They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

Emma — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:26:02 GMT

I know you don't pick the graphics for these things, but... ummmm..?

It is a lot like reforming police depts, that's a good analogy. I wonder if it wouldn't be slightly more possible because the kids who're in the system are more sympathetic than suspected criminals.

It's lower-profile, though, so there's less energy on it. Sounds like you think that profile is being raised. I doubt it, but I hope so.

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

NiiceLaady — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:53:44 GMT

True story: A couple I'm cyberbuddies with, who had been trying unsuccessfully to start a family for almost a decade, decided to adopt. After much red tape, they were approved to adopt two sisters, preschoolers, who were in foster care. (My friends were not the foster parents.)

These girls have an older sister who had some severe issues related to the bio-family situation. She was bullying the younger girls, making everyone's lives miserable, and was eventually placed with a different foster family that was trained to work with emotionally disturbed children. She thrived, as did her sisters in their foster home.

Until the day some random bureaucrat in social services decided that Nooo! We can't separate these three siblings! Even though everyone else in "the system" had agreed that everyone was better off if the older sister and the two younger girls had separate placements. My friends lost the two girls they had already started to bond with and had promised "yes, we are going to be your forever family."

Semi-happy ending: My friend became pregnant a few months later, after they'd resigned themselves to being childless for life. They now have a beautiful baby boy. I say "semi"-happy ending, because those poor little girls had their own happy ending snatched away from them by someone more concerned with the letter of the law (Must. Keep. BioFam. Together.) than what was best for them and their sister.

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

Alice — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:40:22 GMT

We were turned down because our southern state did not want a couple who was not black to adopt a black child unless it was an older child with severe special needs. So we adopted from another country. The state adoption rep here was so rude to us and even made me cry.

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

camamma — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 07:21:50 GMT

You could say: More women who find themselves pregnant are choosing to raise their children rather than making an adoption plan, and therefore decreasing the number of children placed for adoption", or something to that effect.

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

Shannon LC Cate — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:54:20 GMT

When we started the process, we thought we were willing to adopt from foster care and got licensed. But now, two newborn adoptions later, I'm glad it didn't happen that way for our first (or second) adoption, because I've seen a lot of friends go through the wringer with foster-adoption.

We may yet do it for #3, but we have some parenting and adoption and agency red-tape experience under our belts now. It's definitely at trial in the best of circumstances. In fact, our adoption agency's whole raison d'etre is to get babies adopted before they get too hard to place. They are all African American newborns, most with far less than optimal prenatal care and mostly low birthweight and otherwise less than perfectly healthy newborns. The agency opened to get children like that into families before they fell into the system.

re: They Say: Foster Care Bureaucracies Prevent Adoptions

Sue — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:02:28 GMT

It always strikes me as funny when someone says that kids are "languishing" in foster care. It conjures up an image of children sprawled on the couch, waiting for their Forever Family to call.

As the parent of 7 adopted, hard-to-place children who were previously foster children, I say "Wake me when it's over." The foster care system in this country is seriously effed-up (oh yeah..I said the "e" word) and you must have nerves and buns of steel to attempt the process. Oh, and prepare to be stripped of any self-esteem you might once have possessed.

But maybe it's just me.