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When it comes to terminating a placement, there are some big questions involved.
How/what do you tell the child?
This is the hardest part of the whole process. The kids know that they have bad behavior so trying to sugar coat things is not going to benefit anyone. The kids will see right through it. You can tell the child the truth without being harsh. When we talked with Hannah we approached it from the standpoint of what was best for her. We also talked to her as a group. It was my husband and me along with her previous parents. We told her that we knew she was not happy in her previous home and that she needed to be in a place that would make her feel safe and happy. Of course what you tell the child needs to be adjusted for the appropriate age level. If you’ve had an unhappy relationship break up think of what you or the other person said that sounded phony as soon as it was said. Your child will feel the same way if you use similar comments with them.
How do you handle the transition?
There are several important things to do with your child. Giving your child permission to be happy and to love the new family can be very freeing for the child. If your child is doing the transition visits while still living with you, ask about the visits and allow your child to be excited about it, or to feel sad. Do not discontinue therapeutic parenting or holding your child during this period. The structure and consistency will still be important during this time. Spend time talking to the new family and try to be consistent in things like bed time, rules and other things that will make your child feel secure and reduce anxiety.
What documentation do you send or give?
Any and all documentation that you can send along with your child will be incredibly helpful. The more that the worker and the new family know and the more information they have to work with, the easier the transition will be for everyone involved. I wrote a series of blogs about the questions that new adoptive parents should ask about their child. You may find them here. If the new parents have not asked these questions, try to answer them and present them with the information. If you cannot answer all the questions, try to give the adoptive parents as much information as you can, especially when it comes to routines and things that will make the transition as easy as possible. If you have been keeping a journal or notebook about your child, send it to the new family or to the social worker. This will contain valuable information, even if it does not seem that way. The journals can show patterns in a child behavior that will be helpful to a new family.
Expect to grieve, even though you asked for the change in placement. Any time a child leaves there are emotions involved and they may hit you at times that you least expect it.
How do you prepare for a termination of placement when the child is your own grandson? My heart is breaking. My grandson is going to be taken from me, because I cannot be an adoptive placement because my husband did not pass the state index check. Since discovering this, my husband has moved out of the house and it has been deemed safe, but I will lose Junior, because I am married and cannot adopt by myself.
My stepdaughter who is 24 suddenly remembered “a molestation incident” that she claims occurred when she was four right after my husband and I applied to her social worker for visitation with her children, who were taken by CPS. Two months later, my son and his girlfriend called me and told me that his girlfriend was having some psychiatric issues and would I take the baby on short notice if they called. I took the baby about a week later after CPS showed up. It was not a family placement with CPS, but since I wanted the siblings together, I applied to be background checked along with my husband so that this non-related child could live with his brother. My husband learned of the allegations against him in this manner, and it was frightening, because we did not know what the allegations were.
Junior spend two days in a foster home while we worked out a place for my husband to live. WHen he was returned to me, he had a severe diaper rash (blisters) hair matted down on the back and sides of his head, milk caked behind his ears, and now he screams if Grandma is out of his sight. He has nightmares and cries in his sleep, something he never did before. Yet they want me to give him up to an adoptive family, when he already has a family that loves and cherishes him. He has never known abuse or neglect or yelling or hitting, and they want me to trust that he will be immune from all of these problems if he is put up for adoption? His brother has flunked out of placement for behavioral reasons, has lost half of his body weight in foster care, and no longer speaks normally. He is just three years old and has only been in placement for two months. There is a strong history of ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and addiction in the family. These children are at great risk to be abused or traumatized by placement and placement changes. I want to adopt my grandson, if his parents don’t pull everything together, I love him, and provide a good home for him but California’s policies concerning concurrent placement are keeping me from protecting this precious child. I don’t know what to do.
