What happens to kids after they turn eighteen and are still in foster care? It’s not a pretty picture.

It’s really up to the family they are living with if the now adult will remain living with them, but there will no longer be a foster care subsidy to help the family pay the bills. In many cases, these young adults become homeless.

What were you like at the age of eighteen? Were you capable of paying all your bills, renting an apartment, filling out health insurance applications, having a job that was willing to pay for all these things? I know... more

How young is too young to be a foster or adoptive parent? There are several things that factor into this.

First and foremost is where you live. Each state has a different age limit for who is allowed to be a foster or adoptive parent. There usually isn’t an upper age limit, but there is always a lower age limit. Obviously the age of eighteen would be the lowest acceptable age since a minor can’t be deemed a caregiver and by becoming a foster or adoptive parent you are entering into a contract and minors can not enter into contracts. Most states have lower age limits... more

There are times when you take a child into your home as a pre-adoptive placement that you are going to have to have visits with birth family members, and possibly birth parents. This can be extremely difficult. I know it sure was for me.

Handing your child over to a parent that you know has abused or neglected a child that you love is one of the hardest things you will ever do. Some people can do it and feel sympathy for the birth parent. I can’t. Taking Kory and Mackenzie for visits was torture.

Why would you have visits? Up until the time of the... more

This is a decision I had to make myself, and a question I have been asked before.. What do you send with a child when the child leaves your home?

The fact is, your foster care stipend or adoption subsidy is to pay for the kids. The reality is that many times we spend more than the allotted amount on the kids, so this can get to be a gray area.

A friend of mine recently had a new child join her home, and the previous mom did not send any of the baby’s bottles along. Kind of hard to feed a baby without any bottles, and not something most of us have on hand... more

There was a response to the article that I wrote about in this blog in the Wisconsin State Journal. It essentially said that foster parents are paid an adequate sum to care for their foster children.

After reading the article and the proposed allotments that are quoted in a companion article, I just about had to be pulled off the ceiling. If we stuck... more

Sammy moved to a new treatment foster home on Friday. I had not met or talked to the new foster parents before his move. I had a bible study class in Madison Friday and Saturday and his new home is in Milwaukee. I made a call and asked if I could stop in on the way back from my class to meet the new foster parents and see where he’s living. Fortunately, they were able to accommodate me.

I was pleasantly surprised. There are three adults in the house that work together. There are three boys besides Sammy. I got a brief tour of the house and saw the boys working... more

Pat has been Sammy’s foster mom for the past seven months. She has been a gem to work with. We have not had any conflicts and have been in agreement with how to handle Sammy on every occasion.

Pat has been dealing with special needs and foster kids for over thirty five years. She started out as a social worker, then became a supervisor, then worked in a group home, and now is doing treatment foster care.

She has seen the progression of issues in kids. At one point when we were talking she said that the worst kid on her caseload thirty years ago wouldn’t... more

I am on several list serves for various aspects of abuse, foster care and adoption. Something that was written on an abuse survivors list really caught my attention. I have permission from the author to publish it here.

This is what was written:

"Rape" is an acute event---but to be raped, and then ignored is far worse. How different would any of our lives have been, had, after the first incident, the non-abusing adults in our lives (whoever they might be--mothers, aunts, teachers..) put themselves in front of us and protected us and believed us and... more

I get all kinds of news articles about foster care, special needs adoption and various other things. I see articles about foster parents that are getting kudos in their town because they adopted a sibling group, or a medically fragile child, or some other thing. I think to myself “I know lots of parents like that” but they never appear on a news link or receive any praise. So I want to profile some of the parents that I admire.

I could start with one of the bloggers on here but that seems rather redundant. You are already... more

There has been a very tragic story going on in northern Wisconsin. In a small town called Crandon, where I spent some time at my great-grandparents cottage, an off-duty police officer shot and killed six people. He was then killed by fellow officers. Their funerals have been taking place all week. The gunman was laid to rest today.

On the surface this may seem unrelated to foster care and adoption, but it has hit me like a sledgehammer. I received a call from Sammy’s foster mom yesterday and Sammy is back in jail. It’s a complicated story, but the jail time is justified.

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