Foster (The F Word)
Note: the names/identities/details of the foster children, foster parents and social workers have been changed to protect their identities
According to the dictionary, the word foster means “to promote the growth or development or well-being of; to further; to encourage; to bring up, raise, or rear; to care for or cherish.”
Isn’t it interesting, then, to think about our foster care system in those terms? If we play a little game of substitution, the term “foster care system” should be interchangeable with any of the following:
The Well-Being System
The Encouragement System
The Care System
The Cherish System
None of those seem right somehow.
The antonym of the word foster, shouts the dictionary, is “to discourage.”
The Discouragement System
Bingo! We’re willing to bet that most foster children and most of their biological parents and most licensed foster parents and most hopeful adoptive parents and even most social workers would probably agree. The Discouragement System is more apropos.
A case in point – our boy, Tom. In our last post, we told you about our most recent encounter with Tom, a fun-filled cooking event with Kidsave where Tom let down his guard and fessed up to his fears and told us of his transgressions and where we let go of our this-is-only-the-second-time-we’ve-seen-you-so-we’re-still-gonna-seem-super-nice-and-super-cool-to-hang-out-with façade and held him accountable. As we reported, it went splendidly. So much so that Tom’s called Kidsave to find out how we feel about him.
The other day, Kidsave social worker extraordinaire, Sybil, emailed us a flyer for an event she thought might interest us – a workshop called Models of Pride…
…which is a free 1-day workshop for LGBTQ teens and parents that draws hundreds of kids from around Southern California. Kids have the opportunity to attend workshops where they discuss college planning and education, health and safety, bullying, career opportunities, legal rights, political activism, media coverage of issues, etc. while forging connections with their peers. The event is held at USC and last year included the cast of Glee and one of the best gay advocates ever, Kathy Griffin.
It’s an absolutely amazing chance for Tom to see what’s possible!
But! In order to take Tom to this event, we have to be formally matched as his mentors. And (heavy sigh) there is a pretty strong possibility that we will not yet be formally matched by the time the event rolls around – which is October 15th. October 15th!!! A month and a half away! Why? Why-why-why-why-whyyyy!!!???
Because. To be a mentor, we have to have gone through a series of steps (yep, more steps), such as filling out an application (done!), getting certified in CPR and water safety (done and done!), getting a TB test (done!), attending a Kidsave orientation (done!), providing copies of our car registration and insurance (done!), and getting fingerprinted through the County for a background check (done!).
Also, we have to have a visit by a County social worker who must approve our home as safe for Tom (despite the fact that we are not fostering him, we’re just mentoring him) and to talk to us about what it means to mentor to a foster child (despite the fact that we’ve already been foster parents). And the social worker who does our home visit has, like, ten million other things to do before she visits us - important things like approving actual foster homes, visiting foster kids who are in placement, managing her ridiculously huge case load, handling crises, etc. All things which land higher on the priority list than visiting a couple of chicks who are hankerin’ to change one boy’s life.
This delay – it calls to mind another F word. Okay, fine, two F words. The one we can mention here is: FRUSTRATING!
Because this one boy – he deserves to have his life changed, right? He deserves to see what’s possible. He deserves to meet hundreds of his peers and make friends and hang out on a college campus and learn about careers and his rights and his safety and his options.
He deserves to be fostered, encouraged, cared for, and cherished. He deserves to be surrounded and supported by The Well-Being System.
The question is, will The Discouragement System do our home visit in time for this one boy to go to this one event? We’ll keep you posted!
Does he have a court date coming up? Maybe the social worker can request an order that he go to the event…of course that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be the ones to take him but maybe someone at his group home could take him and then you could meet them there…Of course, looking at this, it sounds way more complicated than just the sw making the home visit and letting you all mentor… But they seem to like complicated so maybe you should try making things as complicated as possible and maybe that will work. Maybe you should have a series of forms the sw fills out when ever she drops by…