail to adequately service the ones we do remove, we re-victimize our children over and over again. This is how we have multiple generations of families with the repeated patterns of behavior that cause DCF involvement in the first place. My family is a prime example of this systematic breakdown of the system! I should have been taken from my family many, many times but never was and so I had to suffer the physical and mental abuses doled out by my mom and stepfather. My siblings should have been given stable placements and had case workers who supported them as they grew up, yet they were repeatedly moved from home to home to institutional setting instead. My middle sister is doing well now finally – after a lot of counseling and hard work on her part, my brother is really damaged and will likely not do much better – and my youngest sister had her own child removed by DCF and has only now been able to regain custody of her. I worry that my niece will end up repeating this pattern again someday.

It says to me that our state either does not care about the future of our children or that we’re too immersed in things that are of minor importance comparatively when we don’t do everything we can to protect our children.

How does putting the focus on case planning instead of the CPIs improve Florida's child welfare system?

It seems like the focus of child welfare policy lately has been on the up front battle of investigations and the supporting the child protective investigators. While this is a good start, if we logically think about what happens next, we must figure out that if we already do not have enough resources to care for the families in the system currently, that we’re not going to be able to handle the influx that will necessarily come when we bring more families into care. There needs to be a huge push to fully support the case managers and attorneys who handle the cases once they leave the investigative part of the process too. Otherwise, you bring families into a system that will only end up removing children but not putting mechanisms in place to help heal those families with no mechanisms in place to achieve permanency for those children. There should never be a case where a child has to linger in the system for years with no end in sight – either fix the situation that caused the removal and return the child or if the situation is not fixable or if the fix drags on and on and on because no one thinks progress is important – then move to permanency.

Part of the problem with child welfare as I’ve been witness to personally, is that the turn over for staff is so high and the burn out rate so great, that there’s no longevity for institutional knowledge. By the time a case manager is fully trained and has the ability to make excellent judgment calls on case planning, we’ve thrown such a high case load at them that they’re so overwhelmed and underpaid that they leave for less stress and more money. Understandably! If we focused on supporting the case management/legal aspect of the system as well as what’s been suggested for the investigative portion, then we may be able to have staff trained well enough to actually design case plan activities that would work to help change the unsafe behaviors. If the unsafe behaviors change, then the children get to go home. Having enough and well trained case managers and attorneys would also decrease the caseload of each individual case manager allowing them to be more supportive of the individuals in their care. A case manager with 30 or 40 kids on their case load cannot possibly know all of the details of each case and be alert to the behaviors that are sometimes subtle but indicative of dangerous things to come. They also cannot be as in tuned to the timeframes of the families on their caseload when they have to manage so many different families. Our two youngest children’s cases were complex and had so many chronic problems that the case manager literally had to send referrals out for services once a week. For the family associated with only two of the children on her caseload, I’m quite sure she had to spend at least five or six hours a week dedicated to that case alone – and she had at least thirty children on her load. That is simply too much for one person to manage adequately – though I will say she is one of the shining gold stars of case management in how dedicated she was!

We have to do better as a state – there’s no other way to put this! With our growing population and beautiful places to live, we’re going to always have people want to call Florida home. We need to be sure that we figure out a way to help make that paradise that so many people come here looking for isn’t just a shattered dream!

Working towards fixing a broken system of care...

I am copying a letter I wrote today to a couple of folks at our local Community Based Care partner to attempt to resolve some persistent issues in one region of our state. This is an issue I've had first hand experience with from this particular county and have actually worked with the individuals I sent my letter to before trying to address some of the things we thought needed tweaking to help better serve the kids who come into care. This is the kind of action I think all foster parents should be prepared to take when it comes to the kids they're entrusted with.

Dear So-and-So,

I'm writing to you because I have gotten another series of questions this week from three different foster families who have kids placed with them from Bay, and I'm not really sure how to advise these parents going forward. The theme of the last few days has been:

I have kids from Bay county and I'm not getting copies of JRs or Case Plans or any other documents that should be included with the kids' files. When I've asked for them I've been told I'm not allowed to have any of this information.

