What do foster parents do to help with reunification? Let me know! #fostercare #reunification

I’d like to hear your opinion on how teachers can help. How should we interact with the child and foster parents. Teachers don’t get all the information about what has happened to bring the child to foster care.

My friends from church foster all the time. They pray for the families to overcome these difficulties. They show the kids they really believe they are worthy of all the love and kindness we all need.

I don't have experience with foster but do with military deployments. Often we buy two copies of a picture book and have a parent read one and send the audio of them reading it and give the other copy to the kid so the child can play the audio at bedtime or when they need to hear it with the story. You can get a custom toonie or CD. For multiple siblings I would get a special book for each.

Has a former foster kid who was put into permanent foster care at the age of 11 or 12 and was put into foster care at 6 or 7 I know one thing that really helped to get reunification with my dad at 7 or 8 before he relapsed and we got put back into foster care was that the foster parent watched us interact with each other and reported to the judge and then the judge gave him permission to keep us with continue check up before he relapsed again

I love your videos. That angel of what foster parents should be. I wanna foster so bad. I lost a child raise everybody else’s children give me inspiration.

love

I was in foster care and your videos are so so so good and on point. I love how you make them feel valid!!

I was a foster parent for my God Daughter, whom I eventually adopted. At the time I was so angry at my friend for all the things I found out were going on that led to the State’s involvement. I made sure to never speak badly of my friend to, or in front of, my God Daughter. I would also immediately correct anyone that began to say anything negative about her mom, or the situation when she would possibly be able to hear them. I encouraged their phone contact and tried to keep my friend updated on the day to day happenings in my God Daughter’s life so she could talk to her about normal life things when they spoke. I think this made it easier for them to connect and feel like there was a bit less distance between them. I know that my God Daughter seemed more at ease when they were just chatting about what she did at After School that day, or what we had picked out for dinner that week while grocery shopping.

Occupational therapist, and I'm soon to start working on a institution for kids and young adults with behavioural and social challenges. Some of them are self harming. Some have little to no contact with their parents.
Following your channel to learn more!

I used to help younger foster kids while I was on a charity farm. The foster kids loved learning to care for animals and learn responsibilities.

I showed them that it's ok to make mistakes, take it slow in learning, and enjoy the simpliest things in life.

That's the main reason I want to be a foster mom.

I used to work for CPS, as a reunification case manager. What the public does not understand is that many times, a removal is harder on the child than the abuse or neglect that caused the removal. It is important that the foster family supports family reunification and does not talk bad about the bio parents. Children do not want to leave their parents, they merely want the abuse to stop. It is important for foster care or relative placement homes to consider themselves temporary and to make a safe, loving home for them until they can go home. Too many times, the placements interfer with family reunification, which causes emotion harm to the child

I was a foster parent for years. One of my foster children at one point I thought I was going to adopt, however mother started taking the classes needed to get her child back. At that time after knowing that mother for a couple years I allowed her to come to my house to pick up her daughter for visits. When it got close to Elizabeth going back with her mom I had her mom in my house to share a day with us to show her how we cooked how Elizabeth took her baths how I got her to sleep I how I checked and helped her with her homework. Just showing her how I interacted with the children the proper way to speak to them I think was very helpful more helpful than she could learn reading about it was watching it in real life.

Thank you

paying more attention to what workers say directly to the child and more advocacy for the children. (coming from current foster youth were reunification is not a current goal, but was at one point)

I was one of those kids who should have never been allowed to return to where I came from. So sometimes taking the kid seriously helps more than just gunning for reunification. I know that it's good for people who SHOULD have their kids, but there are some parents who take their kids back just to traffick them. Child should come before parents wishes any day.

my old neighbor, really sweet granny used to be a therapist, seeing especially a lot of kids and she would stay with the kids when they meet their parents. They would start chitchatting, holding hands and just being present in the meeting helped a lot of kids to feel more open to talk and communicate.

my lovely neighbor ain't here anymore, but I just wanted to share a story about kids that really stuck to me.

Former foster child- sometimes reunification should not happen. I suffered years of abuse and neglect because they thought my mon was now "fit". That was so far from the truth, if you know a good foster family wants to adopt a child, why not. My first foster family wanted to adopt me however my poor excuse of a "mom" wouldn't let them, only to subject me and brother to abuse. Sometimes reunification is not a good idea

Definitely have a good relationship between foster parents and bio family! Absolutely important!!

Even if you are asked if you’d like to pursue adoption; ask why adoption is a potential. I believe I can share this because I’m the CHILD of someone who was fostering, not them, and the last case was over ten years ago.

