What Matters Most

Today I woke up tired, which is never a good start.  Then before it was even 8 am I was in a funk.  It doesn't happen often, but it's hard to not notice when it happens to me.  Before my husband left for work we talked about it and I just shared how frustrated and powerless I felt.  You see just after 7am, I got a text from a CPS employee cancelling the weekly visit between our foster child and his parents.  These weekly two hour visits are a staple of fostering and often very annoying to me, but I understand why they do them and most of the time resolutely comply. In this case though, of the five visits with his parents so far, two of them they have been significantly late to, two they left early from, and today they decided to cancel - an option they have, that I do not - only one visit has gone as it is supposed to.  Most bio parents are overwhelmed with happiness to see their child at visits and sometimes moved to tears from happiness, loss, or some other deep emotion, and occasionally angry and aggressive at the agency, the situation, and even occasionally me.  But, in this child's case, the parents are totally indifferent, which is perhaps the most heartbreaking for me to watch.

And I am feeling better as I have caught up on some work, snuggled my baby, and tried to teach him how to give kisses - a happy endeavor for sure as he practically rips my face off trying to pull it as close to his as he can.  And my thoughts are turned to the movie Instant Family - a heartwarming, hilarious, and mostly accurate portrayal of fostering and fostering to adopt.  So if you have questions about what fostering is like, it does a pretty great job of showing it.  But even more than my desire to have you watch the movie, I need help getting the word out.

At a recent meeting with my Caseworker, a woman who I trust implicitly to take care of our family and take care of these children she has to find placements for, I learned some information that has me feeling sick to my stomach.  Basically in Section 8 of Texas, there are more than 7500 confirmed cases of abuse annually with some so bad that about 200 kids come into care in a month. So the need for foster families is enormous!!!  Of those kids only about 70 of them end up returning to home.  So the need for adoptive families, especially foster to adopt families is almost overwhelming.  In this area and most every other area, we are just not keeping up with the demand.  And that....that puts me in a funk, because I truly believe when we as a society can no longer protect and care for our children, we have failed in some fundamental way. 

The strain on the system and cost and criticism became so intense that the government sold their contract to a private contractor to take over the foster industry in San Antonio.  But alas so far, the incoming results are no more hopeful and I have heard horrific stories of kids being lost, there are just so many, and kids returning to the door step of the agency to be turned away because they didn't have a placement for them yet and due to their contract they are required to place or they are penalized.  So instead they are just rejecting the kids outright. 

As the foster children age, the demand for them decreases, but there are still so many who are under 5 years old, who are ready to be adopted, but are not finding placements and so are staying unnecessarily long in foster families until they can find adoptive families. Our area has about 200 plus children aging out of the system annually, about 17 a month.  The statistics regarding kids who age out are so horrifying I'll let you look at them on your own, but 20% become instantly homeless, 70% of the girls by 21 are pregnant, less than 3% ever earn a college degree, and more than 50% become substance abusers repeating a cycle of viciousness that is near impossible to end.  It's a freaking pandemic and it's one that we rarely talk about.  It's one I am becoming increasingly passionate about. 

So my plea to you today is simple, if you have every known anyone who was interested in adopting, please tell them to check in with their local Child Protective Service Agency.  If you are in the San Antonio area, I will fast track you to who you need to see, because I have a little boy who is just around the bend from needing YOU!  And to every parent who tells me you couldn't foster or even more often you couldn't give the kids back, I swear you can.  I'm not a saint or angel and I'm definitely not somehow lacking in heart(that makes this near impossible task possible for me), because it is hard to get these kids, harder and heartbreaking to give them back, and hard in between, but I promise you - you can do it!  Life is full of hard things, and some of the hardest ones become the most rewarding to look back on, so like I tell my kids - your feelings are irrelevant, if you know what you are supposed to do, stop thinking about how you feel about it and just do it.  In some way or capacity you can help, whether you do Respite (foster babysitting), long term or short term care, permanent care, or whether you connect people to the right resources or spread information, you are needed.  Just start doing it! PLEASE!