One of the hardest jobs

 When I was a child some of my cousins went into foster care. This broke my heart and I wished that I was old enough to do something about it. Fast forward many years and Matt and I decided to make that dream come true. We became licensed foster parents in January of 2019. We were told that a typical foster placement is usually a year to two years and the goal is always reunification of the kids to go back to their biological parents. 

We got our first placement on March 1, 2019. I cannot/will not give a lot of details about this placement. But, I will say that after we had  our kiddos for a while that the social workers told us this was the most complicated case they had ever had. They were learning with us. Not very reassuring. We were only supposed to have them for a weekend, we had them several months, and we became very attached to them. Then, they went back to the foster family they were with before they came to us. There are no words for how difficult this was. I love kids and it was very difficult to see them go. We always knew they would, but that didn't make it any easier. I was not a hundred percent it was the right decision (emotions), but we were able to keep in touch with them and as a little time passed, I knew it was the right decision. Yesterday I found out that these kiddos were adopted by their foster family! A success story, I was so excited. They were in foster care for almost 3 and a half years before they were adopted. They are not with all their siblings, but they are finally settled and no more wondering if they will be shuffled to another house, or end up back at home.

In the course of a little over a year we had 6 kids come through our house, one placement came through twice. For someone who gets attached to kiddos pretty easily this was especially difficult. Our expectation was that we would have the same kids for that amount of time, not a bunch of kids come through in a little amount of time. 

Parenting is hard. Foster parenting is harder. No amount of training fully prepares you for what it is truly going to look like. No two kids (even from the same family!) are going to act alike, or have the same temperament. All foster children come with LOTS of appointments (they do not adequately prepare you for this, or convey this to you). For example you have parental visits (if parents are not together that is 2 separate visits, if they have siblings then it is visits with them too), doctors visits, therapy visits, speech therapy, dentist, quarterly visits with social workers, visits with their guardian ad litem (voice in court), etc. Add in the on-going training and whatever is going on in your life. It is time consuming, and I said every time kids came into our house, it's not the kids that get me, it's all the appointments. It's enough to put you over the edge.

Foster care is important and needed. So many people say that the system is broken, and it is. I saw that in the time that we were fostering (we closed our home in September 2020). However, it's not the social workers that cause the system to be broken, they do their best. They love the kiddos too and want what is best for them. But, they have to follow the system and rules too. What they might feel is best for the kids is not necessarily what the judge or guardian ad litem might feel is best for the kids. It is a long, lengthy decision to decide where the kids will eventually end up, and it requires many people to make that decision.

Someone said on Facebook recently that we should vote for Biden because of abortions, that we don't take care of the children after they are born, so essentially people should be able to abort kids. This is faulty thinking that goes along with our broken world. We do attempt to take care of children after they are born, but again, the system is broken. 

The breakdown occurs before the child ever makes it to foster care. For each case it is hard to determine where the breakdown first occurs, but it starts in the home, or maybe it started in the parents home when they were kids. Maybe we need better sex education classes. Maybe we need better parenting classes. Maybe we need harder punishments for drugs and alcohol. Or better education for the causes of these, not only on yourself, but on an unborn child. The system is broken because the family is broken and the world is broken. Ultimately you have to take responsibility for your actions. There are people who continue to have children, and then her children end up in foster care. Even though she has a lot of children in foster care, she does not choose abortion, she does not stop having babies, she just continues. Who can say why she does this? Why can't we stop her from having babies? Because it is her choice to have them. We can't make her get her tubes tied. Maybe she thinks each time will be different. Maybe she thinks that this time she will be able to stop the drugs and won't drink alcohol while she is pregnant....

During this whole Covid mess we all heard praises for the unsung heroes: Doctors, nurses, teachers, police, law enforcement etc. (as we should have and still should continue to respect and appreciate) What I didn't hear praise for? Social workers. They, in my book, are also some of the unsung heroes. They also had to adjust to working from home, while caring for their own families, who were now home, while trying to take care of their active cases. Not to mention that new cases continued to come in. These ladies and gentlemen, in my book, deserve acknowledgement too. Yes, they work with a broken system, but they continue to get up and go to work every day, trying to save the children that supposedly no one wants. Well, not all children are bad, not all foster children are broken, not all placements are easy, but not all placements are hard either. ALL the children who came through my home were sweet and lovable. They were ALL tossed into situations that were beyond their control, and messes that they did not make. Yet, they were required to try and deal with it. They were trying to understand it (my last foster child's mom kept telling her she was at summer camp!!!), and how can they understand it when we don't fully understand it ourselves. 

Foster parenting is one of the hardest jobs that I have ever done. Mostly because at the end you have to give back the kids that you have come to love and care for. In some cases you get to see them and get updates. In other cases it's like they never existed. I am thankful for the opportunity we had to open our home and love these children. I am thankful for everything I learned in the process and while it was hard, I would not go back and change it for anything in the world. It might not have turned out like I wanted it to, or lasted as long as I thought it would, but I still would not change things. We may open that door again someday, but for now, we had to close it. Not everyone can open their home to foster children. Not everyone can keep their homes open (for whatever reason), but everyone can do SOMETHING to help our broken system.

You can pray for social services in your area and all the social workers.

You can pray for the local foster kiddos.

You can pray for foster kiddos all over the world.

You can look for opportunities to volunteer your time to help (during this season we have the Christmas Bureau, where you go in and get a foster kids wish list, then "shop" from the donated new toys/clothes to fulfill that list, super easy and fun to do).

You can donate toys to Toys for Tots (in our area these end up in the Christmas Bureau to go to foster kids).

You can donate food items at different places (foster families also get a box of food for Christmas).

You can donate money to various organizations.

You can apply to be a guardian ad litem (again, the child's voice in court).

You can be a big brother or big sister.

There are so many ways that we can help the "orphans" around us. 

I encourage you to pray about ways that you can help and be involved.

If you have other ideas of ways to be involved I would love to hear them!!