Strollerderby : foster care

Temporary "Parents" Keep Troubled Families Together

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:00:00 GMT

It’s a great day when the cover of the New York Times has a story that puts you in a good mood. Today, the Times profiles a nonprofit that places the children of mothers in crisis with volunteer families, who care for the kids as their own until the mothers are able to get back on their feet.

By placing children with temporary parents, Safe Families for Children keeps kids out of the foster system, while ensuring that they are removed from dangerous situations. The Chicago-based organization has proven life-saving for women who are in abusive relationships or who get kicked out of their homes for any number of reasons, such as job loss or health problems that prevent them from working. Safe Families does background checks and house visits of potential volunteers, and mothers are able to see their children as much as they want during the unofficial foster period.

Praising the program, the Illinois director of child and family services said, “Where parents recognize issues they need to address and ask for support before abuse or neglect takes place, it’s a great thing.”

Even more important than recognizing the issues is having access to remedies. 25-year-old Janai Parahams certainly recognized the problems of staying with her violent partner, but she may not have felt able to leave were it not Safe Families, which placed her four young children (one of whom is pictured) in temporary homes while Paraham took a job-preparation course, found employment with the Census Bureau, and moved into a new home.

This unofficial foster care also makes financial sense for all taxpayers:

"In Chicago, Safe Families expects to place 1,000 children this year, for average stays of 45 days. Administrative costs total $350,000 a year, with $100,000 coming from the state and the rest from churches and foundations. If those children ended up in foster care instead…the cost to the public would be millions.”

Would you consider opening your home temporarily to children from troubled families?

Photo: New York Times

Does New York City’s Foster System Inadequately Protect Children?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

A tragic case of child abuse has gotten the City of New York in hot water over its allegedly inadequate protections for foster children.

The suit centers around Judith Leekin, a 64-year-old who is now thankfully behind bars for exploiting the city’s foster system to get rich. After learning how much the city would pay her to adopt children with physical and mental disabilities, Leekin adopted 11 children under four different aliases, and then moved to Florida with them.

The approximately $800 to $1,300 per month per child that the city paid Leekin is hardly a windfall for any responsible parent caring for a child who is need of special education. But Leekin spent hardly a dime on the children, keeping them locked—and, in some cases, tied up—in her home, with no access to education, adequate food, or health care. By the time her evil scheme was discovered in 2007, Leekin had collected $1.68 million in government money.

Her former foster children (one of whom is pictured), are now in their teens and twenties and are in foster care and group homes in Florida.

The federal lawsuit contends that the city failed to adequately background check Leekin or to monitor the children under her care. But the Administration for Children’s Services argues that Leekin was masterful at defrauding numerous agencies and professionals, and points out that the city did everything in its power to prosecute Leekin and offer the foster children care and resources after the abuse came to light.

While there must be government accountability for this unthinkably terrible crime, I don’t think that a lawsuit is the answer. Taking money away from New York’s child welfare system, which is already facing severe budget cuts, is hardly the way to improve it. The best way to serve New York’s foster children would be public disclosure of how Leekin managed to get away with such severe child abuse, and a full accounting of the concrete measures the city has taken to prevent such a situation from ever happening again.

Photo: New York Times

Moms Living Clean

Shannon LC Cate — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:29:00 GMT

Sixty-six percent of women in prison have minor children. Eighty percent of women in prison have addictions. If you understand, as the medical establishment does, that addiction is a disease, rather than a moral failing, it will be as hard for you as it is for me to wrap your head around punishing mothers--and their children--by putting them in prison and their kids in foster care in response to that disease.

Small programs throughout the country are trying alternatives to prison. One such program in California helps women get clean and sober while living in group homes with their children. Filmmaker, Sheila Ganz, spent three years with the women in the program documenting their stories and their struggles. You can see a trailer of Moms Living Clean below.

If you happen to be in San Francisco Bay area, you can also go to a screening of the work in progress on Thursday, May 14th, from 6 to 9 pm at the  Oakland Museum of California, James Moore Theatre.

image: wikimedia.org

Foster Parents TOO Special for More Kids

JeanneSager — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:27:00 GMT

Note to parents up for interviews with the foster care system in Australia: don't mention your stellar parenting.

Although experts on how to be a good interviewee have long said you have to sell yourself, a set of Australian foster parents who were trying to bring home their foster son's biological siblings were denied. The problem? A psychologist said the couple thought they were too special.

The parents description of themselves as "excellent foster parents" denoted "perceptions of omnipotence and specialness," according to Toni Single, a psychologist for the department of community services. Single also considered the couple rude for saying no to a plate of sandwiches. Perhaps they weren't hungry?

There are myriad reasons to deny potential foster parents children, and it is important that social workers take seriously the role of handing kids off to foster parents (in general, I would say they do!). But doesn't this strike you as splitting hairs? This couple has already been deemed good enough to care for their foster son, who has lived in their home since 2002, and his sister, who lived with the family from age eleven until eighteen when she aged out of the system.

So they called themselves "excellent foster parents." Would it have been better if they described themselves as good-for-nothing shitheels? Would that make you hand over two more children?

The sad thing here is that a set of siblings will be housed in separate foster homes rather than kept together. The couple's foster son, in particular, is distraught - he asked that his parents gain custody of his two little brothers. And this isn't the first time Single has taken it upon herself to come up with a wacked out reason for denying foster parents' kids - check out this story my colleague Shannon wrote about her earlier this year.

