I definitely have a new one. Both my foster kids are threatened with going home to families other than mine. Mr.O is likely to go back home to his parents now that mom’s case has been moved to juvie. The way things look now, she will probably get off with time served and parenting classes. Regardless, she will be released in a few years at age 21. At that point, she becomes the resource for his dad so he could have custody. I’m not against reunification, but so far neither parent has shown any ability to read or understand how to deal with Mr. O medically. They say showing up is half of life, but thus far Dad doesn’t show up and 50% is still a failing grade in my book. I know Oscar cries a lot. Believe me. I know. I just hate that what I think when he does cry is more true than I’ve liked to pretend: “put up with his crying and enjoy the smiles. The number of smiles he has may be a finite quantity.” YUCK!
Grrrr. I want him to have a good life. My wife and I have tried to give that to him, and I wish I could say I expected him to have a fulfilling happy life if he goes home. Now I just hope with out expectations.
As for A, her dad and Aunt haven’t been to a doctor’s appointment in months. Nor have they made phone calls to set up a family visit. One would think this would be good news for us as we hope to adopt her. However, the A’s (in name only evidently) lawyer now views this as a reason to remove only the father from the chain of people who should get custody of A. The lawyer now favors the Aunt…the same Aunt that expressed shock A was in foster care in the first place after nobody visited her for over 7 months while she was in the hospital. This is the same aunt who refuses to sign a service agreement that she will follow the court orders from last time, and the same aunt that was court ordered, like the dad, to make family visits and attend doctor’s visits so as to understand the medical situations.
Social services is rather livid with the lawyer as are we, but foster parents have NO rights. A’s social worker is trying to get social services lawyer involved, and it could get messy at the Dec court date. We’ll see.
If the court take A. from our home to put her in a home where she won’t get competent medical care, I don’t know that we will do foster care again. We’ve said we can deal with it if a kid dies. We will have done everything in our power…but why take part in a broken system that hurts those we come to care about and love?
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