Fierce Fostering Confidential

Hey, hi, how are ya? It’s been a while. Things can get messy and hard in the fostering world. Between that and losing my job a few weeks ago, it has been a month. I knew I was losing my job for the last year due to a merger, but still. Being unemployed for the first time since I left school, after working for 20 years, it’s a real shock. I haven’t known what to do with myself the last 2 weeks, and if you know me in real life, it is incredibly hard for me to ‘turn off,’ even when I am relaxing. Sitting down to write has been top of mind but so hard to actually do. I hope this helps with the wait.

Over a month ago, we had to give notice on one of our kids and hold firm to that decision. It was the hardest and most hurtful decision we have ever made. This hurt so much more than when the little girl we had for 3 years and were adopting was reunified unexpectedly. Why? This outcome had no winner. Our kiddo didn’t want to leave, we didn’t want them to leave. No one was winning. If no one wanted this, why did we feel like this was our only recourse?

Behavior. Maybe you’ve dealt with it before as well, where a kid has so much trauma they don’t know or are unable to control their behavior. There are some behaviors that can be worked on and worked through. Sometimes though, when you have tried to work together and for them for so long without things improving, it’s time to pause. Other times, you have to completely throw in the towel. It hurts and it’s not something done on a whim. In our case, my husband and I had talked about giving notice a few months before and when we spoke with our team and our kid about it, we were able to add in additional support and they showed some buy-in for a little while.

When the buy-in stops, when the supports aren’t enough, something more has to happen. Next steps need to be taken, for the betterment of everyone involved. This behavior is not mental health related by the way. For us, we were able to deal with a lot of the mental health issues and support our kids and ourselves. When one of the kids in your home have mental health struggles, it doesn’t just affect them. It will touch on everyone who lives with you and sometimes even those in your inner circle too. The behavior was vaping and stealing money. There is always a straw, and it was this. It broke the camel’s back. Once these came out, especially the stealing, our other kiddo said that they could not live with them until they made changes. Knowing that they were unable to feel safe in our home was what prompted us to hold firm and to disrupt.

That’s not the end of the story for us though. We didn’t end placement and shut the door forever. I made it clear to everyone on our team: DCF, their individual therapist, and our in-home therapist, that we wanted to continue to be a visiting resource. We made it clear that we wanted them to be able to work on themselves and we hoped that eventually they can come home. Our other kiddo agrees and wants that to happen as well. It has been a windy road, but we’re still traveling down it together as best we can.

It has been great being able to call and see our kiddo occasionally. There were some growing pains for everyone, and I know it’s been hard for them to be in a group home setting. This is the best thing for them right now, even if it hurts. The structure they’re getting, as well as the inability to vape and be around some of the kids that were also engaging in similar behaviors has been great for them. Additional thearpy sessions and journaling has been helping them to grow and understand how their behavior effected those around them.

When we get together for visits, I ask about how they’re doing, how therapy is going, and what they are enjoying most day to day. I asked bluntly the last time how sobriety was, and they said it was going alright, then laughed a little saying that they were not expecting me to ask that. I said that going forward we are going to be completely transparent, not going to be pulling any punches. We strove to be honest and transparent always when they were living here but I have found that since they have left, there was more we could have said and done. I am starting fresh now while they’re not living here to show that things will be different, and while it will be weird at first, in the end it will make everything better.

Our in-home therapist is still seeing our kiddo while they are in this placement, and we are looking forward to joining a session soon. We know that they recently wrote a letter to the kid who is still living with us and I will bring that home next time we visit. We are going to talk about the expectations we have for when they come home, how we are going to support them, and what they feel they need going forward from us. We do not want anything to be a surprise once we are back together, so that this can work and we don’t have any future disruptions.

There is definitely a lot more that needs to achieved before we can be a family again at home, but for us I am very grateful that we have been able to stay connected and can work on things together. This isn’t something we achieved overnight, even the small successes we have had so far. The first 2 weeks, they didn’t call us at all. Then they started only to call once a week. Now it’s more frequent, 3 times this week alone, which I love and am thankful for. I haven’t pushed, this is because they want to call and speak with us.

While we have gone through this transition period, I have heavily relied on friends and family in addition to my therapist and other foster supports. My friends I could talk to as I do about everything, I owe them so much. My family, they were sympathetic and were supportive of our decision. My therapist, who does not get paid enough, was amazing listening to everything and assuring me that I was making the right decision for myself and my family. My foster parent friends, they get it on a level no one else can. They get the comings and goings of the system and what we deal with on a daily basis. Parenting of any kind takes a village, foster parenting needs a special kind of village.

I know this isn’t something that every family can do. There are so many reasons foster families might disrupt a placement, some that can be worked on and some that cannot. I hope that when that decision is made, if there is any way that you can stay involved, you do. I know that not all kids will be able to go back to the home if they are placed in a higher level, but if you feel that it’s something you want to explore, I hope you feel empowered to do so.

This isn’t the first time that we have disrupted a placement, the first time they reunified with their family early instead of the additional month or so they would have spent with us transitioning home. I know first hand that not all disruptions can or should result in the foster family remaining involved. If it can work for everyone involved, I hope that you are inspired to try.