Would you describe yourself as an "excellent" parent? Do you think that means you've inflated your opinion of yourself?

Image: Center for Family Studies

Do We All Have a Right to Procreate?

Miriam Axel-Lute — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:48:00 GMT

Though we would rarely admit it, most of us, upon hearing about some abusive situation, have muttered about requiring a license to parent or "fixing" the offenders so at least no child will have to go through that again. But when push comes to shove would we really think either was a good idea?

Carter Dillard, writing in the Georgia Law Review, is not exactly recommending either (in fact, he speaks, rightly, of parental licensing schemes as "comical"). But he is, very seriously, arguing that there should be no fundamental right to procreate, that there is a duty on prospective parents to be "fit," and that courts should have the right to issue no-procreation orders in certain limited circumstances.

In the narrowest case that Dillard focuses on, it's hard to argue: If, due to egregious harm to previous children, a no-custody order has already been issued, such that any child born is immediately taken into state custody, wouldn't it be better for all to prevent such a pregnancy in the first place with a "no-procreate" order?

Trouble is, this seems to me almost as rife with problems as parental licensing. Much as Dillard wants to separate out the principle from how it would be implemented, I can't.

Dillard never manages to acknowledge that the state does a pretty awful job in most cases of determining "fitness" now, and often gets it wrong (in both directions). Some of that can't be avoided: We need to be able to take kids out of danger, even if we suck at it. But I heard in Dillard's writing a disturbing willingness to expand the definition of "fitness" tests to include finances (how much money is "enough"? does it matter how you spend it?), "pending neglect cases" (and if they were ruled to be unfounded, as many are?). It just seems like a clear slippery slope to pre-emptive sterilization of people who are different, poor, etc.

But even if we do set aside implementation for a moment, Dillard's argument that his "no-procreate" orders could be good for everyone by shifting resources from helping kids who have already been harmed to prevention rings a bit hollow.

For that to work, the no-procreate orders would actually have to substantially reduce the number of children born into abusive situations. But only a tiny fraction of the worst cases already have no-custody orders. And even then, how to ensure the order works? Foricble abortion? Sterilization? (Long sordid history of that already) Court-ordered Norplant (serious side effects for many people)? Criminalizing sex? Imprisoning people? Sending them to a convent?

The answer, of course, is you don't. You just say it, and if it's violated, it changes to a "no-custody" order and unspecified penalties are applied after the fact. Could that have a deterrant effect? Unlikely. At least for women, if carrying a pregnancy you know you're going to have to give up isn't a deterrant, it's hard to know what would work better. And most men in this situation are unable to pay the child support they already owe and any other penalties may suck for them, but it'll make it even less likely that they end up paying. Pregnancies are not always preventable, and in stressed families like this, are also rarely planned.

Would the orders make a point? Perhaps. But they're not going to make some huge difference in the number of kids who are born to "unfit" parents or who end up abused.

Here's what might work better:

If you want to put resources into prevention—of unwise pregnancies and of abuse—do it. Don't wait for some neat legal principle to make you feel better about it. Fund health care, birth control, abortion, good sex ed, parenting education, respite services, and domestic violence response, etc. and improve access to them. There's plenty of info out there about how to do these things well.
If you want to ensure that babies born to parents with a history of serious enough abuse that they already have a no-custody order in place aren't bounced around from foster home to foster home and maybe-maybe-not back to birth parents sometime (which I agree is not a good plan), make no-custody orders include automatic termination of parental rights for any child conceived after they are issued and allow the kid a permanent adoptive home from day one. It's still subject to errors in judgment, but at least you know it'll have real results. (And, frankly, it might be more of a deterrant than some random legal penalty.) (Note: This suggestion works when both bio parents have the no-custody order. What is the proper response when it's only one of them who is subject to such? I don't know.)

Ick.

Photo by walknboston.

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Woman Trades Two Kids For Bird

Brett Singer — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

Be ready to get annoyed. Or at least shake your head.

OK. Ready? Heeere we go.

Two people, Paul and Brandy Romero, wanted to sell their cockatoo for $1500. So they placed an ad in the local paper.

Donna Greenwell called and said, hi. I'd like to buy the bird. But wait -- there's more! Greenwell told the Romeros that she was taking care of three children that weren't hers, and she offered to sell the couple two of them for $2000.

I'll just quote the next part:

"The parties allegedly negotiated a trade involving the two kids, the bird and $175."

Some tipped off the appropriate authorities, the kids were placed in foster care, and the adults involved were arrested. The charge is "aggravated kidnapping," according to CNN.

So what the hell, right? Here's a twist I didn't see coming. "The children were well taken care of when they were with the Romeros, who badly wanted children."

I know this is going to sound insane. But if someone can find a couple to take care of children whose parents are unable to care for them, as it sounds like these kids were, is there a way to make that happen? Should there be? I know, adoption, foster care. But I don't think I can choose the parents in a situation like that.

Lots of questions, of course. How did the three kids come to be living with Donna Greenwell, a truck driver who is not related to them? In case you were curious, the third child was "placed" with another Louisana family, although no one seems to know if there was "bartering" involved with that one. No word on any birds either.

I know it's morbid, but I have to admit that I would love to hear that phone call. "Hi, I'm calling about your bird for sale? Mm-hm, mm-hm. Well, while I've got you on the line, would you be interested in these two kids I'm taking care of?"

All kidding aside, it's a terrible situation and I hope everyone ends up OK. Sometimes you have to laugh to stay sane.

