In the best interest of the unwanted child...

Many, if not most, foster children here enter the system right after they are born.

Really?Interesting... Where is "here"? That is certainly not so in Australia, where I am.

USA

There seems to be an epidemic of women who give birth, cannot take care of their child(ren) and the State nearly immediately places them into foster care. Many times the women fight to keep their parental rights from being terminated which causes the foster system, rather than adoption, to take precedence.

So - this is determined at birth?

Who - apart from addicted mothers - get babies taken away at birth?

It is EXTREMELY rare here - which is, as most things are in this situation - a double-edged sword. I think there is a lot to be said for very early removal.

I think the system in my state gives too much weighting in favour of natural parents - though this is slowly changing as infant mental health research percolates.

very hard decisions, though.

Nope, not at birth. What I wrote was, "...cannot take care of their child(ren) and the State nearly immediately places them into foster care...".

Who, apart from addicted mothers? Those who have complaints made against them for not adequately caring for the child(ren). Many times it appears justified (physical abuse, for example), but I wonder if many of the children involved might be better served by the state providing various types of support and assistance to the mothers involved.

Er - well, it does not take much abuse or neglect to do real harm to a developing infant brain - so kids traumatised early, and removed early, may well still have very negative sequelae. It helps to act fast, though.

You surely DO have programs? In fact, some US programs are world-renowned - and showing up on research as doing a very good job. There is a very famous program in Minnesota, for instance. Is it not a state by state thing there, as it is here?

In my state we do - but not nearly enough or intensive enough - and we also do not remove fast.

Worst of both worlds, I guess.

Excellent point. Thanks.



Oh, yes, we have "programs" ... then, there is the reality of what actually happens in the various bureaucracies: needless to say, the research to which you refer does not match what is going on in the system. That has been reported all over the place. For example, in my County, we have had tremendous scandal; same in other parts of the USA.

IMO, you are overstating the level of problems. For the most part the system DOES work as intended. If you total the number of reported abuses in any given year I'd guess they would come to less than 3 or 4% of the cases in foster care. I'm not saying that those shouldn't be addresses and fixed but it isn't a massive collapse of the system as your words would seem in imply. In FY 2001 there were 540,000 children in the foster care system nationally. There were a total of 5,133 reports of abuse (of any kind) for a .5% rate on the reported side.

For some stats on the Foster Care system in the US:
http://nccanch.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/factsheets/foster.cfm

I think it is easy to believe that the problems are widespread. Here it is still January and in my state we have had two big problems with foster families reported. Of course, every article about these two kids drags out every other report of foster problems over the years. So you read about the new big cases and you read about the old big cases and you start thinking every kid in foster care is being abused.

What you don't read is that there are 10,000 kids in foster care in this state and that they seem to be doing okay.

Yes - and things can never be perfect, sadly - even in the best circumstances.

Peoples isn't a precise science.

It seems that one of the problems is the secretiveness of foster care. I'm sure no school age kid wants to admit that they are a foster kid; kids can be really cruel and admitting that you were mistreated or that your family didn't want you must be really hard.

I have certainly worried about these things with Mo and he isn't in such a tenuous position as a foster kid.

One of the things they are talking about here is a way to keep these kids in the public eye. Headstart for the little ones, public schools for the older ones (nix the homeschooling).

Keeping them in plain sight sounds like a good idea until you start to wonder how this might stigmatize the kid in question.

I imagine the fact that some of these kids live in so many different homes that teachers assume if they quit showing up that they've been moved again.

My family moved a lot when I was a kid and it was always awful -- and I still had my family with me. I can't even imagine what it must be like for these kids.

By the way I've had this discussion with my mom re: nursing, too. One conclusion we've come to is that both of those professions (teaching, nursing) used to be filled with the best and the brightest, because women didn't have many other options.

As these professions experienced brain drain (as women had more options and became astronauts or lawyers instead), the jobs were codifed more and more to try to allow people with less skills to do the job well. Increased codification usually means increased evaluation. If the evaluation shows problems, then the codification/ method changes, even if it's not strictly at fault.

Anyway, I think that foster care/ children's services of various kinds is also one of those traditionally female areas that has suffered from brain drain -- not completely, there are still plenty of smart people in all of those areas, bless 'em. But cumulatively, in terms of the codification ethos.

Hmm - several rambles.

One - re the system.

One of the things about the tyranny of perfection thing (that is my King Charles' head right now - lol!) is that - as I said above - in this field wrong calls are GOING to be made. They are in ALL areas - medicine, etc - and, the thing of stupidly expecting that they won't, and crucifying everyone involved when there is a mistake - has, I think, very bad results.

The child protection field is not - and I will be surprised if it ever approaches it - anything like an exact science - though better risk assessment tools are arriving with better research.

