Reflections on the Foster System | A post by a Foster Daddy

May 20, 2013 · By · Leave a Comment

So many of us wander from one path to another during our lives.  We fret over this class and that party. We consider this college and that job.  We choose this friend and that home.  We like this food and do that activity.  We wonder over the power of our choices while trying to explain away the fateful coincidences that often define our lives.  To different degrees, we see these same considerations and possible paths in the lives of those we encounter.  This transcendent perspective is an amazing part of our human experience that has allowed generations to identify with the stories, histories, and novels that make up our culture, tell us our past, and speak to our futures.  These decisions, these possibilities, these stories are wonderful markers in our lives that are made possible by the community which has fostered us to this or that point.  And yet, right now there are hundreds of thousands of kids who have had this world and these possibilities torn apart.

I am speaking about the approximately 400,000 children who are currently in foster care.  These kids did not choose this or that – they were torn from their homes and sent out to strangers and strange places.  Blame their parents, the institution, human nature, social sins – I do not care.  Foster children are in need of relationship regardless of the reason they have ended up where they are.  Worries of acceptance, food and clothing, being removed again, never seeing a loved one again, abuse, neglect, new schools, etc. make future considerations of this and that path a bleak and nightmarish ordeal.  Yes, there are amazing success stories for these kids (and I pray for this every day) when a family and their community rally around these kids to create a loving arena that allows the child to feel and live until reunification or transition into a new permanent home.  Yet for far too many this is not a reality.  Take the following statistics into consideration:

  • The average stay in foster care is 1 year for a child
  •  Roughly 1 in 2 foster kids do not graduate high school
  • Only 3% of foster kids graduate college
  • 40% of foster kids aging out of the system (18) will be homeless within one year
  •  Many foster kids statistically will end up having their kids in the system as well.
  •  Every year kids have their parents rights terminated, but for some reason or another do not have a permanent home.  Their profiles are                       compiled into an adoption profile for families to peruse and choose who gets life in their homes.  (I know this sounds sarcastic, I am blown away by those families who choose life for these kids.  I am just angry that this plight has so many visible, uncared for victims in the wealthiest country on earth).  Please pray for these beautiful kids if you choose to enter Indiana’s version of the site.  
  • Many counties do not have enough families for placement to the point where kids are placed many miles from home.

 

The causes behind this darker side of society are multi-faceted, complex, and many layered.  They are worth discussing and combating.  I am not calling for this here and now.  Right now, you, yes you reading this post can enter into relationship with those kids around you who have some brokenness in their lives.  Yes, I am specifically talking about foster kids, but right now you may only know some kids at church or nieces and nephews or a kid down the street who have lost a parent to death, divorce, drugs, or some other diversion.  If God is still leaning on your heart, breaking it for these kids, then bear your soul, sign up for foster care and be ready for an adventure that will change your life.  If that is too much for you right now, consider becoming a respite/emergency care house.  This can allow you to give reprieve to this overloaded system by taking foster children for short term periods.  If you are over 18, you can go out and get a background check so that you can babysit the kids while the foster parents run errands or get out for a much needed date night.  If you are more interested in the legal proceedings, consider becoming a CASA (please peruse this site for more information ).  At the very least, please take some time to pray for all of those involved in the system.

May is foster care awareness month.  The picture from their website speaks truth to this process.  If you get involved in foster care, you will be changing the future of that little one and this birth parent…

HomePageBanner002

It will not all be wonderful success stories.  There will be hardships.  Your time will not be your own and you possessions may get broken.  Sleep may come and go.  Tears will flow.  Yet, as with most problems that we allow ourselves to see…if you do not work at it, no one will.  It has been an awesome thing to have our church and extended families rain their love down upon our small Indiana home, and we are so grateful. I am still amazed at the journey Jen and I have been on since she heard God’s voice through the following lyrics and answered His call:

Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause

It is my prayer that many more will set their feet upon this adventurous trail.

 

Filed Under: Foster Care, God, Joe · Tagged: , , ,

Foster Family, Party of 7!

May 19, 2013 · By · 3 Comments

I am so tired I can’t even think of anything to say.

