Partnerships in fostering: a newsletter of the Georgia DHR Foster Care Unit, Fall 1998

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Part Fr.'R~ g A NEWSLETTER OF THE GEORGIA DHR

Foster Pa Ad(lpt ...
Reuniting ..ill Families...

Many people think permanency means children in foster care will be reunified with their birth parents or adopted. Yet these two options are too limited to meet many children's needs.

welfare agencies to help children find permanent homes more quickly, within 12 to 14 months. Some people misinterpret these laws to mean agencies will work more at

To help children connect with the best available adults to care for and love them, Georgia offers a variety of options, including living with another relative, guardianship, long term foster care by agreement and emancipation.

"We need these options because not all adults feel they can adopt, even when they love a child," said Linda Doster, DFCS Foster Care Unit program consultant. "Permanency means a child grows up where he or she can best find safety, stability, continuity and love. We want children to have a home where they can say, 'When I graduate from high school, my mama is going to be sitting in the audience!' That mama may not always be the child's birth mother."
Doster emphasized, "Reunification is still the most desired and preferred permanency plan for children in foster care. We don't want to lose sight of how meaningful and significant the birth parent is in the child's life."
New federal and state laws require speed. In the past, agencies might work for years trying to reunify children with birth parents, even when the chances were very small that some of these parents . would ever be able to care for their children. The new laws require child

helping children to be adopted, rather than trying to reunify them with their birth parents.
"Nothing with the new laws should be understood to mean reunification no longer takes precedence," Doster stated. "Yet the new laws also require agencies to be more decisive in recognizing when reunifying a child with birth parents is not going to work. A year is a very long time in a child's life, especially when the child is drifting without any sense of belonging. The new laws say we need to try to help birth parents more quickly, and, if birth parents seem unable to reunite with their children, we must be faster in finding some other permanent home for these children."
To find permanency more swiftly,
(See Permanency on page 3)

New laws require that children obtain permanent homes more swiftly.

fostering to
adopting When Foster Pare

Ex t e n d n g P e

e ncy

The transition from foster parent to adoptive parent poses special challenges, as Tina Aquino from Watkinsville knows. Aquino and her husband, Richard, adopted three children and are finalizing adoption of three more. She described their most recent adoption experience.

The Aquinos had worked for a year and a half

...,..._....._ __

with a birth

Adopted children can benefit from connections with their roots and past.

mother as she tried to
1ir'._.,. organize
her life and increase safety in her home. But each time the Aquinos and the case manager were preparing the children to move home with her, all the birth mother's gains would fall apart. This cycle repeated itself again and again.

"She started seeing how the kids were in limbo and knew DFCS was at the point of terminating her parental rights," Aquino recalled. "She asked the case manager and us to meet with her. She asked if she could have some contact with her kids if she let us adopt them. She'd reached a point where she wanted to put the kids' needs before hers, so she was cooperative in talking with us about ground rules. She understood we weren't trying to punish her, but were thinking about ways to ease the children into a new kind of arrangement. One of the children had come a long, hard way in therapy. When he first came to us, he was smearing feces all over everything in the house. We wanted to make sure we didn't upset him so he would lose the progress he'd made."

Helping Children Understand
The Aquinos met with the children for "question and answer times."
Aquino said, "They had real questions they were thinking about, like, 'I won't be living with my other mom anymore, so is she still my mom? If she's not my mom anymore and we're not supposed to hug strangers, is it OK to hug her?' We told them, 'Yes, you can hug her because she's your birth mother. She'll always be your birth mother.' "
Despite therapy and the adults' efforts to soften the impact, the children showed signs of stress. Aquino noted, "One child was especially angry. He would break my things, write on my stuff and hide my makeup." The Aquinos and the birth mother planned a ceremony to help the children adjust to how people's roles would change with the adoption.
"The kids were only 6 and 4 at the time, so we wanted the ceremony to be really concrete to help them understand," Aquino explained. "It was a really hard time-one of those things where you have to brace yourself. Their mom brought gifts for them. We talked with the kids about how we were going to do some role switching. She told them it was the last time we were going to be in the roles they had known us in. She said she'd signed the adoption papers and now Richard and I were their 'forever mom and dad.' We talked about how, for this to work, we were all going to need a separation time to get used to the changes. We talked about how, after things settled down and everyone was getting used to things, we'd see about having visits with her again. We couldn't say something like, 'She'll be coming back to see you next week,' because the important thing for the kids then was to be able to let go."
Adults Working Together
The Aquinos and the mother agreed the children would be less confused if the mother only called the Aquinos' offices or their beepers for

them to call her back. The Aquinos talk on the telephone with her weekly. Aquino noted, "If the kids ask me about her, I say, 'I spoke to your mother a couple of days ago, and she's fine,' or, 'She's got a new job,' or whatever. So they know there's still contact."
The Aquinos asked the children's psychologist for guidance about when to have more contact. In the 10 months since the ceremony, the family and mother have visited twice.
"We still have some safety concerns, so, for now, we have the rule the kids won't invite her to our house, and she won't invite them to her house," Aquino told. "We're helping them think of her as like extended family, like my sister we go to visit in Albany and who doesn't live with us. Their mother can still influence their lives. She sends them gifts and outfits for birthdays, holidays and back-to-school. Everybody in this case is working for the kids instead of fighting each other over the kids."
Permanerl~Xd From page 11
case managers, foster parents and, whenever possible, birth parents will soon be learning to work together in new ways. They will learn to work in teams which include other community professionals and family connections. They will also learn when and how to work toward more than one permanency plan at a time; for example, when a parent has a severe addiction, the team might work to reunify the birth parent with the child, while simultaneously working to find a possible adoptive home or place the child with a legal guardian.