Source: CNN

Image: sxc.hu

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Foster Mom Loses Job When Muslim Charge Converts

JeanneSager — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:26:00 GMT

A Muslim teenager's conversion to Christianity has prompted British officials to strip her evangelical foster mother of all responsibilities after ten years fostering kids for the government.

The woman, who has fostered eighty kids in the past decade, says she's being persecuted as a Christian. What's more - she says she tried discouraging the girl, now seventeen, from switching religions.

Not named because of legal reasons, the foster mother told the British Daily Telegraph that she offered the girl alternatives to living a Christian lifestyle, despite her own church-going practices. The caregiver attends an evangelical church and says family services was aware the girl had chosen to attend with her. They were OK with it, until the girl was baptised.

"I offered to take her to friends or family. But she said to me from the word go: 'I am interested and I want to come [to church]'," the woman told the Telegraph. Her case against the government - an attempt to regain her "job" as a foster mother (which did provide her income), is being funded by the Christian Insitute, which has charged the government with violations of both the girl's and women's right to religious freedom.

I'd tend to agree that a child of sixteen making a religious conversion is markedly different from a child of five or six (it's one reason I've always argued for baptism later rather than at birth). Teens have some sense of the gravity of decisions, and they're also relatively open to change. Teenagers like to make big decisions and take some control of their own lives. The fact that this girl had a troubled childhood, pushing her out of her home and into foster care, would understandably make her more willing to make a change in her life - especially one that would please a caregiver.

Does that mean the caregiver MADE her do it? Maybe. Maybe not. But maybe this could have all been avoided if the government either a. placed her in a home with a Muslim foster family or b. provided some means for the child to attend Muslim services, then checked up to see why she wasn't attending. At sixteen, she could have answered for herself.

She has answered for herself since. The girl is back with her own parents now and says she supports her former caregiver. She's staying a Christian, and she doesn't regret it.

So what do you think?

Image: BeliefNet

Former Foster Care Kid Adopted At 36

JeanneSager — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:31:00 GMT

I may be totally ripping off Grace Slick, but everybody wants somebody to love, right? Even if it's been eighteen years since you aged out of the foster care system and gave up your dreams of one day finding a mom?

Alice Jones spent sixteen years in the foster care system, and she's been out of it for eighteen. But last week, Jones finally got adopted.

The thirty-six-year-old computer programmer entered a Texas courtroom with friend Kate Held, a fifty-year-old mentor and mother figures of sorts who officially became her mom during a short ceremony complete with "It's a Girl" balloons.

Are you crying yet? Just wait.

Alice Jones was abandoned by her biological mother as a baby, by her biological father at two. Until she was eighteen, she spent her life in foster care - but her foster family opted against adoption. She went on to college and began a successful career as a programmer. At a fundraiser for a Texas charity that helps low-income kids last spring, Jones was paired with one of the organizers, Tracy Eilers, executive director of the Adoption Coalition of Central Texas, for a special meet-and-greet section of the program. She told Eilers she'd been in foster care, and though she never asked for it, Eilers hatched a plan to get Jones adopted.

Eilers told the Austin-American Statesman. “It was very hurtful to her. The pain doesn’t go away at some miraculous age.”

Eilers convinced Jones to talk to Held, and voila . . . instant-family.

My hat's off to all involved - Eilers for realizing adults who have aged out of the foster system are still in need of family support, Held for opening her heart, and Jones for keeping her heart open. But for all the good in this story, I'm still angered by the fact that it had to happen.

She spent sixteen years in the foster system, and no one stepped forward. There is still too much emphasis put on adopting babies in this country - and out of this country. I'm not against international adoption, but I find it hard to sympathize with people who say they could have adopted domestically, but they would have had to "sacrifice" their dreams of adopting a baby. Parenting means parenting kids - period. If you can't have your own - or decide not to - turning to adoption is supposed to be a mission of helping a child as much as that child will help your family.

Babies, people say, are easier. They don't come with baggage. Not true, actually, when you talk about a baby born addicted to drugs or you're dealing with an open adoption (a wonderful thing for parents to opt for, I might add). Kids don't come in neat little packages at any age.

Adopting babies is a wonderful gesture. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who come into this world in need of a Mom or Dad, and adoption will change their lives. It will prevent them from ever ending up in a foster system, it will give them a chance they likely wouldn't have had with their birth mother. But it shouldn't be the only option for new parents.

Consider when you're planning to expand your family - do you want a baby because a baby is cute and cuddly? Do you want a baby because it's a fresh start? Do you want a baby because you think it will be easier? Or do you just want to give a kid a chance at a better life, and let them enrich your family with all they can offer?

If your real desire is the latter - keep your options open. You may find an Alice Jones, two and just abandoned by the only parent she had left, waiting to come home with you.

Image: Yell

Are These Grandparents Angry Over Gay Adoption?

JeanneSager — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:26:00 GMT

A set of grandparents - ages forty-six and fifty-nine - have been told they're too old to adopt their addict daughter's two kids. Outrageous, I know.

But as heartbreaking as the tale of grandparents torn from their grandchildren seems, the story of their plight in the Daily Mail is almost as bad.

Instead of breaking down the bizarre notion that forty-six is somehow too old to parent, the tabloid tells a tale of grandparents done wrong by a system that would allow a gay couple to adopt these people's grandkids.

Who cares?

To me, the real meat of the story are the strange rules for potential adoptive parents in the UK. Shannon reported recently on the 'derby about a couple denied adoption because the father-to-be was extremely overweight; prompting the question of whether the UK is more concerned with the potential of a parent's death than their ability to actually parent.

