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Practicing Permanency: Session Three:

Engaging all Constellation Members:

Birth, Foster, Adoptive, Kin Parents and Adopted Persons

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Whatever the route is to permanence, skilled work with parents – birth, foster,

adoptive, and kin are essential

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The child we are working with is thinking about their birth families every day

The birth parent we are working with is thinking about their child every day

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Range of Issues for Birth Parents

•Loss•Grief•Separation•Anger/Resentment•Low Self Esteem•Boundary Redefinition

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Range of Issues for Birth Parents

•Embarrassment•Disloyalty/Rejection/Betrayal•Fantasy•Sabotage/Competition•Inability to Move Forward

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Tips for Practice with Birth Parents

Birth parent and foster parent engagement early on promotes permanency

Foster a family, not just a child

Tell foster parent what your child likes, rituals

Ice Breakers Exercises

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Tips for Practice with Birth Parents

Child welfare workers need to keep “their” issues in check.

Foster/adoptive parents need ongoing guidance and support about how to manage their relationships and different forms of involvement with birth families.

Relationships with birth families are not just about relationships with parents, but also the wider sibling and family constellation.

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WHAT FOSTER PARENTS COMMIT TO:

• 24/7 commitment to very needy, traumatized, sometimes angry kids

• The great unknown a lack of information about children

• Dealing with and scheduling the multitude of professionals who come with each child (e.g., social workers; attorneys; therapists; CASAs; etc.)

• Dealing with intrusiveness of the child welfare system

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WHAT FOSTER PARENTS COMMIT TO:

• People talk about them behind their backs.

• Foster families are under constant scrutiny.

• Dealing with delayed reaction to parental visits.

• Falling in love with a child and having to let him/her go

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FOSTER PARENTING IS DIFFERENT FROM RAISING YOUR BIRTH

CHILDREN

• Foster parenting is hyper-vigilant parenting

• Foster parents may have fears related to dealing with the birth family.

• They also need to be positive with children about their parents.

• Foster parents may have a fear of sending the kids they are hyper-parenting off with an unknown person, especially if no relationship has been established first.

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FOSTER-ADOPT PARENTS HAVE A DIFFERENT MINDSET

• Fear of losing the child

• Tendency to want to erase or negate child’s past

• May be asked to help transition the child back to the birth family

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Adoptive Parenting

• A journey that will last a lifetime

• Openness

• Respect for birth family

• Adoption is not the same as giving birth

• Core Issues of Adoption

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Adoptive Parenting

• Twenty things that adopted kids wish adoptive parents knew

• Once you adopt a child, he or she is no longer your “adopted child” he or she is your child

• Respite care

• Networking with other adoptive parents

• Post Permanency Services are essential and should be expected as a given

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Range of Kinship Parenting Issues

Kinship care refers to the care of children by relatives or, in some jurisdictions, close family friends (often referred to as fictive kin).

Relatives are the preferred resource for children who must be removed from their birth parents because it maintains the children's connections with their families.

Kinship care is often considered a type of family preservation service.

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Kinship care may be formal and involve a training and licensure process for the caregivers, monthly payments to help defray the costs of caring for the child,

and support services.

Kinship care also may be informal and involve only an assessment process to ensure the safety and suitability of the

home along with supportive services for the child and caregivers.

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Placement Consideration

When out-of-home care is imminent, the Children’s Worker should ask the parent and foster youth to identify potential relative or kinship providers.

After separation of a foster youth from his/her home, a list of potential relative or kinship providers should be obtained from the parents at the 72-hour hearing, the Family Support Team meeting or prior to removal.

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Placement Consideration

This list and efforts to locate potential providers should also be documented in the assessment and treatment section of the case record.

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Locating the Non-Custodial Parent or Relative

Factors to consider in identifying potential relative or kinship care providers are as follows:

Who would the parent and foster youth most want to care for the foster youth;

Who does the parent and foster youth most often turn to in time of crisis;

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Locating the Non-Custodial Parent or Relative

Who has cared for the foster youth in the past when parents were unable to; and

With whom does the foster youth have a close relationship with?