I've had kids placed with me from Bay who have been with me for over two years and the DCM still is not willing to work towards filing TPR even though the parents have not been compliant with any of their case plan tasks. (This particular statement came from two different families - one of which even said the magistrate gave the department 45 days to file a TPR which he said should have been filed months ago)

When my kids go for visitation, they often come back saying they have not gotten very much to eat during their visit. (this sounds eerily like what another foster family and I expressed two years ago about our kids going for visitation - so this one really concerns me greatly)

I hear several recurrent themes from families when dealing with Bay county quite frequently - and they come from multiple families which leads me to think that the experience is common and not limited to one or two case managers. Most of my conversations with other families usually end with the family saying they are unwilling to accept children from that county ever again and this really concerns me for several reasons I will outline below.

I'm concerned anytime a foster parent shares stories about case managers or other system employees who do not listen to the parent's concerns regarding the children in their care - but I'm more concerned with this when it comes from multiple families over long periods of time. With the Bay County issues, I've been first party to what happens over there, but I am now two full years removed from any first hand experience. I see where Life Management has posted that they have a critical foster home shortage over there and that we are not doing a good job retaining or recruiting families there. And when less than two days later I've gotten emails or phone calls from three different families dealing with similar issues as what I dealt with two years ago, I'm starting to understand why there may be a critical shortage of homes.

I'm not naive enough to think that there aren't other mitigating circumstances that affect the practices of that county - I get that it has a highly mobile population with a very low median income. I get that homelessness and drug use is more prevalent and that there's also a military base to deal with. But I also wonder if there are practice issues at the case management level and legal level that are affecting the support that foster and bio families are receiving which are making supporting the children in care more difficult? I am afraid that kids who are removed form Bay homes are going to be shipped to farther areas of the state as more families become unwilling to work with the county - I want to help combat that because like you guys, I truly do believe that kids need to stay as close to home as possible.

So with all of that in mind, what can I do to help? What answers or tips or suggestions can I give families when they come to me with questions, concerns or complaints? What is the right combination of people to put them in contact with and what steps can they take to have their issues handled?

I know with the first bullet I offered, they are entitled to the documents they are requesting as they are supposed to be a part of the resource record and the language including foster parents as appropriate participants to be included is specific in the statute and rule -- yet legal continues two years later to refuse documents to families. Who do we escalate this one to? And maybe the second bullet would be appropriately addressed to the same party?

The third bullet falls under the issues that stem from transportation, handing off to case management/visitation center, and the biological parents - so I know this one will certainly have to have a multiple party approach - but I think this one may actually be more pressing than the first two as it really bothers me that children are saying their basic needs are not being met during visitation/travel time.

Let me know what steps you think we need to take as a community to find workable solutions to these issues. I want us to get to the point to where all families are willing to take all children regardless from which county or circuit they originate.

I hope that they will take my letter seriously and that we can work to get some relief for both the families who are caring for the kids and also for the kids themselves. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could ever reach that wonderful goal of having three homes available for every child who comes into care - because that would mean we've either figured out a way to safely keep kids with their biological families or we've figured out an amazing way to recruit and retain amazing foster and adoptive homes!

Forming a new family is hard work

I have been a foster parent for almost five years now and an adoptive parent for just over two of those years. In that short time, I’ve been through the dependency system with a dozen or so babies and have adopted three of the babies that came to me through foster care. Last month a judge banged her gavel and declared that my husband and I were the legal, forever parents of a brand new baby girl, Elie. And while that doesn’t really seem like an Earth-shattering statement as forever families are formed every day in court rooms across this country (though not nearly often enough in my humble opinion– but that is the topic of a future post), what is huge about that statement is that Elie is the third child my husband and I have adopted from the foster care system, and the biological sibling of the child we adopted back in October of last year, Liam. It is the story of how Liam came to us that put the wheels in motion for Elie becoming our child, too, and it is the story of the dedication of three very special women working in dependency that tells the story of my new and now whole family.