In this case, the little girl and little boy are five and four; their mother is a twenty-six-year-old heroin addict who has been ruled an unfit parent. The grandparents have been trying for two years to become the childrens' legal parents, stopping only recently when legal bills became too much to handle. They said they were told if they didn't agree to the adoption with the gay couple, they would likely never see the children again.

Evidence has shown that keeping children with relatives is often the best option; making adoption outside of the family the next best (not bad, necessarily, just not as good). So why not let the kids stay with their grandparents in Edinburgh?

The (admittedly biased) Daily Mail piece says this is all about age. Life expectancy for women in Scotland is seventy-nine. It's seventy-four for men. The grandfather is the elder - at fifty-nine. If he lives as long as the average Scottish man, he's still got fifteen years left on this earth - enough time to follow the youngest grandchild to the age of maturity. Grandma is the younger, she's got as good a chance as any woman to live another thirty-three years on this planet; she could see them not only graduate but get married and have kids.

They have health issues - Grandpa with angina, Grandma with diabetes. But those aren't being blamed for the decision to keep the kids from their grandparents; and, depending on the severity, would seem the more pressing issues.

Then there's the gay adoption issue. The article makes a big deal to point out that the grandparents are homophobic, but Grandpa talks about how awful it is that the kids won't have a mother figure and Grandma makes a point to say that the little girl is "wary of men." Ironic - because they're pushing for a heterosexual couple to adopt the kids, which, last time I checked, would include a man!

The article also makes reference to research that has supposedly shown children fare better with a mother AND a a father - research that has been contradicted by other research saying children of gay couples fare just as well - which brings us back to the crux of UK adoption policies. Are they pushing for two parents? Gay adoption is legal in the UK (fortunately), but are they being chosen not because they can best care for the kids but because there's two of them?

Image: Daily Mail

Disabled Children Removed from Care of "Compulsive" Foster Mom

Shannon LC Cate — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Three severely disabled children have been removed from their home because their foster mother has been deemed to be a "compulsive caregiver." The children--all suffering from a syndrome that limits their development to that of eight-week old babies--have been in the foster mother's care since 2002 (two girls) and 2006 (a boy). A registered nurse, the foster mom was giving the children expert care. In the words of a report written by the very therapist who "diagnosed" the foster mother with so-called compulsive caregiver's syndrome, she is "attractive, intelligent and charming...competent...[and]...committed to [the] wellbeing" of her children, frequently placing "their needs above her own." You know, like a good mother.

According to the Australian, the author of the report, psychologist, Toni Single "has an interest in the syndrome known as 'compulsive care-giving' and has written papers on it. She believes that some foster parents believe they are good people who want to care for children, and do not know they have a psychological problem."

So what does a non "compulsive" care-giver, who fosters severely disabled children lovingly and is just a "good person who wants to care for children" look like? Is it simply impossible to believe a person could really want to do such a job?

Some case workers for the children had expressed concern that the foster mother and her partner (who also helps care for the children) were motivated by the money they received for the care of the children--about $1200 (U.S.) per week, tax-free. Considering how many resources the constant care of three helpless older children must require, I for one, find it hard to believe it's the best way to make money.

Meanwhile, I'd like to know what kind of care the children are receiving now, and who's giving it.

Sex Offender Wins Raffle that Benefit Rape Victims

JeanneSager — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:26:00 GMT

I'm not sure whether to cheer this story or go take a long, hot shower. So let me dig in.

A man convicted on three separate incidents of sex abuse of a minor - two in 1993 and a third in 2000 - has won the lottery. According to Alaskan law, games of chance have to benefit a charity, including this one - the first-ever statewide lotto. In this case, the non-profit chosen was Standing Together Against Rape (STAR), a charity for sex abuse victims. Fitting, isn't it?

Alec Ahsoak of Anchorage walked away with $350,000 after taxes on the half-a-million-dollar prize, and now he says he'll use the money to turn around a life that has been troubled since childhood when he was a kid growing up in the foster system. He'll also be setting aside $100,000, which he'll be donating to the folks at STAR to help their cause. He'll be helping kids in the state where sex abuse rates are the highest in the nation, the state where he is listed on the Department of Public Safety Sex Offender/Child Kidnapper Central Registry.

Obviously Ahsoak has reoffended as so many sex offenders have. He has, however, served his time and has been "clean" for the past nine years. He claims he's a changed man, and the money will help him plan for retirement. That he's even considering turning money over the charity says something about where he is today, and the charity can use this as a teaching point in its awareness campaign. This could potentially work out even better for them than the initial linkage with the lottery and the accompanying money and publicity.

But a part of me is still feeling skeeved out by this whole coincidence. Does this sully the waters for charities linked to the lottos in Alaska?

Image/Source: KTUU

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Adopting Kids: Nothing Like Adopting Puppies

JeanneSager — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:59:00 GMT

It was supposed to portray the goodness of man, the generous spirit of human beings.

But I found the outpouring of adoption offers for a child abandoned at a North Dakota fire station rather creepy.

The Grand Forks Herald got e-mail after e-mail after reporting that a baby girl was left in a cardboard box at a Grand Forks firehouse, offers of permanent homes for the little girl.

There were parents with teenagers living at home, parents who say they're too old to have another child themselves, parents who are struggling with infertility issues. The parents themselves were doing nothing wrong. They were simply showing they have big hearts, and they were having as hard a time as any of us would at wrapping their heads around the idea of a mother abandoning her child.