My parents were foster parents. We had three different cases throughout my youth. The first one, was there for a summer. Her mother had extreme postpartum psychosis and thought she and her daughter were being abused, but everyone was okay. She was 4, and I was 4. The second one, and the saddest, was actual the same type of case, except the baby was 6 weeks old when we got him, and we had him for over a year. Both of his first Christmases. Because the dad lived with the grandparents, the grandparents could not take the grandchild in. The dad was alleged to be an abuser and terrible, but one day, after we were asked if we’d like to adopt, the driver for the child actually had a conversation with us and said the dad is a decent guy, and to get the story from the grandparents and the police.

My parents looked into and requested case information (a lot of it wasn’t shared unless asked/begged for) and found out everything was alleged. It turned out she had been beating herself to claim abuse and custody over the baby. The dad was one of the best men I ever met, he had barely any money but would send what he could for his kid, and his parents begged the system to let them have visitation in our home. We asked as well, and eventually the dad was allowed to visit at our house as long as the grandparents came - instead of the sterile room at the hotel that there was nowhere to deal with a baby at. We had already had the baby for close to a year, and he felt like ours, but to see how much his family cared for him, it felt so wrong to deny them that. We could’ve stolen their baby, the system was offering him to us before he went up for actual adoption, but we kept pushing for a resolution of the case. He now lives happily with his dad, and the last I heard is doing well. I still feel this ache for him as I am an only child and he was the closest to a sibling I have ever had, but overall I am glad that he got back to his family.

Lastly we had two brothers. One was my age (I was 9 then) and the other was 4. The 9 year old has tubes in his ears, but they never told us. So my parents would end up frustrated; almost yelling at him, thinking he’s choosing to ignore them, but he just couldn’t hear anything. Found out 2 weeks before he felt he had tubes in his ears. The 4 year old, was a little naughty at first but that’s expected from a kid who just got taken away from home. He would lie, say stuff like “the dog peed my bed” when he obviously did, or other little things. He eventually started lying about stuff like kids at school hitting him, and then me and the neighbourhood kids hitting him. I got lucky, because one day, he went to take the kids atv battery out (tried to charge it) and jammed a stick into his hand. Me and the neighbourhood kids were out front, but I had previously been outback with just the 4 year old, and then in the house for a little. He assumed I was still in the house. He runs in and tells my mom I hit him. My mom runs out SCREAMING, but is confused because I’m confused. The other kids are confused. They immediately state I’ve been with them for at least ten minutes, so if I hit him it couldn’t have been recently. He starts crying insisting. The kids swear and I swear. She sends us both to our rooms to sit for a little, not as punishment but just to reflect, but privately comes to me and says she believes me, she just wants to make sure and make him feel like he isn’t being targeted if he is lying. He later confesses when pressed that he did it to himself accidentally. My mom says it’s okay, but we don’t lie about that stuff (especially since as foster parents or kids you can get in major shit for an alleged incident) and we need to say sorry. He cries more, she comforts him but stays firm on the fact he needs to apologize to me for trying to get me in trouble. He randomly snaps and throws a toy car (metal) at her head. She stands up and raises her voice, telling him to stop, and that in her house, he does need to respect her and her family, just like she respects him. He drops all tears, and just turns to face her and says “I don’t care what you have to say, I’m not scared of you.” My mom says it still sends chills down her spine, how he just dropped all emotion and said that.

My mom called the incident in, and suddenly we were under 24/7 “watch.” They had a meeting, with the parents, grandparents, my parents, and the school, and everyone said the same thing; he lies. He wasn’t abused by his mom, he wasn’t abused by his dad (caused his parents divorce), and then when he went to live with his grandparents, they weren’t belting him. He was just lying. Even the school said he’d lie about kids hurting him or his work going missing. He was in SK. He had LIED about being sexually abused, ABOUT being belted at 4. The 9 year old was such a good soul that during the CPS interviews he claimed HE WASNT abused and he hadn’t seen his brother be abused, he couldn’t say for sure. So obviously they take that as a beige flag because a lot of kids at 9 would be like “no.” The kids went back to their parents with the 4 year old being placed probably indefinitely in a psych institution/therapy place. I have never felt so bad for two people in my life. They spoiled the kids rotten, they did the opposite of everything this kid was claiming, but who is going to doubt a 4 year old WHO somehow knows how to explain and detail sexual abuse (eg touched me down there, spanked my bum, like he knows what is wrong) It sounds insane and I sound like a daft person doubting child abuse, but you’d have to witness it to believe HOW crazy this kid was.

I am afraid I was witness to what was this huge push to reunify families at all costs in the 90's. Those costs were high indeed. California was the worst state (these are all my opinions from the horrible wreckageI witnessed). Kids that had endured unimaginable abuse and/or neglect being forced to go back to parents that they were deeply afraid of. No one was listening. No one. There was a lot of back patting going on as in "look at us", "we have changed lives", "these parents are now healthy participants in society". All hogwash. I could not be any part of that.