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Bir a rent

on
oster Parents

Birth parents and children reuniting: foster parents are crucial in bringing this about. Willie and Rose Torrey are foster parents who continue to support a birth mother they, at first, did not want to meet.
"When our case manager brought the two girls to stay with us, she told us about the mother's drug problem and some violence that had been in her life," recalled Rose Torrey, who lives in Conyers. "We let the girls come to stay with us, but we asked that the mother not be told where we live, because we were scared of her. The girls stayed with us 18 months without us ever meeting their mother."
The Torreys helped the girls feel connected to their family by sometimes letting their sister spend the night. The children visited with their mother away from the Torrey home. During that time, their mother continued making progress in drug rehabilitation. After being in the Torreys' care for 18 months, the girls returned to live with their mother.
"The first time we ever met the mother was when she came to our house to pick up the girls to take them to live with her," Torrey remembered. "When she came, I was surprised and impressed. She hugged me and thanked me for

Torrey decided she wanted to go to the mother's home, but wanted to wait to give some "space from us so the girls could bond with their mom again. Then one day the girls and their mom just showed up at the door. The girls had been asking if they could come by to see us, and their mom said, 'I finally had to bring them because they really wanted to see you all.'"
While in the Torrey's care, the girls had enjoyed going to Sunday school and church. The Torreys invited the mother to bring them to the church, telling her the church bus would pick them up and serve them breakfast on Sundays.
"She came to the church a few times, but she didn't feel comfortable because she'd been in the drug scene so long," Torrey explained, "so we said, 'Come to the house, and we'll have our Bible time here,' and that's what she started doing. Other times we'll just drop by her house. We don't stay long because we don't want to impose. We'll sit in the car, and she'll come into the driveway. I'll ask how her week's been, and the girls will be hugging us. We just want to keep that contact."
In November the birth mother began working at a nursing home, and Torrey noted, "I know she's tired sometimes after work, so I'll go by and just see how things are and see how the girls are getting along. If I can take them off her hands, I'll do that."

The mother's finances are limited, so the Torreys sometimes buy the girls special treats, such as dresses for Easter or perms at the hair dresser's.

taking care of her girls and for being good to them. Before she left, she asked me to pray for her. I took her literally, and I kept her in my prayers."

Asked what they are contributing to help this family stay together, Torrey replied, "We're another support system for them. The mother knows we're there for her on her terms. She's done well, but she still needs a lot of support."

foster Parents Can Help Children in Treatment

Children in treatment need foster parents' sensitivity and ence because they have been through highly traumatic ences, sucll as sexual and/or physical abuse, profound ect or have lived in very chaotic settings, surrounded by lence and addiction.
"Often, they're terrified of people getting close to them," lained Becky Butler, clinical director at the Bridge, an ta treatment facility for teenagers. ''When adults try to h' a trusting relationship too .fast, the child may show fear acting aggressively, defiantly, destructively or in other ways t might not look like fear, but are. Foster parents shouldn't these behaviors as personal rebuffs, and should continue steady while the child gradually moves to feeling more ting."
While foster parents should try to be especially understandof these children, they should also know that they-like all dren-need discipline and limit-setting.
"They need to know what behavior is and isn't OK," Butler said. "Sometimes they've come from places where they would swing from having ne limits at all to being the butt of an adult's rage and violence. It's healing to have fuster parents set limits for them-not out of anger, but with firmness, clarity
love."

Playing active games with children, like basketball or softball, can help them bum off energy while letting them feel connected to the adult in a non-threatening way. Also a game's clear limits and expectations can feel good for them.

"Doing artwork lets kids be

expressive without their having

be really verbal," Butler noted.

"Sometimes the adult can suggest

gui~elines like, 'Maybe you

could...use clay to sculpt an animal

that you feel like today,' or, ' ..draw

the part of you that feels really

angry and the part of you that feels

really loving,' or, ' ...write a story

about a little boy or girl who's

exactly your age,' or, ' ...draw a pic-

ture of how you'd like things to be

when you grow up,' or, '...cut out Foster.poren_ts are key supports pictures and words from magazm. es BfoercckhilBduretlnert.n treatment, says

and make a collage that describes

Y

you.' Artwork can be fun for the child and can help release

some of the child's emotional steam."

When a child is receiving outpatient treatment, foster parents can ask the child's therapist if it would be useful for them to participate in the child's therapy sessions. If the therapist thinks it best that the child attend therapy alone, foster parents should not pressure the child to share what was said in sessions. Children should be able to feel therapy is a place where they can talk openly, with their privacy being honored. Foster parents can make themselves "available" if the child needs them by saying, "If you ever want to talk about what comes up in those sessions, I'm here."