But the story of the abandoned child appeared in the Herald on Saturday. The responses started coming on Saturday. Did these people take any time to think about this? Did they consider what they were potentially getting themselves into? I'm not talking about parenting - these people were, by and large, already parents. But this is a child caught in a legal case, a child whose mother is being sought by police, a newborn left in those critical hours after childbirth when her mother could easily have been lost and confused.

Some of these parents might already have been considering domestic adoption; in which case they might already have considered the chance of finding a child whose story was fraught with complications. I understand the desperation for parents who are struggling through the adoption system, the willingness to jump at any option.

But can't they let it sit a day? Can't they wait for Monday, when their lawyer's office opens, when they can approach the appropriate authorities rather than a newspaper? This isn't a puppy abandoned on the side of a road, who can be snatched up in a day by someone with a good reference from a vet and a bag of kibble ready and waiting.

Image: Flickr

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Family Adopts Eight Siblings Separated by Foster Care

JeanneSager — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:02:00 GMT

It's like Jon and Kate Plus Eight without Mother Nature pulling the punches. Or maybe 17 KIds and Counting without all the baby-making.

An Ohio family has added eight children to its brood completely by choice - they've adopted a set of eight siblings, who were previously split between three separate foster homes.

Oh yeah, and they already have seven kids of their own living at home.

The presiding Judge, Allan Davis, says this is the most unusual adoption he's seen in all his years on the bench in Hancock County, Ohio. But it's no less heartwarming.

The kids - whose ages range from five to seventeen - were removed from their biological parents in 2006 when social services found they were living in a deplorable conditions. There was just one bathroom in the house - and the plumbing didn't even work (imagine, no potty, and eight kids?). Dubbed mildly mentally retarded in court papers, the parents reportedly failed to complete a case plan and were unable to obtain appropriate housing for their kids - resulting in a complete loss of parental rights.

The eight kids have spent the last six months living with their new family as a sort of "trial run," to ensure it was more than a hunch that that this group must somehow form a family. (hum along with me folks. . . ). Monday, they were all in court to give the judge their own OK on officially becoming the kids of their new parents.

I'd be terrified to have that many kids, but good for these folks - for realizing siblings need to be able to stick together. I know the foster system tries as often as possible not to break up families, but in a family so large, this was likely the only chance these kids would have at a normal life.

The new, big, happy family jumped in a van to go home after the court appearance - any guesses on whether they stopped off for jerseys? They've got just enough for a rugby team.

Image: University of Nebraska

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Dad Finds Daughter Abducted During Bosnian War

JeanneSager — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:01:00 GMT

It's been sixteen years since Muhamed Becirovic saw his family, abducted by Serbian soldiers at the start of the Bosnian war. But the Bosnian Muslim - now living in Germany - never gave up hope.

Now Red Cross workers, using DNA samples, have reconnected the father with one of his two little girls, now living with a foster family in Serbia. Senida was nine months when last seen by her father; she's now sixteen and goes by the name Mila.

She's also a Serbian. And a Christian.

She's known nothing of her father for the past sixteen years, nothing of his life or her heritage. Now she faces the biggest question of all - should she stay with what she knows? Or join her biological father in another country, taking on a new life?

It's the kind of story that tears at a parents' guts. Becirovic has rebuilt his life since losing his wife and two daughters after fighting broke out while he was working out-of-town, and ethnic Serbs took control of his hometown. By the time he finally got to his home, the building was demolished, his family gone. He's spent more than a decade and a half trying to find them, even if that meant discovering they were among the bodies dumped in the mass graves created during the Bosnian war. He's also since become a permanent resident of Germany, remarrying a German woman and fathering another daughter.

But a third daughter can't possibly replace his elder two. Finding Senida would seem like a dream come true.

But what of Senida? She's no longer a baby, and she says she doesn't want to move to Germany. “Of course I am very happy to have found my family and my roots. But at the moment it is all too much for me," she told the Sunday Times.

Is it fair for a child to be uprooted from everything that she knows? With the long history of the region, pitting Serbs against Bosnians and Christians against Muslims, it's hard to say how much of this child's biological heritage can really take hold over what she has been raised to believe. It's akin to a child raised evangelical Christian in America suddenly learning she's an Orthodox Jew - and her biological parents believe nothing of the born again, Jesus loving faith she's been raised to hold so dear. Doesn't nurture trump nature in this case?

By the time kids reach a certain age, biology can hold only so much sway in their lives. Heritage is more environmental and less what one is born with at sixteen. Not to mention the utter lack of relatable moments between father and daughter in this situation because of such a large chunk of their lives spent apart.

For the Becirovics, what should be one of the happiest days of their lives is fraught with confusion. Unfortunately, they're still a family torn apart by war.

Image: USIP

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More News About Missing Child Adam Herrman

Brett Singer — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Jeanne first told us about the bizarre case of the little boy who has been missing since 1999, but the story gets even stranger with some new details.

Let's start with this one: it turns out that the person who tipped off police about Adam's decade-old disappearance may have been the daughter of his adoptive parents. To clarify: Crystal Herrman, the biological daughter of Doug and Valerie Herrman, may have called the police and told them that Adam, whom Doug and Valerie adopted, was missing. Crystal emailed KSN.com, the Kansas NBC TV affiliate, saying the following:

"We started this, which was hard against our own parents as we were not adopted. But we want more than anything to find the truth, answers and justice…We pray every day our parents will come forward. Do the right thing not only for what they already put Adam through in the past, but to make it right for him now."