Please understand that I am aware that people can and do change, but it is a long arduous process in most cases and requires more intervention and oversight than our state and national systems are set up to handle.

There are to few people to do the job. Corners are cut. For the most part the system is broken.

I know that there are good people doing the best they can everyday, but there is just not enough to go around.

If all foster parents were like this woman and her family that would be great. I am glad she is doing this work. It is necessary. If this comment is too negative I will understand if someone feels they must take it down. Just understand that there is great need here and it requires dedicated individuals that have their own strong support system.

My children are currently in foster care (please no hate) and their foster mom pushed for us to be able to communicate; we text daily, she always sends me pictures of the kids and we talk on the phone/video 2-3 times a week. She helps me still feel included. I truly appreciate it. She has also asked if they could still be in contact once my babies come home and honestly it warmed my heart so much.

Just being kind to the bio parents is everything! Your tone of communication can make or break them at a delicate point. There is always a way to put even uncomfortable situations at ease with this. This helps the fosters relationship with the child too when they see that you want them to be able
To reunify. Rather than creating an atmosphere that you “stole” them or are keeping them away. Even a Kind word like “I know joey loves and misses you so much. He is such a sweet kid I feel so blessed to be able to help.” Some foster parents are in this to adopt and those are horror stories to parents struggling to reunify. Putting yourself in the parents position for a moment when you get frustrated with them. Can you imagine being told that you need housing to get your child back, then told you need your child to qualify for housing? Plus a million other obstacles all while the guilt eats you alive. Unfortunately without support reunification is likely impossible.

I need help please maybe you could give me some advice.. unfortunately I had my 2 kids taken we were working so hard on getting them back but in new jersey there's a time limit and we couldn't get are stuff together in there time line well it had been 6 years thought i would never see them again there real dad couldn't handle it and ened up killing himself.. 4 months later the lady who adopted them said we could come see them

She didn't want to go threw Andy counseling she just said her see them we had so much fun they spent the night I took them places bought them stuff .. she got mad at me because she said I was doing to much and that my oldest son wanted to come back home and live with me .. well see thought it was best to cut all ties what do I do now I want to see them be with them and it's killing me .. please let me know if there's anything I can do thank you

Most of my foster families were literally just in it for a check. They didn’t do Anything. Made comments like you’ll age out and end up in prison. I did age out but never got in trouble.

Not speaking badly of the biological parents is a big one, kids can still love their parents even in hard situations and it rubs off on them if all they ever hear is negative. My family only fostered babies, and of the five that we fostered over a couple of years, only one of them ever made it back to their bio family, the mom was single and in a support home with her baby, but the kid had a borderline cleft pallet which made it so that he couldn’t breastfeed and was literally starving. They really shouldn’t have taken the kid away, the parent just needed more support and she wasn’t getting it, they go from zero to a hundred really fast in some cases and then do absolutely nothing in others. I think the biggest thing that would help is fixing a broken system, is horrible that there are basically no other options for families other than to have their children forcibly taken away.

I'm not really one to speak on this matter, however I am a foster child and I did have a particularly unique case regarding who I was adopted by and how the whole thing went down. One thing that did NOT help was to spring it on me so suddenly when my biological mother was brought back into my life. It was an immediate reconciliation without any sort of warning beforehand, which, as you can probably assume, didn't end well, but only raised my hopes, leaving me to re-mourn my mother all over again. I think that, given my own personal experience and time spent seeing other kids in the system over the years (I'm 14 and have been comfortably adopted for over half my life now) is that it needs to be a slow process. The child's emotion should be top priority. The process of reacquainting a child with their biological parent isn't an easy, nor always good process. It's important to be extremely mindful along the journey, as well as to instill enough trust with your foster kid that allows them to feel like they can confide in you when needed without rectifying their relationship or the current process with their biological parent. For me in particular I felt as if though I said anything negative at all they would "take my mother away" again. So I never had the opportunity to adjust my situation how I needed to. Overall the trust and the mindfulness is the most important thing in this situation. Kids think all sorts of ridiculous things and have all sorts of irrational fears or worries so it's important they have reassurance, room to adjust, and honesty. If thats valid to share.

Im a case worker for a foster agency. Some of our foster parents actually need to show the children about basic hygiene and manners. Once they get those concepts, the FPs teach the kids skills in cooking, housework, finances, help with homework, and encouragement in sports of their own !

Focusing on the positive aspects of the bio parent. Letting the child know that it's okay to love their parents and still be upset about the situation.
Our girls were not reunited. We were able to adopt them. One has cut contact with her bio parents. The other has a measured relationship with her mother (her father is deceased).

Commenting for the algorithm 😊

Would there be extra processes if a new adult who is considering being a foster parent lives with their parents?

