Why aren’t children the priority of the Child Welfare System?
Disclaimer - The following post is based on my experience as a foster mom in Washington. I recognize that every state has different legislation and experiences vary across the United States. I am an adoptee that fully believes in the importance of relationship with biological family. Our involvement with our foster children's biological mother is on a level our social worker and his supervisor have never seen, but openly praise. We are extremely invested in the healing of this family. Please keep these things in mind as you read.
Sitting in court today waiting for our case to be called, I heard multiple cases of reunification and celebrated with the families. As an unattached community member, a family overcoming massive obstacles to fight to reunify with their children is easy to celebrate.
Our case was called and one parent was deemed fully compliant and in partial progress. I am deeply proud of this parent’s progress. However, the progress would be so much easier to celebrate if it wasn’t the only marker the court uses to determine who will parent children I now care for as my own. For how long is partial progress enough?
If grace is extended to the parents indefinitely, what is being given to children in limbo? In our case, two young children with constantly changing schedules revolving around visitations based on the preferences of visit supervisors, social workers, and bio parents, with the children’s needs appearing last on the list. Why do I feel like grace for the parents has to have an expiration date? Grace would not have to expire if grace was being offered to all involved.
What would a system that truly prioritized the child look like? In the current “child welfare system,” more often than not it feels the welfare of the children is the last priority. “The more visits the better for attachment with the biological family!” System workers repeat to the caregiver of a child who sobs every time one of three visit supervisors comes to pick him up and following visits, wakes screaming, covered in sweat, every hour throughout the night. Trauma shows up most often in sleep patterns for young children. Our children are exhausted and so are we. With no examination of individual needs, the system keeps chanting, “Children do best with their biological family!” If stated often enough they hope we too will believe reunification should be pursued at all costs.
The vantage point of an attached foster parent who soothes upset children all night and tries to mend the broken pieces of shattered little hearts, is considered a threat. “Don’t get too attached!” We are regularly reminded.
The prioritization of biological families is so emphatically adopted that adoption of children cannot even be discussed until children have spent years in limbo. Viewpoints so extreme that no room is left for nuance and the individual needs of each child. One size fits all is not grace for all.
The massive overcorrection from a system unsupportive of biological family to excessively supportive of biological family is so severe it makes my head throb. My heart aches for the damage the old system caused to biological families that just needed support. Equally heartbreaking is the damage this overcorrection is causing the children who have been run over by the pendulum as it swings right over them to the opposite extreme. My head and heartache is the least of the pain this reactive legislation causes. Will the pendulum ever stop swinging?
We went from a system that did not carry reunification as a goal to a system that prioritizes reunification at all costs. The ones who pay the highest cost in both extremes? The children.
Will you take a moment to pray with me today for a child welfare system that both prioritizes each child as an individual, and fully supports the family (which is one of the main ways we can prioritize the children). Instead of either/or, I dream of a system where there is justice and grace for all.