Last Sunday we took a new placement for 3 kids. Adding to the two we have makes 5. Plus Joe and I equals 7.

It has been an exhausting week, full of sorting clothes, moving bedrooms, working with the system and trying to learn how to cook for 7.

Anyway, your prayers are appreciated, as we adjust to more kids, more caseworkers, more case plans, more hugs, more laundry. Now, I need to go to bed, so I can keep up the pace with my family of 7.

Filed Under: Foster Care · Tagged: , , , ,

Reflections for a Foster Mommy | Written by the Foster Daddy

May 12, 2013 · By · Leave a Comment

This day is that wonderful time of the year for many mothers.  Kids sent out into the world to forge families of their own take time to call back and wish Mom the best.  Some take the greater toll and travel miles to reunite with the one that fed their crying mouths and loved them unconditionally.  For those with kids in the home, there are flowers and paper necklaces and breakfast in bed.  And from understanding and loving husbands, there are extra hours to sleep in, no schedules cracking whips, and someone else doing the dirty chores of day-to-day life.  In short, Mothers around the world get a tiny portion of the respect and love they deserve the whole year round.

However, foster parenting shows some of the less than wonderful sides of this state-run holiday established in the early 20th century.  Birth mothers suffer with glaring emptiness in their homes.  Or if the kids are on a visit, the foster mother smiles through tears as the kids get to spend ‘time’ with their ‘real’ mother.  Single mothers without the father figure in the picture sometimes have kids too young and a will too tired to bother with the day.  And what about the infertile wife or the woman who never found a husband sitting down in a pew as the pastor gleamingly asks all mothers to stand up.  What about the mom who lost her kids in a car accident this past year?  The fact is that the founder of Mother’s Day soon resented the commercialization of the day soon after it became commonplace.

Now I am not arguing that Mother’s Day is something we should not celebrate (Happy Mother’s Day momma;) !). It is an excuse to get the whole family together for some.   And others can and have worked through these issues to make it life affirming for all.  For there are many different mother figures in our lives – moms, friends’ moms, grandmothers, spiritual mothers – all of those wonderful women who have left a mark on our lives.  What I want to say is that mothers should be praised all the year long for the amazing work they accomplish in the ceaseless care they give for the shaping of our lives (even when they spank you or take away your candy or yell at you for hiding whip cream in your drawer or worry about you climbing trees or hitchhiking…love you momma)

2 Timothy 1:5 shows Paul praising the ladies in Timothy’s life, “I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.”  Timothy would not and could not have been who he became to be if it were not for a grandmother that lived out her faith in love to a daughter who also passed this along to a son.  Mothers are amazing and wonderful.  I was lucky to have a good one raise me and two good ones raise my parents.  It is just that I am understanding this all the more now as I have the privilege to watch the wonderful mother I call my wife.

For all of you who have been following this blog, you have journeyed with some of the stories that can give you a glimpse at what a wonderful mother Jennifer has been (if not, check out this and this and this and other stories on the side bar).  She adores the kids that have passed through our home and the two beautiful souls that still sleep across the hall.  She gives her time (last year she took more sick days for the kids than for herself) to impart her faith and love and wonderful quirky nature (dance parties are not uncommon in our house).  She stays up all night with sick kids.  She cooks meals sprinkled with love while dodging a child endlessly shouting, “momma, momma, momma, momma…”  We will discuss and diligently spend our budget on ourselves, but she persuades us to leave charitable room for the kids’ wagons, trips, clothes, and whatever will brighten their lives.  She is ingenious in her inventions…just look at this idea she whipped up while we were getting fast food on our recent trip…

photo

Most of all she kisses their ouchies, rocks them through tantrums, lovingly disciplines when they act out, and is just present to a child whose world has been so severely broken.  She loses her temper and cries as the deep wounds of court and DCS reports fall upon our ears, yet she prays it out and shows God’s grace regardless of what the world demands.  Perhaps these kids will look back on this dark period of their lives and gleefully remember a strange Jen-Jen who spoke to them through puppets or snuggled with them on sick days or gave them a ‘nack and a hug when their tummies rumbled.  I know that I will cherish these memories and give thanks.  For it was my wife who answered God’s call and presented the idea that is now the reality of our fostering lives.  We are on His path, and my co-traveler is a wonderful companion.  I am in love with her and love her example to others. My wife is my very own 1 Corinthians 13 in flesh and blood….and she is a wonderful mother.

