The Ugly Side of Foster Care

To be extremely honest, the foster care system is very broken. It's such a broken system that my husband and I finally see firsthand what it's like for children, social workers, and potential parents. After adopting our son from Haiti, in 2017 I will say that the foster system in the US is obviously BETTER than the life of a Haitian child in Haiti. There are just not enough social workers for all the children in the foster care system and it's overwhelming to make sure these kids are getting the care AND therapy they need. Intensive, trauma-focused therapy, not just any therapy. I will say that our agency here in North Carolina, Children's Home Society, communicated well with us for the most part. But the Texas Department of Family Services is who we felt needed to do a better job. 

DeAndre has been home with us for seven months now and these past few months for my husband and I have been extremely difficult. Yes, we have been through the adoption process before, but the extreme trauma of a school-age child coming into our home is nothing we were prepared for. 

DeAndre was cared for in the sense that he was given food, shelter, and the necessary medical care. But what was not given was the emotional, mental, AND educational care that was so desperately needed. He was not given the necessary attachment and love by a single care giver. Instead he was moved around to multiple care givers that probably only did the minimum. Now that he is with us, we have had to spend every waking moment correcting these important milestones that he missed or did not receive. 

The social workers, adoption agencies, and DHHS do not prepare you for all of this. We took the mandatory classes, but when a child with trauma comes into your home, it hits you HARD! My husband and I have had many nights where we are so exhausted from the parenting, that we just look at each other like, "What the hell do we do?" We are two highly educated, smart, mentally stable people who were and still are clueless about how to raise this child. 

A Year in the Making, Cont.

 After we left Texas for our initial visit, life continued as normal as we continued to wait for ICPC approval. 

• December 2022 DeAndre was given approval to visit us for Christmas. Jameson was very excited to have a new person in the house he could play with and it was a chance for us to have more bonding with DeAndre before he came to live with us. I honestly felt like this was one of the best Christmass he ever had. He was so happy to be in a family setting around people who cared for him. He received lots of gifts from us and from his team in Texas. 

A Year in the Making

September 2022 - August 2023

• After our first video call to meet DeAndre I was advised to reach out to DeAndre's foster mother to talk with her and start having conversations to get to know each other. My first impression of her (I will call her Ms. R) is that she was a much older woman who knew DeAndre well and was doing her best to take care of him, the way she knew how. She was not very talkative but just straight to the point and did not go into a lot of detail about his life. 
• September 18, 2022 - I emailed DeAndre's case worker to let her know that we were confirming dates to go down to Texas to meet and visit him. Makala, his then-current case worker was soon to leave her position and another case worker would be assigned. I really liked Makala, so I was hoping this move would not make the placement process slower. 
• We made plans to travel to Texas October 21-24, 2022. I was super excited and also nervous to meet this little boy. I knew he had a lot of trauma from his past. Jameson was beyond excited to finally be able to soon have another sibling in the home. I was also making plans to visit my aunt Carol and cousin Tyrone that I had not seen in so many years. They are family on my dad's side. My dad's sister and her son. She has asked over the years when I was coming down to Texas, and so I could finally tell her I was coming 😀
• While we were waiting to travel for our visit, I received a call from DeAndre's CASA. CASA stands for: Court Appointed Special Advocate. Her name is Meme and she has known DeAndre since he was a baby. Throughout our entire foster/adoption process, Meme has been a great support for DeAndre and always there if we needed her for anything. 

ICPC

For anyone who ever goes through an out-of-state adoption or placement of a child that does not reside in their state, ICPC is a phrase that one will never, ever forget!! ICPC which stands for: Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. The ICPC process is a VERY long and detailed process for children who will cross state lines for placement. The two states have to agree on all terms and conditions before approval. Now that DeAndre is finally home with us, I can say that the ICPC process is like hell, but I don't know if it was as bad as our Haiti adoption process. 

The worst part is that the folks on the ICPC team are people you can have no contact with while waiting for them to approve your placement. It's as if they are in an undisclosed location and families are at their mercy waiting for months on end. It's heartbreaking 💔

• We traveled to Texas to visit DeAndre October 21-24, 2022. Overall the visit went well. We flew into Dallas and drove about 3 hours south to a small town called Kileen. DeAndre lived in Lampasas, Texas which is an even smaller and very rural town. DeAndre and Jameson attached very well from the beginning. We had a good two days of fun. We took the boys to McDonalds, a fun park, we went out to eat, played putt-putt, had ice cream, etc. 
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  Leaving TX on our way back to NC

