Further Adventures of Foster Care

This post about our first set of foster children comes long after they've been reunified with their biological parents. It wasn't until now that I've had the opportunity or desire to actually finish the post. This will likely be relatively short on details since I'm fairly well removed from a lot of the specific situations. Additionally, I want to finish writing this before moving on to our more recent placement as there has been significant movement in this case.

As a refresher, this is my first post on becoming a foster parent and receiving Mr Monkey.


Learning About the Family

One of the first things that we had to get used to was taking the baby to visits with his biological family. Through the process of taking the baby to the visits with his family, we came to know them reasonably well. Well enough to know that the reasons that the kids were taken from the family cannot be fit into any of the nice, neat boxes that we normally associate with children in foster care and their families. This has taught me, once again, to not to my trust my snap judgments made without complete information.

We learned that Mr Monkey (one of our nicknames for the baby boy) had several siblings who, at the time of our receiving him, were all in different homes. This was a bit surprising to me since I understood that DCFS attempts to keep siblings together. Even so, it was great to meet his siblings and see them interact with each other and their parents.


Meeting the Need We Didn't Expect

After several months with Mr Monkey, a new county social worker took over the case. She informed us that the court normally tries its best to keep siblings in the system together, as I had understood they did, and that they were going working to get three out of four of the children together. As such, she presented us with two choices:

• Take two more of Mr Monkey's siblings
• Have Mr Monkey, along with two of his siblings, move to another foster home

After discussing our options we determined that we could take one of his siblings but that it would be too much to take both. Our social worker was willing to work with us and allowed us to take just Mr Monkey's 6 year old sister while his brother stayed with his current foster parents. Within a few months we found ourselves with not just one child but two, one of of whom was a baby and the other 6 years old. Talk about a change in our lifestyle!


Living With the Children

As any parents know, living with children is a daily adventure. This was as true with these two as with any other children. Mr. Monkey was generally a very happy baby but, being a baby, he required LOTS of attention and very little sleep on our part. He, however, was always smiling, always playing, and very friendly.

The Banana (our name for Mr Monkey's sister) was a different, though wonderful, challenge. She, unfortunately, had been through more in her 6 short years than anybody should have to go through in a life time. We were the latest in a chain of foster homes that she'd been in since being removed from her home and we needed to gain her trust. Through many daily battles, including the infamous "battle of the broccoli", she came to love and trust us.

Seeing Them Go

During the fall of 2013, DCFS and the court came to the conclusion that the family had done what was required of them to be reunified with their children. That being said, there were many things that needed to happen from the county's standpoint before they could go home. These things hadn't been completed because the social workers were never quite sure that the kids would be reunified. Though we had moments of doubt, we were fairly sure that the kids would eventually go home.

Because of this decision, our county social worker had to being rushing through the required items. While we never had any concerns that caused us to have reservations about the kids going home, there were a few minor concerns that came up. This caused some frustration because it felt like the county social workers began to ignore our concerns because of the foregone conclusion that the kids were going home. Additionally, it tainted what was a good relationship with one of the biological parents. It seemed that they reacted as if we were trying to keep the kids from going home when we were really just trying to make sure they were safe and cared for in the process of going home.


Conclusion

It has been a year and a half since Mr. Monkey and the Banana were reunified with their parents. Even though we have grieved our loss of them and their presence in our home, we rejoice that their family is whole again. We have not been in contact with the kids or their parents at their parents request and can only continue to pray for their health, well being, and life.