Hawaii Foster Parent Association Conference Honolulu Hawaii October

Hawaii Foster Parent Association Conference Honolulu, Hawaii October 14, 2005 1

Responding to the Challenges of Foster Parenting 2

Statistics About Hawaii’s Children and Youth in Foster Care Children/Youth in Care (as of 09/30/02) § 523, 000 children/youth in U. S. Foster Care § 2, 762 children/youth in care in Hawaii § 1, 491 children/youth in family foster care § 1, 078 children/youth in relative care 3

Statistics About Hawaii’s Children and Youth in Foster Care Age of Children/Youth in Care § 8. 6% are under age 1 year § 55. 1% are between 1 and 10 years old § 36. 3% are between 11 and 19+ years old 4

Statistics About Hawaii’s Children and Youth in Foster Care Exits from Care § 60% of children/youth reunified with family § 17% were adopted § 11% left to legal guardianship § 12% left to “permanent arrangements” 5

Statistics About Hawaii’s Children and Youth in Foster Care Race/Ethnicity § 16. 2% Asian § 31. 6% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander § 33. 5% Two or More races § 9. 7% White 6

Official Roles of a Foster Parent § As a foster parent, you are responsible for the temporary care and nurturing of a child or youth who has been placed outside his or her own home. During a time of disruption and change, you are giving a child a home. § At the same time, your role includes working with the caseworker and the child’s family so that the child can return home safely, when appropriate. 7

Unofficial Roles of a Foster Parent § As a foster parent, you will be asked to care, nurture, and love as if they are your own, a child or youth who has been taken from his or her family. During a time when they are very upset, scared angry, you are giving a child your home. § At the same time, you must be able to work with the caseworker and the child’s family so that after all this work the child can return home to this family, when appropriate. 8

The Official Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Provide temporary care for children or youth, giving them a safe, stable, nurturing environment. § Cooperate with the caseworker and the child or youth’s parents in carrying out a permanency plan, including participating in that plan. 9

The Unofficial Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Provide what you have been told is temporary care for sometimes two years or more for a child or teen, providing a safe, stable, nurturing environment, maybe for the first time in the child’s life. § Cooperate with the caseworker and the child’s parents in carrying out a permanency plan (that you may have some very strong feelings about) and participate in that plan by attending meetings and conferences. 10

The Official Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Understand the need for, and goals of, family visits and help out with those visits. § Help the young person cope with the separation from his or her home. § Provide guidance, discipline, a good example, and as many positive experiences as possible. 11

The Unofficial Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Deal with family visits and help out with those visits, and deal with the aftermath of those visits when they go well, and when they don’t go well. § Be there when the child is weeping over the separation from his or her home. § Be a counselor, a disciplinarian, a role model, and provide as many positive experiences as possible. 12

The Official Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Encourage and supervise school attendance, participate in teacher conferences, and keep the child’s caseworker informed about any special educational needs. § Work with the agency in arranging for the child/youth’s regular and/or special medical and dental care. 13

The Unofficial Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Make sure the child is up and out of the house every day attending school, receive lots of calls to attend teacher conferences to discuss their “issues”, and be willing to call the child’s caseworker frequently and leave many voice mail messages. § Attend endless medical and dental appointments, that are much resisted. 14

The Official Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Work with the child/youth on creating a Life Book – that can help young people understand their past experiences so they can feel better about themselves and be better prepared for the future. § Inform the caseworker promptly about any problems or concerns so that needs can be met through available services. 15

The Un. Official Role of the Foster Parent is to: § Work with children (in your free time) on creating Life Books – that they may never want to work on – so that in 15 years they can understand their past experiences so they can feel better about themselves and their families. § Be willing to make numerous calls to the caseworker to give a “heads up” about any problems or concerns, so that needs can be met through sometimes available and sometimes unavailable services. 16

One of the Toughest Jobs “Foster parents have one of the hardest jobs in the world. We ask them to take care of a child that they did not give birth to, to care for that child as if they were their own child; to love them, and nurture them and then to be willing to give that child up, when a group of professionals decide that the child is ready to go home to a family that may be very different than the foster parents’ family. We ask a lot of them. We compensate them inadequately, they are not treated as though they are professional staff of the agency, and yet, they are probably the most important persons in the entire placement that child has. ” 17