Good communication with bio parents and giving them additional tools they might need to help their kid.

Helping pack, and supporting the move from foster home to parents home.

Is reunification always the goal?

Can u do a video of a foster child having a pet and what u would do since they have like a puppy or a cat or some sort of support animal

I used to be a foster child. I got reunified once and went back and aged out. I feel like something that would’ve helped me when I was reunified was clothing. I got a different clothing allowance based on what agency I was with at the time. And most of the time it was $200 a year and I never stayed in the same agency a whole year. And going back to my family they didn’t really have enough money still to care for 14 children. When I aged out something I needed was a proper lesson on finances and the WHY. Why you need an emergency fund why you need good credit. Why you need to pay taxes. Everything

We made sure our foster kids were part of what was happening in their bio family. E.g., we had them remember mom's birthday, we had them get (we helped and paid for) gifts for all their close family at Christmas, when a family member was ill, we had them call and send a card, etc. It was like their bio family was OUR extended family.

Do you give foster children pocket money? Im curious

My foster parents adopted me after my mum and dad left, i was 13. First time i got there, they showed me my room, showed around the house and then all sat with me and did ground rules and my boundaries. My family was a polly group, two mums, a dad and a non binary person.

Rules were i was allowed snacks until 4pm
Friends can come over for dinner and were dropped home.
Loud music was allowed between 10 and 7
Any questions i asked would be met with real answers
I was allowed a lock on my door
They wouldny yell at me (i was scared of sudden loud noises and yelling)

They put other generic rules but one they added after a month was when i came home i had to do secret handshakes with them.

Ill never forget them and will raise my child how they raised me ❤

For the older kids, giveing them space when they ask for it

Positive communication and the sense of everyone working together for a better future.

Make a true good faith effort to build a relationship—one that recognizes each party has strengths and weaknesses, that both of you have something to offer and to teach the other.
It’s easy to fall into a black and white/good guy-bad guy mentality. This is a lie and hinders the growth and maturity of both foster and bio parents.
Model the behavior you want to see; take the high road; treat others as you wish to be treated. The old maxims usually speak truth.
(And recognize there are no absolutes. All relationships require both parties to desire relationship or they will fail. You are only responsible for you.)

I love you ❤

When the bio and foster families work together, it is the best for the kids. I have seen some foster parents drive the bio mom to mandatory appointments because they didn't have a way to get there. I'm an LSW.

What I've seen from friends whi were reunufued us keeping a rekationship with both the child and parent

Every case is different. Typically, by the third month, you will know how the case will progress and if the bio parents will actually participate in their plan to be reunited. Parenting is hard and not all Bios actually want to be reunited but will do the bare minimum many times out of pressure because they do love the kids but dont want to or recognize they arent equipped to actually take care of them. We have adopted four children after fostering them. In those cases, zero effort was made on the case plans, some cases drug out for years, and some were resolved within 12 mths. I think there are a couple things to keep in mind number 1. Do your own research background checks google searches etc. Of the "family" you are maintaining a connection with. Many times DCFS does not do this and you may be encouraging or introducing someone that the children shouldnt be exposed to..example a cousin who tags a long to visit or is in the background in a virtual visit. And number 2 Once you find out info gather accounts from children present all the information to the caseworker, casa, GALs, and county attorney. This will help keep the judge informed to be able to make the best decision when requests are made in court...please go to court foster parents. 3. Be leery of offering too much support...it can paint a very hazy picture of the parents' true effort/abilities and can really complicate the case. A foster friend recently took beds over to a bio moms house so she could get her home approved( mom still has not set up bed 6 mths after) and started selling them. Also remember you are NOT the parents caseworker. Are they asking you for a ride to an appointment or trying to set up visits to dodge caseworker becaue of dodging drug tests or other accountability requirements. In our state, half of the children who are reunified come back into care in 18 months.😢

My foster doesn’t do nothing like offering me their number, really talk to me, etc. I wish she would talk to me more about my son. I have him full nights Friday for another week and then I have him for a full weekend and then home for good. And don’t really know nothing. Don’t know what he eats, watches, what time he goes to bed, what he likes playing with etc. I never get him for holidays or his 1st freaking birthday. I’ve done everything they asked me to do and still haven’t gotten nothing really in return. It’s a shame because I feel like now I’m ripping him from the foster family and I know what it feels like so I offered for them to stay in contact with me if they ever wanna see Eli but idk we will see

❤❤❤❤

I want to kiss you just saying

When a parent is truly struggling with transportation, in a community with very poor public transportation, I have transported the parent to visits so they don't miss that time with their child. I make it clear that I can't be regular transportation (I blame the CW and say they won't like that) but I have stepped in when things fall through last minute.

Communication and helping the parents, especially when it's a bum wrap