I have been a single foster parent to two young sister for just over 21 months now. I have a love/hate relationship with this book. I love it because it backs up everything that I have concluded in my own experience about this system. I hate it because it depresses me that this book was published 11 years ago and is as accurate today as it was then.
Children in today's foster care system have become "plug-and-play" to CPS agencies. (That is my term, not Ms Bartholet's...) My "children" have been told they were leaving me on 6 different occassions: 1.) Two months in, going home to birth mom, didn't happen 2.) 5 months in, going home to birth mom, didn't happen 3.) 7 months in, going to live with a distant maternal cousin, didn't happen 4.) 13 months in, going to live with younger sister's birth father, didn't happen 5.) 16 months in, going to live with same maternal cousin, didn't happen and the last one 6.) 20 months in, going to live with birth mom, hasn't happened yet, although it is still planned. The children, currently 4 and 7, are too young to have to go through this emotional heck. Nobody in this system puts any emphasis on what this system does to the CHILDREN.
Nobody's Children clearly, concisely, and accurately depicts the system for what it is, a big hot mess. Despite the laws passed to diminish the time children languish in foster care systems (ASFA and Ohio House Bill 484) that require PERMANENCY planning around 15/12 months respectively, children are still facing long stints in foster care. Ms. Bartholet explains the impact of this in immense detail with accurate, and detailed footnotes. As she explains, and I can back up by experience, the unfortunate lack of clear definition of "permanency planning" has allowed local and state agencies to make up their own rules. For my county, birth families are given a minimum of two 6-month "extensions" to the ASFA. By this time, the birth connections of my foster children should have already been terminated based on federal and state law. The loophole, as Ms. Bartholet expresses in the book, is that with no clear definition, agencies can use their own judgment. For example, both the ASFA and the OH HB indicate that the agency must prove that they have done all they can towards reuining the child with the birth family. However, what does that mean? It varies from agency to agency, from county to county. In my county, children stay in care for years, whereas in a county just 2 hours away, birth rights are terminated in timely manner, children are then adopted with finalization of the same within 18-24 months.
In variably, this is the cycle: Child, age 4, enters CPS system. Enter Foster Family 1. Child stays 22 months. Child is reunited with birth mother/family member. Now child is aged 6. (This is assuming that the child has a good fit with first foster parent.) At age 4, the child has grown quite attached to his foster family, and now he is torn away to be returned to the same birth family that still causes the child bad dreams. Yes, the birth parent has done the very bare minimum required by the agency to be returned, but is that enough. So child is now 6 years old. Things go down the drain fast and within 6 months, child is removed again. The first foster family cannot take the child back because they have received another placement in the meantime. So child goes to another foster family. If luck is good, he will get another *good* family. (There are far more good families than bad, but I am not naive enough to believe that they are all great foster families.) By now, the child has been damaged more, experienced more attachment disruptions, and likely has little faith in the adults in his life. If he isn't acting out, he probably will begin soon. At the same time, until termination of parental rights happen, the child HAS to continue visits with the birth family who neglected/hurt him. He acts out beyond what his current foster family can handle. He is sent to another home. He may stay there another 6 months. By now, the agency finally terminates parental rights. But wait. Aunt Joann from 3 states over has indicated that she'd like to take the child. Because she is "kin", regardless of the fact that she doesn't personally know the child or his birth mother, she MUST be examined as a potential placement option. The child is forced to endure yet another visitation schedule with a complete stranger. Finally, another 6 months later, the child, now 7.5 years old (if not older) is made available for adoption. As luck would have it, his current foster placement does not want to adopt (some families really only do want to do only foster care) so he waits for a potential adoptive family. By now, his sense of trust is gone. His behavior issues have grown greatly, and while waiting to find an adoptive family, he grows out of control and is moved to a group home. Fast forward 10 years and this same child is now "Aging out of the system" as he turns 18 and is on his own, no family, adoptive or otherwise, to turn to for help. Yes my friends, this is exactly what is happening today in America. And these children who have aged out of the system are the same children who end up on drugs, committing crimes, being homeless, etc. The tax dollars that you spent keeping him in the system will now support him in his early adulthood as he enters a likely life of crime. If the he were a she, your tax dollars are now paying for the same system to support her child that has now been taken away from her and started in the same foster care system.
One wonders what would have happened had the child's birth parents' rights been terminated at 12 months, and the child, then age 5, could have been adopted by the foster family that he grew attached to, and whom he loved, and they loved in return.
She does not advocate taking children from poor families. There seems to be a continual stance of this from the communities that "lose" the most children. I have read unintelligible blogs, message board posts, etc., that all push the same stereotype: "Adoptive/Foster parents are those middle class people who can't have their own kids and want to steal *our* kids." That cannot be farther from the truth. In fact, in my Foster/Adopt Classes, there were only two middle-class "parents" in the class, myself, and another woman who had already raised two biological children. Most of the folks in this class fell into two categories: 1.) Working class couples who could not afford traditional adoption or 2.) Working Class couples/singles who CHOSE this path either because they had already raised bio children and had more love to give, or because they didn't see the rationale in bringing children into the world when there were so many who already were here and needed good parents. (the class was made up of about 10 couples and 4 single parents.) This data corresponds to what Ms. Bartholet reports in her book.
In fact, Ms. Bartholet highlights many, at the time, new programs that were having promising results in reaching out to the birth families before they could abuse/neglect their children. However, at the time of the publishing, those programs were not having long-lasting results. It doesn't take a rich person to parent well. In fact, I am quite certain that there are a great number of children who suffer similar consequences from "rich" families but do not end up in the foster care system due to extended familial connections. But, the numbers speak for themselves, there is greater abuses/neglects to children in poorer communities ravished by drugs and crime. I believe it was Isaiah Thomas' mother who raised him and his siblings on welfare, and they all grew to have successful lives. It isn't about the money. It is about the love.
There really are far too many argue points to highlight here. However, I'd highly recommend that anyone considering foster parenting, or foster/adopt options, to read this book. And for any case worker, agency director, the like, this book should be eye opening. Let's finally stop treating the youth of our lives, the future of our country, like they can be plopped from one home to another with no damage to their psyche. To suggest that children suffer forever from loss of family connections through adoption, and that the "loss" that brings to them is far worse than the damage brought upon by abuse and neglect (Yes, I have heard that argument used by case workers!) is preposterous and not based on one gram of evidence, anecdotal or otherwise. Children need loving homes. Period. First and foremost, they need their basic needs met. Those needs include emotional connections.
Anyway, go read the book. I can't help but wonder what would happen in our society if every lawmaker read this book.
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