I’ve been trying to find this subject all over the net and stumbled here. I’m glad that I did. My husband and I along with our three daughters decided to become a foster family to a young mother and her son. They were placed in our home in April of this year. Our foster daughter is 15 and her son will be 1 in September. Our biological daughters are 17,6 and 4. I decided to stay at home to care for our foster grandson. We recently asked that our foster daughter be removed from our home. She had behavioral problems that we felt that we could not address. We did this because we were afraid of accusations that she were making that were not true and felt that we could not protect our family if she chose to make more serious allegations. It has been a rough 4 days. We informed her therapist, her worker of her issues and suggested that her son be placed in another home without her. Her neglect of her son and inappropriate behavior with her son has been documented with her therapist. We’ve been working very closely with her therapist to address these issues. Problem is that they removed our foster daughter and foster grandson and placed them into seperate emergancy shelters until a home is found for the both of them. The department has since found a home for them to be together. We fear that they are not addressing her problems and that she cannot be a safe parent to her son. We’ve been greiving for the both of them but have been told that this is no longer our problem. I’ve been physically ill through the passed few weeks because of the stress. It feels like no one will listen and they feel it’s more important that the child remain with his mother. This would be true if she was able to heal herself first before returning her son to her. We could use some advise or maybe even some counseling at this point. I hope you have some suggestions.
As it turned out, my husband did pass the background check. His ex-wife, (who is a county employee and works closely with CPS) and his daughter (whose children, one of which we had custody of previously- were in protective custody with her mother) made charges that the DA found to be unsubstantiated.
My grandson was placed with another county employee, who was told that he was an unwanted child and immediately contacted her attorney regarding adoption as she had requested only an adoption eligible baby. The health passport and medications were not forwarded to the foster parents which resulted a lack of prescribed medication and some inappropriate medication due to lack of family health history. As a result, he suffered physical symptoms as well as cognitive, and developmental delays after about 10 days in placement.
The placement worker swore under oath that he had provided both the passport and notice of placement hearing to the foster parents, as required by law. He did not do so. Our county protects social services employees who are guilty of wilfull omissions, including those that would be prosecuted criminally such as severe medical neglect.
Discussions with the foster parents after-the-fact revealed they were not given the information as required by law. As foster parents you need to demand the proper documentation regarding your foster child.
What a tremendous mess! In my opinion all of this could have been avoided if 1) The caregivers notice of rights to be present at hearing were delivered (If you are a foster parent, check the court calendar to make sure there is no upcoming case regarding your child), 2) The medical and health passport had been promptly delivered to the foster parents (demand that it be produced, along with the child’s last physical so that the doctor can be contacted before the 30 day Foster Child CHDP); 3) If the social worker had not taken an adversarial stance that precluded contact with the foster parents, he would not have been able to manipulate the situation and he would not have caused the emotional trauma to foster parents who believed that they were receiving an adoptable baby.
For those of you in social services please make sure that you file the proper court documents for all changes in placement as these have response forms attached that assure due process rights. It is only denial of due process rights that overturns the protects afforded by a governmental agency with regard to wilfull omissions exclusions. The foster parents, family and any other party suffering loss as a result of those omissions can file for damages against the county and against the personal assets of the social worker in the event that due process rights are obstructed. Please go by the book – it exists for a reason.
My grandson is now back with his mother, but he is not the same, and according to research although his physical symptoms have improved, his cognitive deficits and lowered IQ will likely not be recoverable.
Ironically he is eligible for a CHAFEE grant for college because he was a foster child – I hope he can make it to college.
As a former foster parent and as a biological parent I cannot begin to tell you of the emotional and financial toll this has taken on the family. The denial of due process rights and the medical neglect of my grandson is unexcusable.
I understand that the foster parents were equally emotionally traumatized and they indicate they are unlikely to foster again. We need more qualified foster parents, not fewer. We need better training and support for families on both sides of the foster care equation.
Please work for open and honest communication in all foster care placements, every child deserves our best efforts to safeguard their health, emotional and physical well-being.
Assume nothing, love your child unconditionally, and understand that even if he does not stay with you, you are an important link in the chain of people who will make him who he is.