Not only that, but the field is infinitely responsive to changes in political winds - and the "oh ****, that wasn't always right, let's totally reverse direction", thing. You know - "too many kids being taken away - bad state interfering with sacred rights of parents - lets preserve families, at any cost, whether they have already gone rotten or not - stuff."

This Manichean thinking is stupid and very counter-productive - and instead of ongoing subtle corrections, the thing tends to oversteer in one direction or another.

The witch hunts that occur when mistakes become public (and I am not at all saying that abusive or negligent practice should go unpunished, by the way) have the effect of, firstly, making everyone batten down the hatches when it goes wrong - I think that, if the atmosphere were less "**** - let's find a scapegoat who isn't me", then the necessary openness that allows us to really learn from mistakes would be fostered. And, the investigations need to go as high as they need to - right to "this job CANNOT be done with the staffing we have". Sometimes coroners will make these findings - but usually long after the furore has died down.

Such witch hunts also tend to make work defensive - that is, it focusses on following procedure, dotting ts and crossing i's - gets more and more codified, with less and less professional judgment - which means (and I am thinking of Soz's post about the leaching away of the brightest and best from these jobs) that the really talented - unless DEEPLY committed - either do not go to these awful jobs - or that those who can get out do - as soon as they can.

My local welfare body can often only attract newly graduated students (who may not even APPLY to do my job) and often retains the lesser practitioners - not always, of course.

Amongst other factors, the "cover my bum" mentality of managers often means that base-grade workers are supervised in a "have you filled that form out" way, not a professionally enhancing way - they also know that they will be scape-goated when it hits the fan - and this is embittering. When we are dealing with tragically damaged and abusive people, we need to be communicating the nurture, respect and firm and safe boundaries that we wish them to give to their children - the workers need the same from their management. All too often they do not get it, or anything like it. And all too often they do not give it. either. That some do is a real tribute to them.

An example of the damage of defensive practice here is that our local welfare people have come to believe that, once they refer to us for therapy, if the case is really dangerous, or hopeless, that they are better closing it - this will mean that we carry the can legally. I have no idea if this is true - though the coronial inquiries tend to blame the last person who "touched" a case (!)

This is devastatingly bad practice - it cuts these families off from all welfare based services and assistance - like parent aides and other supportive services - which is very dangerous - and, it also means that these people, without the "stick" being waved, drop out of therapy. I mean, the stick isn't a helpful adjunct to good therapy - but we HAVE worked out ways of forming a good therapeutic alliance with such folk, often, as long as they will come. It also means that they are no longer closely monitored.

We have protetsed vigorously about this dangerous habit - which has been like hitting a feather pillow - I only discovered the reason when I worked in their bureaucracy for a while! It is a "save my bum" thing!!!!! While that is disgusting, if you live in a fear-filled environment, it makes an awful sense.

Also sad is that, quite often, the agency is crucified when it is not their fault - at least here. Oftentimes, for instance, a judge is the one deciding that this or that child will be returned - NOT the welfare people - but, when tragedies arise, that cannot be communicated.

My local agency suffered for a number of years under such a judge - who made it almost not worth the time to take things to court - no matter the evidence, the bad state would have to leave the child in a dangerous position - and the workers were often reduced to tears by the outrageous bullying of said judge. (Not that I am saying that rigorous examination of welfare actions ought not to occur - but it ought to be FAIR!) That judge has now been moved.

Also, families sometimes raise huge media witch hunts - when, if the welfare agency could only speak out - there would be no question of the reasonableness of their actions - but confidentiality prevents this. I am aware of a couple of such witch hunts where I work now - and it so hard biting one's tongue! People love to get on blaming bandwagons - it is an ugly thing.

I am not excusing bad practice - well, mebbe I am - because I can understand the reasons for it - it is a bigger thing than bad agencies. Sigh.

Interestingly, the nursing thing seems to be the opposite here. Nursing used to be what the dim girls did - I confess I was absolutely shocked when a friend of mine dropped pharmacy to do nursing in our first year of uni.

It is now a university based training - and very stroppy and upwardly mobile indeed.

dlowan--

Hold your dominion.

Why, is it trying to escape? Lol!

It is in danger of being regulated by rote. Hold on.

Well, Noddy, fortunately MY dominion is not in the welfare area - I am in a pure therapy job - our lives are fraught for other reasons - but, of course, since so much of our work is with the families and kids referred by welfare, when they sneeze, we catch a cold!

But since you do such wonderful work wearing rabbit ears....

...rabbit ears all around.

I hope you are right. I freely admit my recitation of just some of the problems with the foster care system is purely anecdotal. FYI, the Director of DSS for my entire County was outright fired for the abuses which have occurred here. My other information did stem from reading of the abuses around the entire country, so, as you point out, that doesn't equate to 'a massive collapse of the system' and I do apologize that my words seemed to imply that.