My Family Moments: Back at the Ranch

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Back at the Ranch

Our life had been hectic to say the least. For the first 2 weeks after our Goodbye Day with "Little Man", I did lots of sleeping and resting. Volleyball, soccer and school for the kids filled my other waking moments. Then, to occupy my time and help out some Foster parents our family did Respite Care for a total of 6 kiddos. One at a time, of course over 5 weeks or so. It brought me to one conclusion... NO TODDLERS! I wouldn’t even take in a 10 month old. Suffice it to say these littles were just what we all needed to take our aching hearts off “Little Man”. The difficult piece was not knowing what these littles have endured in their short lives before spending a few nights with me. I am set in wanting to only foster newborns. Brand-spankin’ new from the hospital please. I thought I was helping others when in the end it was I who was learning and gaining the benefits of all this LOVE.

Fast forward to three months ago, I attended “Little Man’s” final hearing. I walked in hoping they would either extend the case or remove him from his BioMom’s care. I still didn’t think she was ready or capable of being his Mother and maybe six more months of counseling and hand holding will help that. Maybe being the keyword. I walked out of the court room disheartened from the outcome, but relieved at the completion. Six months after handing him over “Little Man’s” case has officially been closed. No more court involvement unless BM strays off her path of positive growth. It is finally over. Or so I hope.

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"Foster Family" Terminology

SW: Social Worker = This is a professionally trained (at times I feel from a YouTube video) individual who works for any County or private organization. My foster baby will have a SW and I will have a SW who is also known as a CCW. (see below)

CCW: Clinical Case Worker = This is a professionally trained individual, also known as a Social Worker who works for Angel’s Foster Family Network. They are assigned to a maximum of 12 families at one time and lead them through the fostering system. They are our right hand gal. (no males as of yet) This person does all the legal pushing and pulling on our behalf so we can focus solely on loving and caring for our foster babies. I would not and will not ever do my job as a foster mom without these people.

Supervised Visit = The bioparent has rights to see their child no matter the circumstances. Most often the visits begin as 1 to 2 hours, 1 to 2 times a week. An adult that is approved must watch the parent with the child at all times. (sometimes a lot of work and sometimes boring as heck)

Unsupervised Visit = The bioparent has rights to see their child no matter the circumstances before. If they are improving their situation then they will eventually get the right to have visits without supervision. The foster parent must drop off the child at an approved location and pick them up later. Most often the visit is for 2-6 hours 1 to 2 times a week. And these will only increase in length as the situation improves. (super hard for the foster parent to move to this step)

Foster Baby/Child = A child that has been removed from their biological family due to many different reasons affecting the welfare of the child. They are then placed in protective custody under the County and State.