Twenty-three months ago next Monday, I got a call from placement asking me if I had space for a nine day old baby boy who desperately needed a home because he had been removed from his parents' care due to neglect and safety issues. The placement specialist, Rachael Bassett, had already called a slew of homes that evening looking for someone to take this little man in – I know this because my foster bestie, Sherri, had sent me a text message about thirty seconds before my phone rang telling me I needed to answer the phone because placement would be calling me. I remember the phone call vividly. I was actually in the middle of bathing my (then) recently adopted son, Warren, and our (then) foster daughter. I had bubble bath bubbles up to my elbows, was covered in water and sitting in a puddle of water that had been splashed out of the huge tub by one of the kids. I even managed to drop the phone while Rachel was talking to me- but she had placed children with me a few times before so she knew how spacey I can get during a placement call (yes - I am one of those mothers whose first instinct is to say "yes, yes, yes" even though my husband fusses at me for doing that). After briefly telling my husband what was going on and that we were getting a new baby that night (and I may have asked him if he was okay with this... or maybe I forgot to do that... not sure which), I raced out the door with my hair on fire to go meet the child protective investigator to pick up the new baby. And that was how Liam came to our family -- the first time.

Liam did not stay with us for very long initially. A judge reunified him with his family four days later because the family was able to find housing through the good deeds of a local church; but, sadly, this reunification lasted only about four weeks until a series of hotline calls led to him being removed again and resheltered with us. This is a dance many foster parents know too well. In this case, we sort of knew that it would not be a matter of if Liam came back into care, but more a matter of when he would come back into care and how much would have happened to him in the interim. Both of his biological parents had pervasive mental health issues, drug problems, chronic and persistent homelessness, unresolved and untreated health issues, issues with violence and self-esteem, long criminal histories and were, themselves, products of a broken foster care system. The cycle was repeating itself over and over again with this family. It was a long four weeks for Liam, and a very long four weeks in my head for the things that were happening to him.

When I got the second call from placement about Liam almost four weeks later I left my office immediately to go pick him up from the child protective investigator again. The CPI told me the case manager assigned to the case was going to be a Lead Dependency Case Manager named Bethanie Milford and gave me her contact information. I assumed that Bethanie was going to be just an average case manager and that I would begin that other dance foster parents know too well of tracking her down for paperwork or referrals or worse, that I wouldn’t be able to get to her at all. I was pleasantly surprised though as Bethanie was anything but average – in fact – as a ten year veteran case manager, she took her role as family advocate very seriously, and she was determined to do everything in her power to break the cycle of abuse in this family.

Bethanie went about setting up visitations with the biological family (which was complicated due to the everyday visitation the judge ordered), asked about our family's needs, got every single piece of documentation I asked for to me as soon as I asked for it, provided follow up and constant communication with both us and the biological family and provided referrals and services at least once a week. She would reach out to me before I could even reach out to her, and that threw me off because with the dozen or more case managers I had worked with prior, I had always been the one to initiate contact and generally had to spend the better part of a week or more getting the things we needed! Bethanie worked hard to anticipate the needs of both my family and the biological family and she worked very hard to get services in place to help the biological family start to overcome the overwhelming disadvantages they experienced in trying to parent this child.

I watched in awe as Bethanie did things I had only ever dreamed a case manager would or should or even could do to help heal a broken family. It was incredible. Watching Bethanie started to restore some of my faith in a system I have only ever seen fail since I was a young teen and watched my own siblings fall into the system having their lives slowly broken, piece by piece. It was also extremely disheartening to watch as the biological family systematically refused all of this amazing help and started to sink further into their chaotic lives and withdraw from the community around them. It was kind of like watching a horrific traffic crash happen in slow motion speed.