Sometimes children's behaviors are too severe and unsafe for them to continue living with a fosier family. For a period of . , a child may need to live full-time in a residential treat-
1 ment fad.lity, yet foster parents can continue to help enormous-
J ly.
Butler explained. "Sometimes foster parents assume a treatment facility wouldn't need or welcome their involvement. But
'I the more involved significant members of a child's life are, the ! more successful treatment will be. Also the more that foster
~ parents get involved with a child in a treatment fad.lity, the .more suecessful the placement will be when the child comes to live with them."

ViSitSConnect Children With Birth Parents

Visits keep human bonds alive. When children enter foster care, visits strengthen bonds between the children and birth parents.

According to studies, the main reason children

and birth parents fail to reunite is their visits are

too infrequent or occur in a way that makes the

birth parents feel unsuccessful. Dwayne and

Alisa Jump are foster parents from Macon who

try hard to keep children connected to their birth

parents.

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Recalling one teenage couple whose baby entered their care,

and they love the Mrs. Jump described, "The

daughter was six months old,
children... " and we wanted her to keep

her bond with her parents. The

parents didn't have transportation, so I'd drive

her to their trailer to visit. I'd go once a week for

an hour or an hour and a half. The parents would

play with the baby, and we'd be talking together.

I'd tell them new things their daughter was doing

or things I'd found out she liked. They showed

me pictures from when she was born and what

she wore home from the hospital. We took them

to Sears to have a family portrait made. They did-

n't have furniture, so a friend of mine donated a

bedroom suit, which we took to them."

ball games and practices," Jump said. "She'd come to Bible school activities or to church activities when the kids were singing. We'd eat at Shoneys, and she'd meet us there or we'd pick her up. She would go shopping with us at Walmart. We invited her to school things, like school picnics. We let her call our home, and she came over sometimes. Sometimes she said she would come to things but didn't show up, and the kids would feel anxious. But finally the kids were able to go back home with her. After they left us, their mom would let them call us, so we kept contact. The mother and we planned to let the children spend the night with us sometimes, but then they moved away to another state."
Asked what advice she would give other foster parents about visits, Jump replied, "Don't take it personally when birth parents don't respond positively or the way you want them to. Don't give up. In the long run I hope we're sowing seeds. They see ho~ we interact with the kids and hear us talk about the things we do with the kids, so we're helping them get a picture of the way it should be. Just because they may not always be able to care for children the way you do, they're still the parents, and they love the children."

Sometimes the parents seemed uncomfortable or even resentful. Jump believes this was partly because they were so young, and partly because it can be difficult for birth parents to have other people caring for their children. The Jumps kept positive attitudes and continued regular visiting until the child and parents were finally reunited.

Another time, the Jumps cared for two siblings. Mrs. Jump met the birth mother on the day she brought her children to the agency for release into foster care. The meeting became friendly when the two women recognized each other from high school. During the two years the children were in the Jumps' foster care, they often invited the birth mother to activities and visits.
"The kids play ball, and we invited her to the

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Visits keep connections alive between children and birth parents.

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New federal and state laws require that children in the foster care system receive permanent living arrangements more swiftly than in the past. Therefore, DFCS has begun working with county agencies and partners in reviewing all foster care cases in Georgia.
"State staff have already started working with county staff to look at those cases of children who have been in care for the longest periods of time," said Doris Walker, manager of the DFCS Foster Care Unit. "We'll especially concentrate on those cases which counties identify as being the most difficult to resolve. We're carrying out this special review process because new laws require us to move children more quickly into permanent arrangements. We want to emphasize that we

will carry out this process in a careful, planful way."
Walker added that the state office wants to join as a partner in focused decision-making in those cases where the county departments say they need assistance.
"This review process will be a county-state coordinated effort," Walker emphasized. "Reviews should involve foster parents, judges, citizen panels, private providers and anyone who has a stake in what happens in those cases. Within the new law's shortened time frames, we want to make sure we are all on track in focusing our best efforts to make sure children get to the most appropriate permanent settings."

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Foster Care Unit Division of Family and Children Services

BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE
PAID ATLANTA, GA PERMIT NO. 5823

Information When Deaths Occur

Occasionally children die in state custody. A new law allows any citizen to receive case information about such a child fatality.

If someone wants to learn more about such a death, he or she should submit the request in writing

to the Department of Family and Children Services in the county where the death occurred. Within

three business days, the agency will let the person know how the information will be provided. The

agency may need longer than three days to obtain legal guidance, such as if the case record includes

the names of other children who were not directly related to the death and whose names might need

to be removed to protect their privacy rights. The person requesting the information will pay 25 cents

per page for photocopied material.

"This policy will provide one more level of accountability to make sure children receive appropriate

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treatment while in state custody," said Rebecca Jarvis, Protective Services Unit service coordinator.

"Also as is true with all children, a child in state custody may die through no one's error. This policy

will help the public see when everything was done as it should have been done, and there was no

fault on the part of foster parents or the agency."