Happy Mother’s Day Jennifer!

Filed Under: Foster Care, jennifer, Joe · Tagged: , , , ,

This is Foster Care

May 7, 2013 · By · 2 Comments

Today I spent an hour calling everyone I thought could help after being told our little Boots was no longer covered under Indiana Medicaid.

20130507-204849.jpg
Let me back up.

Boots is getting teeth. And Steel has this cough/runny nose that never quits. And this morning they both sounded a bit rattly in their chest. Boots is prone to ear infections, so Joe and I decided to have them checked out. (If you are new here, Boots and Steel are our foster sons. They have been residing here for about 6 months. And if you are new, you better jump over to the sidebar to the right and subscribe.)

Both kids have ear infections. So our wonderful nurse practitioner (who we see because not a pediatrician in town would take our wonderful Medicaid) writes us some scrips, and we take them to CVS. No problem, we use CVS all the time.

An hour later, I go to pick them up. Using my favorite feature at CVS, I do the drive through. And the nice lady in the window takes their info and then tells me that Boot’s medicade is no good anymore. Here is our convo:

Window Lady: Um, it seems that Boot’s medicaid is no longer good.
Me: What do you mean?
WL: Well it was declined. It said he was no longer eligible for coverage.
M: But of course he is, he is a foster child.
WL: It said he wasn’t
M: He is. Let me get you his card.
WL: We ran it twice it didn’t work. You have to call Medicaid.
M: Seriously?
WL: Yes Ma’am.

So I leave CVS feeling frustrated. And I call DCS. They say he is still covered. So I call Medicaid. They say everything is good on their end.

So now I am getting angry at CVS for messing up. Because OF COURSE it’s their fault, right? I pull back into the parking lot, and march into the store, ready to make some heads roll. And it hits me.

His name is wrong.

So Boot’s has two names. LIke maybe Sneakers is his given name, but everyone calls him Boots. And Indiana put Boots on his medicaid card. But the prescription was written to Sneakers.

I find Window Lady and I give her the card, and ask her to check his name. She does. It was the problem, and she quickly re-runs his medicaid under Boots and I”m out of there with the meds.

This is foster care people. Having to call two government agencies just to pick up a prescription for my kid. Having to remember that this child has another name that nobody (including the state of Indiana) uses. A name I did not give him, and was not told about until the first time I tried to take him to the doctor and was told they had no record of a Boots, but they did have a Sneakers with the same birthdate and social……

Trying daily to put the pieces together to learn as much about these kids as you can. That is foster care.

Filed Under: Foster Care · Tagged: ,

May 2013 | Our First – Foster Care First Friday

May 3, 2013 · By · 2 Comments

A couple of years ago I was just a blogger who randomly blogged when she felt like it. I also was a blogger with a big God, who was asking her to do big things like take care of other people’s children.

I have often been trying to put those two things together – blogging and fostering, and while I succeed sometimes, I can’t help but read other people’s blogs and think ‘Hey, they really said it better than I did,’ or ‘That’s a great foster care story. I want to post that on my blog.’

I wanted to bring the foster care blogging community together. Thus, Foster Care First Fridays was born.

After the Chapel

Here’s the deal:

Once a month on the First Friday we shall link together here at After the Chapel. Use the linky tool at the bottom of the post to link any post you have written on your blog during the last 30 days. (That means anything you wrote since April 3rd, 2013). Add your info below, being sure to link your blog post, and not your general blog link. Then, take to social media and share the link to the blog here, so that people can read your blog post and other foster parents posts far and wide. And of course, encourage others who have linked with the bloggers love language – comments!

You can also grab a button from the sidebar to use on twitter, facebook, or your blog, – Easy as Pie!

And that’s it. Being that this is the first one (ever) here, Foster Care First Friday may develop a bit more as we go along. But for now, let’s connect and join forces to spread the word about Foster Care.

Filed Under: First Friday, Foster Care, Uncategorized · Tagged: , , , , ,
«Older Posts