A Resource for Foster Parents Toolbox No. 2: Expanding the Role of Foster Parents in Achieving Permanency by Susan Dougherty. 2001. Child Welfare League of America Press. www. CWLA. org 18

Foster Parent as Nurturer and Caregiver § Foster parents should provide the children in their care with daily adult supervision, emotional support and affection, personal attention, and structured daily routines and living experiences; and should meet the children's clothing, hygiene, and personal needs. (CWLA, 1995, p. 57). § This is the role that most people would identify as the primary, traditional one for foster parents. It is, in effect, the "job description" one would expect for substitute, temporary parents. § It is the role that many families envision when they begin to think about fostering, and it is the one that most probably feel they can fill on the basis of their past experience, often as parents of biological children. There is a certain percentage of foster parents without prior parenting experience who nonetheless feel they can fill this role. And there are probably many potential foster parents who do not make an initial contact because they don't have that experience and don't know if they can fill the role. 19

Foster Parent as Child Development Support § The biological parents of children who are developing within normal guidelines generally manage to provide developmental support to their children with informal help from extended family and friends and periodic advice from their pediatricians. § They may consult books or school personnel with specific questions, but often are seeking confirmation of their own practices and techniques. It is only when they are faced with unusual situations -- a developmental lag, peer problems, school problems, a death in the family, trouble with drinking, drugs, or the law -- that they seek out experts. § Furthermore, whatever problems their children are experiencing have been observed over time, and are either caught early or can be identified as belonging to a specific pattern of events. 20

Foster Parent as Child Development Support But foster parents are often faced with developmental challenges that arrive at their doorsteps as full-blown problems with little or no known history to help with an understanding of how they occurred. They have to be ready to meet the development needs of the child by: § helping them cope with separation and loss, § facilitating attachment, § building self-esteem, § affording positive guidance, 21

Foster Parent as Child Development Support § promoting cultural identity, § using discipline appropriate to the child's age and stage of development, § supporting intellectual and education growth, and § encouraging and modeling positive social relationships and responsibilities. 22

Foster Parent as Disciplinarian § All children need guidance and discipline; it is part of the socialization process. § The children who come into foster care have been exposed to forms of discipline that range from severe physical punishment to a total lack of consequences for any actions. § Foster parents are expected to incorporate children with all backgrounds into their families, often with other children who have been reared with disciplinary techniques of various types. Most agencies have policies prohibiting the use of corporal punishment, particularly with children who have been the victims of abuse, yet many foster parents have raised children using spanking and other forms of physical punishment as standard disciplinary tools. 23

Foster Parent as Disciplinarian § So not only do foster parents have to deal with behaviors that may be especially disruptive and challenging, but they may have to treat foster children differently than biological children because of agency regulations. 24

Foster Parent as Supporter and Advocate in School Issues § For school-aged children, foster parents fill the role of meeting educational needs on a day-to-day basis, although ideally birth parents will also be involved in school planning, contact with educators, and support. § Foster parents are the ones who provide space, tools, and help for homework. They are often the ones who meet with teachers and guidance counselors regarding testing, individualized educational plans, special support, and discipline for school-related behaviors. 25

Foster Parent as Supporter and Advocate in School Issues § Due to developmental delays, lack of support from birth families, and previous poor experiences with school, these activities may be more complicated than foster parents have experienced with birth children. § Foster parents may find that they have to be persistent advocates in order to obtain an appropriate level of support for foster children in their schools. § To complicate this issue, some foster parents have limited experience working with the educational system, or may even have a negative view of schools and educators from their own or their children's school days. 26

Foster Parent as Recruiter, Trainer, and Mentor to New Foster Parents Media coverage of the problems children bring with them into foster care has made the general public aware of the difficulties of fostering and has probably frightened many people away from considering it for their families. One way to counter these negative images of fostering is to employ positive messages directly from those who have achieved a level of satisfaction -- successful foster parents. These are people who can present a positive yet realistic view of the rewards as well as the challenges of fostering. Many experienced foster parents would be happy to be included in recruiting, training, and acting as mentors to new families. 27