KSN says that that last sentence implies that Adam was being abused, although it doesn't appear to explicitly state that fact.

There's more: a woman described as "a former relative, who says she remains close to one of Valerie Herrman's sisters," told KSN that Valerie recently said, "They can dig up the whole state of Kansas, they'll never find a body." The Herrmann's attorney says that his clients are "worried" that they face murder charges, pointing out that there is no evidence of such a crime. He calls the Herrmans "good people," and claims the couple had no part in Adam's disappearance. The attorney has appeared on the Today Show, and also on local station KSN, stating that the Herrmans thought that Adam had gone to live with his biological father when he didn't come home after some time. Why they didn't call Adam's biological father and find out is a question that seems not to have been asked.

Lastly, Adam's biological father, Irvin Groeninger, gave an interview to KSN. He says that he "lost" Adam once and can't lose him again, and just wants to know what happened. Here's video of the interview, which also has clips of the attorney.

It's nasty stuff. I suppose I'll say that I hope they find out what happened soon, since it doesn't seem likely that this story has a happy ending.

Source: KSN.com

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JeanneSager — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:24:00 GMT

A child went missing in 1999, and his parents say they feel "very guilty" they didn't report him missing sooner. You know, sooner than the other day . . . ten years after the tween boy went missing.

Well, you know, feel guilty, act guilty . . . At the very least, these people must be guilty of being bad parents.

Adam Herrman disappeared from his adoptive parents, Doug and Valerie Herrman's trailer park in the town of Towanda, Kansas, in 1999. A foster child placed in the the Herrmans' care when he was two, Adam (born Irvin Groeninger III) was adopted by them. By the time he was eleven or twelve (somehow, police haven't been able to pin down an exact age - making me wonder if there's an exact day he was last seen), the Herrmans say he was running away frequently.

But when he up and disappeared again, they apparently decided he was with his biological parents . . . or homeless.

And still, they didn't report him missing.

According to a CNN report, a "person" made a report to the Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Children's Unit that they were concerned about Adam Herrman. Police have since executed a search warrant at the family home, taking into possession their computer. They have gotten an answer, they said, to one of reporters' main questions . . . but they won't reveal which one.

Apparently it's not "what happened to Adam Herrman," because police said they don't know whether he's alive or dead. The Herrmans are not under arrest at this point, but their lawyer has said they "feel very guilty" and "rue" the fact that they didn't report him missing.

Of course, I can't help thinking of another missing Adam. Adam Walsh's parents went running to the cops because they loved their son and wanted them back, and their son is forever memorialized in the "Code Adam" alert for a missing child. Why wouldn't a set of parents (even those frustrated by a troubled runaway child) put out their own Code Adam for their Adam?

Usually, I try to stay away from the words "adoptive parents" because once an adoption is final, the adopting parents are simply parents in my book. But two people who let their pre-teen son go missing without reporting it to police? I'm not sure I can call them parents.

Image: CNN

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Kid Woos Prospective Foster Parents With Letters

JeanneSager — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:57:00 GMT

His dad is long gone, and his mom has just lost her rights to the state of Michigan, but Alex wasn't ready to leave his future up to chance.

The seventeen-year-old ward of the state pulled a list of prospective foster parents off of the internet and started writing impassioned letters. He told his life story - his parents divorced, his father deported back to their native Romania when he was a tot, his mother changing after a devestating car accident.

"Truly all I need is someplace to stay, even if I have to pay a couple hundred dollars a month in rent, for the 2008-2009 school year," he promised.

Alex was heading into his senior year at Stoney Creek High School in Rochester Hills, Mich., when he started his campaign to stay there until graduation. An honor roll student with near-perfect ACT and SAT scores, his school has been his rock since his mother's car accident. A university professor with a doctorate degree, who Alex describes as a "really good parent" with a "strong moral compass," Alex's mother suffered severe head trauma in the accident and has since been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The state first yanked her custody rights in 2001, sending Alex bouncing around the foster system.

When he was in eighth grade, the family lost their home and a middle school adminstrator offered Alex temporary shelter. School staff get Alex birthday cakes. They go the extra mile for a kid who is on the path to the Ivy League, a probably National Merit Scholar.

But after being sent from foster home to foster home, Alex landed in a children's home in Gross Pointe Woods, putting him out of the Stoney Creek district. He was a junior with one year to go, and he felt like he'd once again lost his home.

So he started writing his letters - thirty in all - not exactly the way most foster kids navigate the system.

"My school means everything to me. When chaos reigned at home, I immersed myself in my studies and my friends, forging strong bonds of compassion and support," he told his potential new parents.

Over the summer, a set of parents stepped forward. They took Alex in, and he's now midway through his senior year at Stoney Creek, with an acceptance letter from the honors program at the University of Michigan, and his fingers crossed that Harvard will accept his application.

If his entrance essay is anything like the letter he wrote (click here for the moving excerpts at the Detroit Free Press), it's a slam dunk. Who wouldn't want this kid in their home?

Image: Detroit Free Press

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Miriam Axel-Lute — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Remember this next time you hear people arguing that we should limit who can take care of, or adopt, kids in need (or that we shouldn't build a group home in their neighborhood):

Investigations by the Chicago Tribune have found that some kids are being held in psychiatric wards, hospitals, and jails long past when they were supposed to be released because there is no where for them to go. Often when they are released, they are being sent to placements that don't meet the recommendations made for them (such as residential drug-treatment first or a home ready for special-needs kids).

