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According to Sharon Landis, MSW, with the County of Orange, California, the objective in foster care and adoptions is to strengthen families. However, she adds, "our primary goal is for family reunification, so we work to strengthen parents so that they can parent their children safely."
Novelist Summer Wood, told me that she and her partner "were foster parents to 4 small brothers and very engaged in the family reunification process when their parents regained custody. Falling in love with the little boys (the oldest was 4) and becoming friends with their parents was the experience that spurred me to write Wrecker."
"Fostering the boys made me acutely aware of the complicated pain involved when a child is taken from his parents' custody. Because every kid who has entered the foster system has undergone a traumatic experience -- and often shows behaviors that reflect that -- I think it can be really hard for foster parents, who deal with that pain and those behaviors firsthand, to buy in to the family reunification plan. We weren't sure at all, at first. But when we saw how much the parents loved their kids, and the kids loved their mom and dad, it changed our minds. Parents mess up. We all mess up. But the love -- it just floored us to see that. To see how, no matter what had happened, the love and connection was strong. So we got behind the whole reunification thing and really tried to help support the family.
"It didn't turn out well, ultimately. The parents lost custody again and all the kids were adopted out. The parents had issues they just couldn't overcome. But it really seemed to me that the boys and their parents deserved that second chance."
According to Landis, the county of Orange receives over 2000 calls a month for suspected child abuse. At any given time there are approximately 2,700 children who are in out-of-home care (see descriptions below). With intervention, counseling and support, most of these children are reunited with their parents or placed with relative caregivers. "Only a small percentage of children are not reunited with their birth parents or caregivers when their permanent plan changes to adoption, legal guardianship or long-term foster care."
For every family—the ones that reunite and the ones that don’t—the process is delicate. And fluid. Over the next week I'll be posting excerpts from my interview with Sharon Landis, MSW, to give readers a comprehensive view of foster care and foster-adopt programs. While she is speaking about programs as they pertain to Orange County, CA, there are many similar programs throughout the United States. “The more people can understand," Landis says, "the better."
Meredith: What does the foster care system look like? In other words, where do children stay who are not in private family homes? Are there group homes? Residential facilities? Can you paint a picture for those who don't have a concept but want to learn?
Sharon Landis, MSW: The foster care system is really family foster care in that our primary goal, again, is to strengthen families so that they can learn how to safely nurture and care for their children. [Social services] always assesses to see if the child(ren) can remain in the home while supportive and strengthening services are offered to the parents. However, if it is determined that child(ren) cannot safely remain in their homes during this time and we will further assess to see if they can be placed with relatives, as placement with a family member usually serves the best interests of the child due to the continuity of family connections, ties and identity.
"After the assessment, if relative placements are not viable, then other options in family foster care are considered on behalf of the child and his/her special needs. Some of our options are emergency shelter care, foster homes or group homes. We are aware that a family setting usually serves the best interests of the child. We seek to place children in foster family homes, where there are foster parent(s) and a family setting that will nurture the child. Foster parents can be single, married, partners, and own or rent their homes. Foster parents must be at least 18 years old with sufficient income to meet their own financial obligations.
"Our agency has several types of foster home specialties such as regular or long-term foster care (willing to foster for any length of time, from one day to years); respite care (foster homes that provide temporary care for licensed foster parents for a day, several days or a few weeks); emergency shelter homes [which are] foster homes that provide foster care for 30 days or less; special medical foster homes [which are] homes that are trained to care for children with a range of medical needs; foster homes that care for teens who are involved in an intensive day treatment [mental health] program; multidimensional treatment foster care (foster homes who care for teens for a period of six months and whose goal is to transition back into a stable family home; a variety of wrap-around services are used to strengthen and support the placement and transition).There is also the voluntary placement of a child where the parent/guardian cannot provide care due to the parent's hospitalization or entering into a treatment program which causes them to be absent from their children. In this case, the children are not dependents of the foster care system and placement can only be for six months. (Although the child's placement is in a foster home, there is no juvenile court involvement.)
"If the child has special needs that would preclude him/her from being placed in a family foster home, then they will be further assessed to which placement would give them the optimum services to meet their specialized needs, such as a group home, a sibling placement facility or a residential facility. The majority of our children are placed with relatives or a foster home. However, even though we have a smaller number of children needing family foster care or adoption, we always have "waiting children" who have need of a loving and nurturing family for permanency (adoption).
"We never have enough homes to place all of our children," Landis says.
Coming up next: Understanding the importance of the "child's clock" in making permanent foster care and adoption decisions.