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Understanding Kin Caregiver Feelings

Caregivers often experience a roller coaster of feelings, such as: GuiltThey may feel that somehow the situation is your fault.

EmbarrassmentCaregivers may worry about what others will say or think.

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AngerSeeing the children suffer at the hands of parents often angers relative caregivers. GriefCaregivers may grieve the loss of an adult child or the role as traditional grandparent, for example.

ResentmentCaregivers may have given up personal hopesand dreams to take on childrearing responsibilities. many kinship caregivers become depressed.

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IsolationWhen a child comes into the caregiver’s life, their circle of friends may change. They may lose old friends and have trouble making new friends.

FearCaregivers may fear that they will lose the child to an abusive parent or the court system. They may also fear the child will be abducted.

AnxietyWorrying about the children, their parents, and the future is common among relative caregivers.

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DepressionOverwhelmed with confused feelings and fatigued by responsibility, many kinship caregivers become depressed.

LossCaregivers may have given up the dream that their child, niece, or nephew, for example, will ever be a parent. This is especially poignant when relative caregivers adopt.

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HopeCaregivers may keep a spark of hope alive that the parents will straighten out.

LoveLove is the driving emotion for most caregivers raising relative’s children.

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Web Based Resources:Birthparents:

Ice Breaker Meetings:

Building working relationships between birth parents, foster parents, and caseworkers can be extremely important for foster children, and using Icebreaker Meetings can be an effective mechanism for doing that. However, to be successful, an agency seeking to introduce Icebreakers must understand how the practice works.

http://www.aecf.org/blog/resources-for-holding-icebreaker-meetings-between-birth-and-foster-parents/

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Web Based Resources:Birthparents:

Bridging the Gap:

Bridging the gap is the process of building and maintaining relationships and communication between the birth and foster

families involved in a youth’s life, or between the foster and adoptive families, with the goal of supporting family reunification or another

permanency plan.

The benefits of bridging can also be afforded to other families involved in the child’s life, such as between foster parents and extended

formal and informal family members of origin, between relative caregivers and the child’s parents, and between foster parents and adoptive parents. In examining the rationale for bridging, these other relationships apply as well

Bridging the Gap: Families Working Together – A Northern Virginia Foster Care and Adoption Initiative

- September 16, 2009

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Web Based Resources:Foster/Adoptive Parents:

Louisiana Foster Care and Adoption Guidelines:http://www.adoptuskids.org/for-families/state-adoption-and-foster-care-information/louisiana

St. Elizabeth’s Foundationhttp://www.stelizabethfoundation.org/

Louisiana Adoption Advisory Board:http://www.laaboard.org/

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Web Based Resources:Foster/Adoptive Parents:

Louisiana Foster and Adoptive Parent Association:http://www.lfapainc.org/

Volunteers of America, New Orleanshttp://www.voagno.org/Services/Children-Youth-Family/Adoption-Services

Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, LAhttp://www.adoptccdiobr.org/

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Web Based Resources:Kinship Parents:

“We are Still a Family: Adults Caring for their Kin” and “My Special Family: Kids in the Care of their Kin” (Videos)

This film, made by Clark County, features kinship providers and young people talking about their experiences in kin caregiving.

Through their narratives, viewers gain a better understanding of the challenges and rewards involved in kinship caregiving. Utilizing the input provided by these and other caregivers and youth, Clark County was able to develop strategies about how to best work to support families and to address needs of kin as identified in Fostering Connections provisions.

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Web Based Resources:Kinship Parents:

NRCPFC Webcast: A Discussion about Kinship/Relative Care Practice

In this webcast, Dr. Gerald P. Mallon engaged in a conversation with one of the country’s leading experts in kinship/relative care – Dr. Joseph Crumbley.

Dr. Crumbley brings decades of experience and expertise in the field of kinship/relative care.

This webcast, now archived on the NCCWE website, features an informative and lively discussion about kinship care, relative placement, and transracial adoption. (May 2009)

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Web Based Resource: Kinship Parents:

Kinship Care and the Fostering Connections to Success And Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008A Web-based Toolkithttp://www.nrcpfc.org/toolkit/kinship/