These are tough-to-place kids, mostly teens, with multiple problems. But as the article so clearly points out, there are few ways to better ensure that someone's mental health and behavior issues don't get better than to essentially imprison them somewhere where they are no longer getting the services they need/serving the sentence they received. The investigation was sparked by a 14-year-old who had been in a mental hospital for 105 days, when doctors had cleared to leave after a couple weeks. She hadn't been outside or to school that whole time.

It's sad enough to not be able to find an adoptive home for a mentally ill teenager, but nowhere for her to go outside of the psych ward? That's seriously depressing.

Photo by Skelekitten.

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Teen Has Cancer and Lives in a Car

JeanneSager — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:29:00 GMT

Doctors have told Destiny Himmel's mom the teen needs a safe, clean, germ-free environment as her body rebuilds in its battle with leukemia. Easier said than done when you live in your car.

Kerry and Destiny Himmel live in their Ford Explorer, alternating between a parking spot at a California McDonald's and another at a nearby grocery store. Kerry used to work as a truck driver, but when she went looking for another job, her daughter got sick.

In April, Destiny was diagnosed with high-risk acute leukemia. She has gotten through what is considered the hardest part of her treatments, but she still has at least two years of care before doctors think the cancer can be eradicated. Now Kerry spends her days home-schooling her daughter in the back of their car and shuttling the teen between medical appointments (Destiny's care is covered by Medi-Cal, the California state insurance system). On cold nights, Destiny stretches out in the back of the car, riddled by the pain that follows chemotherapy, with the family's two dogs to keep her warm. They get by on $500 in government assistance each month, cutting coupons to stretch their dollars and using the bathroom of the fast food restaurant.

But her mom won't accept putting her in foster care - to get her out of the car. Nor will the teenager. When a reporter for the Los Angeles Times suggested it, Destiny broke into sobs. When another member of the Times' staff uncovered proof that the Himmel's were offered housing earlier this spring and turned it down, Kerry said her daughter couldn't handle the stairs at the building in her condition. She said she couldn't meet with case managers and keep up with her daughter's medical appointments at the same time. She worried that the transitional residents at the proposed shelter would subject Destiny to unsafe germs.

If this were merely the story of a child suffering through cancer, it would be bad enough. But reading further and further into the Times' story, I found myself wondering not where the system has failed the Himmels, but how Kerry Himmel thinks she is helping her daughter. To not want her put in foster care because she thought she'd lose her is understandable. To not take an apartment because it has steps? That's a mix of denial and martyrdom - with a dose of short-sightedness thrown in.

Kerry Himmel is trying to be a good parent, that's clear, but sometimes that means admitting we can't do it all for our kids.

Image: The Los Angeles Times

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Mother of Slain Boy Denied Right to Sue

Shannon LC Cate — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

The mother of an eight-year old boy shot and killed by the biological son of his foster parents was denied the right to sue the social workers responsible in the case. According to the Joplin Globe:

"Braxton Wooden Jr. was shot in the head by Mark and Treva Gordon’s 14-year-old biological son, [Ethan] on June 2, 2005, during a game of “cops and robbers” with a handgun taken from a bedroom closet of the Gordons’ home.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis decided that because there was no evidence that the social worker and her supervisor had any knowledge of the presence of unsecured firearms in the home, the case did not rise to the standard of “conscience-shocking conduct” required to override a qualified immunity from lawsuits under which the Department of Social Services and state social workers operate."

When the social workers come to my house to do a six-month update of our foster license, they always ask "are any guns in your home in a locked cabinet?" To which we reply that we have no guns in our home. Every time I am shocked that a foster license is an option for gun-owners at all. Call me a big-city elitist, but a I don't believe a locked cabinet would stop a determined 14-year old any more than a bedroom closet would. And it's clear in this case that the 14-year old was determined to play with his parents' guns. He lied to investigators at first, claiming the eight-year old had shot himself. Later, other foster children who had stayed in the home testified that they had been chased by the boy more than once while he brandished "one or more of three handguns that were in the home" and had seen him loading and unloading the guns.

If the social workers aren't responsible for this tragedy, who is? Because when the state takes the drastic step of removing a child from the home of his birth, it had better make sure that the place it puts that child is safer than home. Protecting the professionals responsible for assuring this when they fail is not in the best interest of children. Not only should this boy's mother be allowed to sue the state, she should be awarded huge punitive damages to teach the state a lesson.

BREAKING NEWS: Judge Overrules Ban on Gays Adopting in Florida

JeanneSager — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:01:00 GMT

In the wake of Prop 8 putting the kibosh on gay marriages in California and Arkansas voters saying no to gays adopting or even fostering children, the gay community needed some good news. Thanks to Florida Judge Cindy Lederman, they finally got some. And it's just in time for Thanksgiving! Her honor ruled the thirty-year-old ban that's kept gay men and women from adopting children in Florida is unconstitutional today. Right at the tail end of National Adoption Month, Lederman signed the papers that make Frank Gill an official dad.

Gill and his partner of eight years have been raising a set of half-brothers for the past four years, ever since a child abuse investigator put the boys in the couple's "temporary" care just before Christmas. They have been the only parents the younger of the two boys, who is just four years old, has ever really known. Now they're the only dads he'll ever have to know.

