(Beth) wrote in message . com...
"bobb" wrote in message ...
"Doug" wrote in message
...
Here is the trend of kinship foster care, expressed in percentage of
foster
care population, after the correction. As it turns out, the numbers for
1998 were the same as 1997.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/p...99/ar0199a.htm

1997 29%
1998 29%
1999 26%
2000 25%
2001 24%



Kinship care has taken a beating because CPS fears it cannot control family
associations and has set unrealistic barriers to prevent licensing. Even a
marijuana bust 15 years ago will prevent and aunt or uncle, now with
children of their own, from caring for their neice or nephew.

I'm willng to be 99.9 percent of all foster kids try to reestablish
relationship with their families or relatives, prior to, and after
emancipation... however, depending on how long they've been wards of the
state.. they become strangers. Kinship care should not be viewed simply as
having a biological connection but I'd suggest friends of the family (or
child) should also be considered and sought out prior to foster care with a
stranger.

Many years ago.. I sought a foster kid who was known to me.. but because I
was known to the family I, too, was ineligible even thought I was licensed
and avaibable.

bobb


A few years ago, I saw that in one state, I think it was either
Washington or Oregon, had set up a special program to recruit friends
and family members of black children to step forward and provide homes
for black children when they were taken into the system.

It was in a number of states. It was called One Church One Child.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...h+one+child%22

This was
apparently in response to heavy criticism from the black community
regarding the disproportionate number of black children in the foster
care system.

Almost, but not quite a bullseye. If anyone knows the problems in the
black community with the causes of child abuse and neglect it is black
community members.

Their beef was black children placed with white families. Blacks in
America, if I may be so bold, according to what I've observed and was
told when I was involved with OCOC, had been for some years attempting
to recover their children...ethnically.

And just plain common sense should have told workers that whites are
completely incapable by knownledge or experience to KNOW what a black
child needs to know culturally to thrive and survive. I agree...and
saw many examples of alienated black kids in lockup and mental
facilities that could not operate in black or white society very well.

Essentially, the black community asked CPS if they
thought that black parents were "three times as abusive" as white
parents, since black children were three times more likely to be in
foster care.

You are claiming that the black community is saying that CPS is wrong
to remove the children at all....and you are either misled, or
misleading. In five years of monthly or more often interaction with
the black community on this issue I never ONCE heard any such
complaint or question...only that CPS workers had been insensitive to
the special needs of the black child, culturally and specifically.
Hell, whites, for the most part, haven't the faintest idea of what
hair care is about for black kids, and they though the kids with
darker skin had a disease, when all they needed was the simple skin
care black mothers know to give there children as the normal
exfoliation we ALL experience shows up on the child's skin as "ashey."
The flakes do not carry melonine, the dark color, with them and unless
they are removed and a light application of oil is applied the child
looks ashy again in a few hours...as we all would if the flakes could
be seen on our skin against a dark background.

This makes the cared for darker skinned black child MORE cared for
then white kids, when it comes to careful cleanliness.

Black children are more likely to have allergic reactions to dairy
products than white kids.

Black kids are more likely to devalue themselves and other blacks
because of the media and the long history of bigotry they run into so
often.

How often does a white kid get called derogatory names related to his
race or color? Black kids aren't likely to go more than the first few
years of life without it.

Black parents know how to deal with these things. White parents give
platitudes and sympathy...neither of much use, as far as I can see.


Anyway, they had a separate website set up extolling the virtues of
maintaining children's bonds to the community,

Yep, and it's very true. Just as white kids naturally have bonds to
their community.

and they were
specifically assuring people who had a long-term bond with black
children, whether they were actual relatives by birth or marriage or
not, to step forward, and promising them a streamlined approval
process.

Yep, and they delivered. Training was separate and a bit shorter. 4 or
five weekly sessions instead of the more standard 6 to eight weeks.
Usually 3 hours sessions.

In the meantime, over at the main website, the "standard"
rule was clearly laid out -- preference for placement was only offered
to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and adult siblings.

What "main web site?" If you mean the one for everyone, including
whites blacks etc, yes, that would be pretty standard in most states.
The closest relatives first, especially if they had cared for the
child in any capacity before, the less and less intimate and more
remote, gradually.

I have heard that when young, adoptable children are involved, local
grandparents who ask to take the children are told that they are "too
close" and can't be counted on to keep the children away from the bio
parents, while out-of-state grandparents are "too far away," and can't
be given the children because that would interfere with the stated
goal of reunification.

