I love this initiative out of Arizona. Arizona Child Protective Services' has a Family to Family Team Decision Making program that takes the input of both foster parents and birth parents in determining the best interest of child.

Birth parents and foster parents in conjunction with social services and other applicable child welfare groups form a panel and discuss cases where a child being removed from a home is being considered. In some cases this happens before the child is removed, and in other cases it is after removal, but not long after.

The intent of the program is to help the child stay in a safe environment and potentially stay in the room rather than facing a traumatic removal from the home. The other aspect of this is to keep parents and foster parents from feeling like they have to fight against each other. If everyone is on the same page from the very beginning, it’s less likely to cause animosity on either end.

Knowing exactly what the birth parents’ goals are, when they are to be achieved and by what measures can go a long way toward helping a foster parent mentor to a birth parent and potentially reunite child and parent.

Some of the parents that have a child removed are young and inexperienced and have no idea how to access the services they need. This is where social services and foster parents can help. For a child, knowing that the foster parents don’t hate the birth parents and are trying to help the birth parents can be a huge relief.

Getting a child returned to birth parents after removal is generally not easy. If the birth parents can be more involved in their child’s life and know what is going on, they may be more likely to work their plan and have their child returned. Again, this is not an easy task.

By the same token, there are parents who will not work their plan at all and will have to face a termination of parental rights. Maybe knowing that their child is in a safe and loving home will allow the birth parents to voluntarily relinquish their rights when it’s in the best interest of the child. Sammy’s birth mother did this with Sammy and two of his brothers. It avoids long and costly termination trials and appeals and allows a family and child to be able to move on and find permanency if that is the ultimate outcome.

By the time my children came to me, with the exception of Hannah, they had already been through several placements, had parents who were not even attempting to work their plans and my opinions of them were not very high. I never wanted my children to have to spend another day in their presence. I don’t know that any of the outcomes would have been any different with these particular birth mothers, but what if they had had the opportunity or mentor to begin with? Would the kids have suffered as much as they did? Would they be with their siblings now? We can’t turn back time, but we can sure move forward with new ideas and options for keeping families intact. Every move hurts a child, and the first move can be the hardest.



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