After many, many months of failed visits, lack of progress on case plan tasks, and then ultimately the disappearance of the parents, the posture of the case changed from reunification to concurrent goals of reunification and adoption and finally to adoption. I became acquainted with the Children's Legal Services attorney assigned to the case, Diana Korn, when she reached out to me to answer some of the legal questions I was asking about how the process worked. I was able to see, first hand, how well Bethanie and Diana worked together on this case during this time. Bethanie would talk to Diana about challenges she was facing managing the case, and Diana would actively reach out to Bethanie with suggestions for how to document certain things. All along the way, Diana would call me at various points to make certain that my family understood what was happening in the legal arena and had the opportunity to advise the court of various things we were experiencing as a foster family. I had never had a CLS attorney keep me so well informed of the process of the legal system, but Diana would answer every question I posed to her as soon as I posed them – no waiting for weeks or months for a return phone call. And I know this should be what happens with every case, but it simply isn't. So as I've told my other foster friends about how cooperative and professional Diana is, they've all hinted that they think I'm fibbing to them – until they meet her!

The other person who played an integral role in this case was the guardian ad litem, Karen Isch. I've had experience with wonderful guardians before, but Karen takes the cake. Karen visited Liam at his daycare (which was in a different county from where Karen worked), our home, during vistations with his parents - she even once came to a doctor's appointment to visit him while he was getting shots (and helped me calm him down after those shots). She actively interacted with the parents and the parents of the parents. She visited, wrote reports, asked about the kids and the needs of our family and remained a wonderful source of information throughout the case. I think we chatted weekly or every other week as I would update Karen about Liam’s different specialist appointments or new rounds of testing he was undergoing. When she knew he had an appointment or that we had to travel to Jacksonville for a test, she would call to check in to see if she could help in any way. At the holidays, she even put Liam’s name on the list to receive gifts through the GAL office – which I thought was absolutely sweet and kind!

A few months before Liam turned one, we were told that his mother was pregnant again and were asked if the baby was sheltered would we consider being the placement resource for that child as well. The maternal instinct in me was to say "yes, yes, yes" again, but I knew that my husband and I were already stretched very thin with the two boys we already had as Liam had some complicated medical needs that kept me out of work a lot travelling to the children’s clinic in Jacksonville for his specialists. Not wanting to give up on the idea of keeping the siblings together if the new baby was removed as well, my husband and I started a several-month-long dialog as to whether we could financially afford to take the new baby, whether we had the physical resources to fit a third car seat into our vehicles, whether we could find a center that would take a brand new baby, whether we could handle another child with complex medical needs like Liam had, and whether we had the emotional capacity to go through this again as this case has been the most emotionally draining case we've ever had. We knew our own relationship had been strained through the course of this case because of the emotional nature of the things that kept happening – and we were both exhausted because Liam did not sleep well due to some of his issues and we travelled a lot to the next county for ER, urgent care and doctor visits.

Long story short, after many, many emotional conversations, and many visits to a marriage counselor who acted as a mediator to our emotional conversations, we both came to the conclusion that we could not break up siblings, and we would be the resource for the new baby if it were sheltered - making the decision just in time for the new baby's birth (whew!). We bought a new van as our old car would not accommodate the extra car seat. We prepared our home for a new child and bought some additional furniture. And we told our employers the news as experience had shown us that you take a lot of time off with a new child. And we both decided to say goodbye to the possibility of any sleep ever again.

The interesting thing here is that Bethanie, Diana and Karen were playing instrumental roles in our decision making process for accepting the new baby into our lives - though none of them knew it at the time. We were already drained from the emotional rollercoaster of this case - the highs were so few and far between, and the challenges and lows were so challenging and frequent that we had decided to close our foster care license and home to any more children. But we used the energy that each of the women poured into the job they were doing for the kids on their case loads to help us recharge and stay in it for the long haul.