Lederman is the second Florida judge to challenge the decades-old ban this year. A judge in August dubbed it an "unveiled" expression of bigotry. Lederman agreed, stating that children should be granted the fundamental right to be raised in a loving home by two parents, even if their birth parents can't be called upon to do the job. Denying foster children of gays and lesbians that right means children's best interests are being denied.

Lederman's comments in the Miami Herald are just the sort of words we need to hear two days before Thanksgiving:

''This is the forum where we try to heal children, find permanent families for them so they can get another chance at what every child should know and feel from birth, and go on to lead productive lives. We pray for them to thrive, but that is a word we rarely hear in dependency court.''

"It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent. Sexual orientation no more leads to psychiatric disorders, alcohol and substance abuse, relationship instability, a lower life expectancy or sexual disorders than race, gender, socioeconomic class or any other demographic characteristic."

Duh! There are plenty of bad straight parents out there. And lots of good gay ones. Too bad I'm not a family court judge - I think I'd be good at this. Putting a damper on all this happy weeping, of course, is the state's attorney general's office - they've already guaranteed an appeal is headed to the third circuit court. But Frank Gill says he is happy today, and so are his sons. Yes, his sons. Because the adoption ban doesn't make more straight parents come pouring out of the woodwork.

``It results in more children being left without any parents at all. They don't have a mom or a dad," he told the Herald.

Here's to every child one day having a mom and dad or a mom and mom or a dad and dad . . . just as long as they have someone to love and care for them.

Image: Miami Herald (Frank Gill and one of his sons)

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Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:00:00 GMT

More single women who find themselves pregnant are raising their kids on their own, so that traditional "source" for kids up for adoption (god I wish there were a way to talk about this without making kids sound like consumer goods) is dwindling. This should be good news for kids in foster care who need permanent homes. But will it work out that way?

There are 600,000 parents seeking children to adopt. And while it may be true that there's a particularly high demand for white newborn girls, people who work with prospective adoptive parents say that that's not as extreme as you might think. A large majority of those wanting to adopt would be happy to adopt nonwhite kids, and kids older than 6. And there are even far more people willing to adopt teens and kids with disabilities than there are waiting kids who fit those descriptions—at least according to the parents' reports of who they would be willing to adopt.

And yet there are hundreds of thousands of kids languishing in foster care without permanent families. What gives? According to an op-ed by the project Listening to Parents, foster care bureaucracies that handle initial calls badly, force prospective parents to jump through humilitating hoops to become qualified, and don't listen to parents throughout the placement process are among the culprits.

This seems both hopeful and depressing to me. It's "just" procedural! On the other hand, having seen some people near and dear to me go through hell in the foster-to-adopt process (taking emergency foster placements and being willing to adopt if that was needed), Listening to Parents' modest critiques seem like the tip of the iceberg to me. It seems as hard as reforming police departments. I know there's a massive can of worms here, but at least it's starting to look like one that there's going to be some pressure to open and deal with.

Photo by CG2_SoulArtist.

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Shannon LC Cate — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:37:00 GMT

John McCain told the New York Times that children were better off in orphanages than in the homes of loving same-sex parents. It seems some folks in Arkansas agree.

An Arkansas ballot initiative being pushed by conservative groups would leave more children waiting for families longer by banning adoption and foster parenting by unmarried couples. By "unmarried" everyone on both sides of the ballot initiative means "same-sex." Having already banned gay marriage (pointless, since gays could never marry in Arkansas anyway) down-ballot in the last presidential election, the radical right-wing agenda now takes aim at children in need of families. According to NPR, foster families are on the decline in the state, and banning same-sex couples from joining their ranks (or remaining in them, as the case may be) will only hurt children in need of loving care from trustworthy adults.

California's Proposition 8 is getting lots of press these final days before the election, but if you're in Arkansas, educate yourself about the Arkansas Adoption Ban before heading to the polls.

Teen Mom Turns Herself in to Safe Haven

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Just as Nebraska’s uniquely forgiving Safe Haven law is on the verge of being amended, a young mother makes a case for keeping it just the way it is. Currently, it’s legal to abandon children up to 18 years of age at a hospital. But since the law went into affect in July, so many teenagers (and zero babies) have been abandoned at hospitals that Nebraskan legislators are looking to revise the law so that it’s only applicable to infants who are three days old or younger.

But here’s an important use of the country’s only teen-inclusive safe-haven law that many hadn’t foreseen: a 16-year-old mom walked into an Omaha hospital, hoping to find a safe haven not only for her 10 month-old son, but for herself.

The young mother said that she had been physically and emotionally abused, and that her mother had kicked her out of the house. The teenager and her son are now in foster care, and her mother will most likely face prosecution.

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Woman Makes Up 14 Kids For the Money

JeanneSager — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:08:00 GMT

They were shelling out for foster care for 16 kids, but the Scottish government left Catherine Semple alone for four years. When they finally checked in, social services found 14 of the kids didn't even EXIST!

The Glasgow mom of two began telling the government she was caring for five of her sister's kids and five foster kids in 2002. She told them she had a total of six of her own, then loaded a pile of supposed maladies on the kids to qualify for more money. The government gave her more than 69,000 pounds (in today's market about $120,000) no questions asked over a four-year period. Finally, in 2006, someone got suspicous. Wouldn't you?

Her husband claims he knew nothing about the fraud (or his supposed sown seed, apparently), and he hasn't been charged. Semple has offered to sell her house to make restitution.

I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that she bilked the government by making up a bunch of kids or that no one checked in on 10 supposed foster/adopted kids - many with disabilities - to see how they were faring.

Image: Amazon

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