I have served CHILDREN IN FOSTER care through Mental Health for many years. Through my work, I’ve met biological parents with so much drive and ability to make necessary changes in their lives to fight for reunification with their children. I’ve met biological parents whose realities and perspectives are bleak. I’ve met foster parents and adoptive parents with great capacity for love, acceptance, and nurturing their foster/adoptive children. I’ve met foster parents and adoptive parents whose carelessness and callousness leads to more trauma exposure for their foster/adoptive children than they endured in the homes of their biological parents. I’ve met social workers who believe in children and their voices. I’ve met social workers who are tired, emotionally unavailable, and negligent of important job responsibilities.
I’ve met a lot of ADULTS. Some of them are serving children in foster care well. Some of them are physically and psychologically harming children in foster care. But EVERY SINGLE CHILD IN FOSTER CARE I’VE EVER ENCOUNTERED IS RESILIENT, WORTHY, AND GOOD.
I’ve heard statements over the years like, “I’m glad it’s them and not me having to deal with all that,” “I don’t want social workers in my business all the time-I don’t have time for that,” “I don’t even want to imagine that those kinds of things happen in the world-I can’t handle it,” “That’s depressing-Can we talk about something else, “I would never adopt through foster care-What if I get attached and then they leave,” or “Those kids have big problems-I’m not patient enough for that, and I can’t deal with those parents.”
Our world is broken. The system is broken. Serving this broken system is messy. Trauma is messy. THE CHILDREN ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. Every day children are suffering because of mistakes made by adults, and the only way to solve this issue is for you to CARE. Seek education, serve, and sacrifice.