Foster Parent as Recruiter, Trainer, and Mentor to New Foster Parents Speak: Crossing Bridges & Fostering Change An Award Winning Training and Recruitment Video Produced by the NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children & Photo. Synthesis Productions - http: //www. nysccc. org A 20 minute video that explores foster parenting today through the experiences and insights of foster families. Foster parents speak candidly about the challenges in developing and nurturing shared parenting relationships with birth families and professionals to benefit the children in their care. They share real life techniques and strategies for improving communication and cooperation to create partnerships that support children in the foster care system. $50. 00 28

Foster Parent as Mentor to Birth Parents Perhaps the biggest change in the role of foster parents has been the movement toward having foster parents provide direct services to birth families in the form of mentoring, modeling, and friendship. Permanency planning professionals have begun to see the value of having people who display good parenting skills share their expertise with parents who need to make changes in order to secure the return of their children. 29

Foster Parent as Mentor to Birth Parents Who better to share effective parenting techniques than the people who are currently employing them with one's children? Yet asking them to offer direct help to the people who abused or neglected the children for whom foster parents are caring can be a delicate matter. 30

Foster Parent as Facilitator: Supporter of Relationship Between Child and Child's Parents § Not every foster family will have a personal relationship with each birth family. § However, there must always be some level of positive support of the child's relationship with his or her parents. § Foster families need to understand the importance of the parent-child bond, even when the parent has been abusive or neglecting or the parent is no longer physically a part of the child's life. 31 31

Foster Parent as Facilitator: Supporter of Relationship Between Child and Child's Parents § One technique for maintaining family connections is the lifebook. § Lifebooks began in adoptions practice as a way to bridge the gap between birth and adoptive families. The essence of the lifebook is the story of the child's life, told in words, pictures, and documents. It allows the child to be able to review the important people and events in his or her life, understand connections with the people who loved and cared for him or her, and place them in an overall context of chronology and 32 emotional wholeness.

Foster Parent as Potential Adoptive Parent § Agencies have become more willing to consider foster parents for adoption. However, there can often be confusion on the part of the foster family about the likelihood of that occurring. § In addition, the current movement toward concurrent planning allows the agency to pursue two possible goals at the same time -- reunification if possible, termination of parental rights and adoption if not. § This may place foster parents in an even more difficult position as they form attachments with children they want to adopt but are expected to also support efforts toward reunification with the child's birth family. 33

Foster Parent as Team Member § The traditional view of foster parents places value on parenting, but on little else. It was not uncommon for agencies to drop children off at all hours and with little notice, to remove them just as abruptly, and to provide foster parents with little or no input into planning for the child. Families were expected to accept children of all ages and needs, regardless of the family's ability to care for them. § The view of foster families by child welfare professionals has evolved, at least in theory, to that of accepting foster parents as members of the permanency planning team. Unfortunately, many agencies pay lip service to the team concept, but continue to treat foster parents as less valuable and less professional than staff members. 34

Foster Parent as Team Member § Foster parents are truly members of the permanency planning team when their contributions in the areas of assessment, service planning, and decision making are valued by all members of the team. § In addition, they should be provided with opportunities to grow and learn through preservice and inservice training and attendance at professional conferences. 35

Credo One Nothing prepares you for falling in love with a foster child. . . 36

Credo Two Real love is given when nothing is expected in return. . 37

Gerald P. Mallon, DSW Professor and Executive Director National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning at the Hunter College School of Social Work A Service of the Children’s Bureau/ACF-DHHS 129 East 79 th Street New York, New York 10021 (212) 452 -7043/direct; (212) 452 -7475/fax Email –gmallon@hunter. cuny. edu Website – www. nrcfcpp. org 38

NRCFCPPP Can Provide Assistance: Training, by top consultants Technical Assistance with collaboration from other NRCs Information Dissemination, print, web, Free Information on our Website; Teleconferences, Webcasts, Curriculums in English and Spanish; Tools/Guidelines, Powerpoints www. nrcfcpp. org 39