What now?

So, what can be done about the system we encountered?

The first unexpected problem that I think should be addressed is probably the most controversial: bio parents' rights.

I am all too familiar with the cases in which parents lose their children for ridiculous reasons. And I certainly understand that people's rights should be protected.

But.

If you're going to put children into another parent's hands, you have to give that parent the authority to care for the child. From little things, like sunscreen, to big things -- like medical care.

If a doctor makes a diagnosis and prescribes medication, counseling, running around the block, whatever -- the foster parent should be able to implement that therapy.

I'd be willing to compromise on measures that I found annoying but understandable. Yes, it seems reasonable to have the children keep their pediatrician or other regular doctors they were seeing prior to entering foster care.

But it does not seem reasonable to let the bio parents select other doctors for the child -- particularly when it can lead, as it did for us, to choosing doctors far from everybody just to make it more annoying for us.

Similarly, the foster parent should have the authority to make dental appointments, eye appointments and so on. Letting a bio parent veto those appointments -- for many months -- strikes me as a form of abuse.


Now, in our case we hit a tricky problem: a child with a probable mental health diagnosis. But long before that happened, the bio mom was using her rights to stop eye appointments, counseling, and anything else she could mess with, for reasons that appeared to be frivolous. In general, I think I could sum up her attitude as: Don't do anything, because I'm going to get my kids back soon, and then *I* will do it.

Except that most bio parents don't get their kids back.

And those that do, get them back 15 months later, on average.

Now, DSS has the authority to over-rule the bio parents, and one could argue that's enough.

Except we saw all too clearly that DSS is over-worked (and maybe burnt out and maybe incompetent). At the very end, our DSS caseworker expressed surprise to hear that ANYTHING was going on with Jacob...even though she had been included on every email, had been called on every crisis, knew about the doctor appointments and problems therein, and had spoken with us on many occasions about Jacob's behavior.

Did she forget? Does she have too many children to care about one small case?

She visited the kids a total of twice in the six months they were in our care, even though the law says she must visit monthly. Our family specialist got to us almost once a month -- we saw the FSP four times. But by the rules of our agency, she was supposed to visit weekly.

24 weeks. 4 visits.

This certainly indicates how busy they are, and I don't think it's reasonable to require them to be involved in every nitty-gritty detail of scheduling a medical appointment.

Perhaps the bigger question is: why aren't foster parents trusted with these rights? Why would the system trust bio parents, but not foster parents -- who have, after all, gone through months of training, rigorous background checks and inspections?

I suppose the system respects bio parents so much that legislators focus on them, not the foster parents. I'm not suggesting rights be taken away from bio parents, so much as I'm saying foster parents can't properly parent with both hands tied behind their backs. They need the ability to seek medical help for the children in their care.

I intend to make an issue of this, but I'm hoping I can make it a lot clearer than I've done here.