Oddly, that is correct. SOME grandparents are turned down because of
that very thing...but not just because they are grandparents, but
because they have demonstrated, or even stated, they will not maintain
safe boundaries for the child...and yes, there IS a thing called
concurrent planning that requires the state CPS to plan for both
reuniting and separation at the same time.

It is down so that of ONE cannot happen all the bits and pieces for
the other are in place NOW....or the time would stretch out forever
for the child.

As far as background checks go, this seems to
be all over the place.

BG checks have a standardization within the state, and seem remarkably
similar from state to state. Roughly it goes like this: an in agency
check first, with a local police and then state level crim records
check. If the person lived out of the state within the past five year,
then a national (FBI does them) bg crim check is done.

That is why it seems to the uninitiated, "all over the place." That's
because the circumstances are different. If crimes that would
disqualify are found then broader checks are done, the person is given
a chance to interview and explain the circumstances, and sometime it's
not enough (they didn't clean up their act) or it is seen to be worked
out well and they DO get chosen.

The amount of misinformation is directly proportionate to the lack of
information. Folks need to stop trying to fill in the gaps. It's like
trying to self diagnose...it can lead to complications. What you think
is a rash, can be the first sign of a deadly disease, or conversally
what you go running to the doctor screaming for help for can be
nothing mroe serious than indigestion.

It pays to ask someone that knows...like a worker, or those that have
worked with the system long enough, even as an adversary, to know what
is actually happening.

"Rilya" was given

"was" placed. Children are not "given" for foster carers, unless one
wishes to use hyperbolic propagandistic emotion laden language to
incite....are you doing that?

to grifters

They did NOT turn up any crimes in a crim bg check. You cannot blame
CPS for something it cannot know that it did not.

who claimed to
be blood relatives of some sort or another,

Yep. No reason not to believe them. Do you think each g'parent that
steps up to do a foster care should submit to a DNA test to prove it?
Okay, pay the bill.

The Rilya case was that of a single worker's malfeasance and a
couple's criminal behavior, or so the latter is believed.

While I want CPS to be psychic and NEVER ever make such mistakes, I'm
sure I'll be disappointed, just as I am with cops, doctors, and my
plumber, that each proves to be less than perfect individually and as
a class.

while, as you say, some
people asking to have young relatives placed with them are turned down
for "ancient history"

He's as full of **** as a xmas goose. He knows from nothing and spouts
the same ignorance that I'm cutting you more slack on. He presumes all
the time, things that are not inevidence, about races, genders,
children, loss, sexuality, damn near anything he discusses he manages
to get either a little bit wrong, or hugely, and if people believe
him, dangerously wrong.

People commit suicide under circumstances that he would
approve.....like being in depression from loss, and just "picking up
and getting on with it," that could have been saved had they known
that this does NOT always work.

which would NOT have prevented them from
becoming foster parents to children who were unknown to them.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Relatives are cut far more slack than
strangers applying for foster care certification. I've helped
relatives with just such problems get their little g'kids, or neices
etc.

Even in cases in which CPS knows that it will be forced to turn the
children over to the grandparents at some point, they will often drag
their feet for as long as possible.

Abosolute crappola. In cases where they relatives are being
considered, but do NOT have the child in their physical custody the
number ONE reason for not placing the child right away and "dragging
their heels" is that they want to have the g'parent show true
commitment and NOT later change their mind and ask the child be moved
YET AGAIN AND DO MORE HARM TO THE CHILD.

Too many years of too many of just such events taught CPS workers NOT
to assume a relative was goning to be a permanent placement just
because they at first clamored to be.

Many a granny has found out these little darlings had learned some
seriously grotesque, frightening, and dangerous survival skills living
with mommy druggest and daddy drunkest. **** smearing, wetting and
soiling under the slightest duress, language like a drunken sailor,
and very very sadly, withdrawal into states nearing catatonia. Lots of
acting out. EVen to the point of threatening the carer's lives...and
trying to carry it out.

By the way, we are talking 2 and 3 year olds here....the more
difficult child to workwith..really. Trust me. Coming at granma wiht a
kitchen knife kind of stuff.

You'd be amazed what living in a drug house teaches a child.

The relatives caved many a time...until CPS started the practice of
holding them back BEFORE placement, giving adequate training in the
things I mention above, and what it's about, and how to deal wiht it
successfully.....it's called, "Love Is NOT enough with these
children."

What some g'parents are ****ing about was nothing more than a worker
trying to get through to them that they did NOT AUTOMATICALLY have the
skills to work with these extremely damanged children...not matter how
much they might love them or feel family obligated to take them.

Thanks for the opportunity to inform.

Have a nice day.

Kane