The day we made the decision to take Elie into our home, I got the phone call from Bethanie that she had been born a little early and would be ready to go home the next day. I was emotionally freaked out thinking of all the work that goes into a new baby – the sleepless nights, the crying, the endless barrage of diapers and butt paste and spit up and laundry and visits from case managers and guardians and on and on and on. I was afraid my husband would end up not being on board with all of this and that it would strain our family to the breaking point. But my oldest son, who had just turned three, and I went to go pick her up from the hospital the next day, and even though it ended up being a nightmare that involved security having to whisk us to safety in another room and part of the hospital and nurses and security having to escort us to the car in teams to protect us, I fell instantly in love with this little squishy baby that would find shelter in our home and love in our hearts.

Things did get crazy again, too. The biological parents who had disappeared for months came back out of the woodwork and brought with them a whole new onslaught of emotional pain. We watched them struggle and once again refuse the help being offered. We watched, helpless to change the course of their destinies, but beginning to understand that Liam and Elie were likely not just going to be with us temporarily. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when you foster sometimes – because you are so uplifted and encouraged by the gains the children in your home make but find such despair in knowing that their family story involves so much loss and pain.

I flash forward now to almost twenty-three months after I got that first phone call from Rachael about Liam. Liam and his little sister are now part of our forever family. Our house is a little messier... our schedules are a little more hectic... we have less disposable cash and much more laundry to fold... but our family is exactly the way it was meant to be! The journey has not been easy. Evan and I have fought and argued and fussed and whined at and to each other. We’ve had financial pain as we’ve discovered the costs of raising children are quite significant. We’ve had sleepless nights as one or more of the kids have been sick, or teething, or experiencing night terrors for the first time. Our marriage has had to grow with our growing family – and sometimes that has meant we’ve had to seek counseling to help us navigate each other’s meanings and fears and challenges and strengths. And we’ve had days where we’ve gone to bed angry with each other (even though they say don’t do that). But through this all, we’ve also grown fonder of each other and learned to appreciate the nuances of each other’s parenting skills.

It’s been interesting for me to observe Evan growing as a parent – watching him make decisions he’s never had to make before and learning how to debate an incredibly intelligent three year old who sometimes uses fuzzy logic. It’s been downright funny to watch him learn how to change a dirty diaper with a squirmy baby who decides to add to the diaper mid-change. And it’s been heartwarming to watch him teach our children how to put puzzles together or learn how to catch and throw a ball.

We made it through a challenging, complex case to form our final forever family partially because the ladies who were charged with seeing that the children in care are protected, safe, nurtured and loved went above and beyond what many people in the system do. The communication from legal, case management and GAL helped us stay focused on doing our part - loving the kids, keeping them safe and allowing them to grow. The support this team of women provided our family along the way helped us through a very difficult two years and ultimately helped us make a forever family of siblings who will always be able to stay together. Through all of this each of these ladies had their own personal lives to attend to as well - but they never lost sight of the kids and their needs - and they never lost sight on trying to help their biological family heal itself.

I know that in many years when my children ask me the story of their beginning I will have some challenges on how to present their beginning in a way that they will understand and not feel loss that their family was formed by graft rather than root stock - but I know that I can also tell them about three amazing women who helped them before they were old enough to even know! I am forever grateful for these ladies.

A few months ago the judge announced the arrival of our Elie for the first time to the world and in the process made us a legal, forever family of five. Now my husband and I will have to learn how to navigate the world simply as parents, and that is going to take some getting used to… for me at least. I think back to the beginning of our foster care journey and I can’t help but think how much life has changed for my family in those short five years. We have three forever children now, have fostered a dozen children along the way, have made many friends who have fostered or adopted, and have seen the ugly underbelly of the dependency system up close and far too personally. But we also have seen the amazing capacity of the human spirit to thrive and rebound, and we’ve met three wonderful women who worked very hard to ensure the safety of one child, but ultimately ended up creating a loving family for his sister too!

I think about all of this and know that my life is as it should be.