The Waiting Begins

• July 2022 - September 2022

• On July 29, 2022, I received an email from our placement specialist, Jazmine, that DeAndre’s case worker and team wanted to set up a Zoom interview with Will and me as a potential adoptive family for DeAndre. This was exciting because I had been emailing the case workers in Texas for several weeks for updates about our status. 
• Our first interview meeting was scheduled for August 12, 2022, at 2:30 p.m. This meeting included all the workers in DeAndre’s case, plus the workers from the Children’s Home Society. I remember the meeting going fairly well. We learned about DeAndre’s past and we also talked about our lives and why we were interested in adopting again. 
• Later that same day I received an email from Jazmine stating that DeAndre’s team made the decision that they would love to move forward with our family for DeAndre! I was very surprised that they made a decision so quickly. Little did I know that it would be a year later before the placement would become final. 
• August 15th, 2022 - I received an email from Jazmine indicating the next steps in the process: 
• DSS (Dept of Social Services) will send DeAndre’s redacted case file to NC
• A second official "Yes" from Will and me will be needed from DSS to move forward
• DSS is requiring us to come to Texas to visit to meet DeAndre
• September 1st, 2022 - Will and I went to CHS to review DeAndre’s case file. The case file was HUGE, several thousand pages. Jazmine was only able to print out maybe half of the report for us to read. Maybe just the important parts. I remember a lot of what was in the documents was repetitive. There were also a lot of reports of child neglect, abuse, and emotional trauma. After reading the report, we still decided we wanted to move forward with the placement. 
• September 14, 2022 we had our first Zoom visit with DeAndre while we were on vacation in the Outer Banks. From what I can remember, the call went very well. My first impression was that he was well-spoken and had a sweet face. Jameson was overly excited of course and could not sit still 😂 After the Zoom call, his case worker sent me a text that stated, "After the call yesterday the first thing he did was run to tell foster mom "'They found someone for me!'" This made my heart melt 💓 Shortly after this conversation with DeAndre's initial case worker, Makala, she told me she would be leaving the case and another case worker would be taking over. 

On the Right Path

In the beginning of 2021, Will and I decided to move forward with our second adoption process. Today is December 25th, 2022 and a lot has passed in the last couple of years. I didn’t get around to blogging until now, so I will just briefly detail the significant parts of our beginning journey until now. Then I will continue to write in detail until our adoption process is (hopefully) finalized in 2023. 

• FEBRUARY 2021

After a long search, we decided to join Children’s Home Society (CHS) as our adoption agency. CHS seemed to be the best fit because they provide foster and adoption services for children all throughout every county in NC. We are also able to find children through NC Kids and Adopt US Kids. On Valentines Day we decided to announce our to friends and family.

• MARCH 2021 - JULY 2022

In the months following announcing our decision to adopt again, there were a lot of things happened. Since I was not actively blogging at the time, and now trying to catch up, I will give a summary of our beginning process. 

• We registered with CHS, completing the initial application. Shortly after we were contacted by an adoption representative to set up a virtual phone interview. After the phone interview, we were matched with a Licensing Specialist, Shelley Hester. 
• Shelley spent several months with us to help us become licensed foster parents. The licensing process was a lot of work, but small in comparison to what we had to do for our Haiti adoption. It was similar in that there was a lot of paperwork to gather, but there were more pieces of training to attend. This included a month-long online foster parent training class, called TIPS-MAPP. 
• Will and I found the foster parent training to be very informative and we also met several other families going through the adoption process. 
• In addition to the TIPS-MAPP training, we had to take medication administration training and a CPR class. 
• Other documents we needed to complete our licensing packet included: 12 skills worksheet, fire inspection, medical history form, medical exams, pay stubs, criminal background check, fingerprints, copy of educational degrees, car registration, and homeowners insurance.

We finally got the call/email that we became officially licensed foster parents in January 2022 and our Pre-Placement Assessment was approved in March 2022.  

Immediately after becoming licensed we started receiving calls for child placements. These placements were for temporary homes until the parents could be reunited and we were hoping for a child that was ready and approved for adoption. The good news is that we knew there were kids out there who needed homes, it was just a matter of finding the right match and waiting for that to happen. 

I decided that I wanted to register with AdoptUSkids and NC Kids. These are two national and Statewide agencies that list children who are ready for adoption. Since we had an approved home study, we were qualified to look for and inquire about children from these sites. 

In April 2022, I received an email from Adopt US Kids that our home study was approved and we were now able to search and inquire about children listed on their website. There were so many children across the US that were listed for adoption, especially boys, and children with special needs. There were not many young school-age children, so that was disappointing. Immediately I started my search and every day I just went to Adopt US Kids and NC Kids to see if any kids popped up in my search that met our criteria. 

 On May 19th, 2022 I came across a little boy’s picture who immediately grabbed my attention. He had the cutest face and innocence about him. His name was De’Andre. I put in an inquiry on his page and added him to my list of “favorites” with several other kids I had made inquiries about. 

On May 23, I received notification that DeAndres’ case worker requested our home study. This was exciting news, as I knew that we were actually being considered and a possibility this may actually turn into a adoption. Several weeks passed by and I didn’t hear anything. I emailed 

It wasn’t until July 29th, 2023 that our placement specialist Jazmine emailed me that DeAndre’s case worker wanted to set up a Zoom interview with us as a potential adoptive family!

So, I’m back after five years away from my first blog that detailed the many memories of our adoption from Haiti! This is my first blog post of our continual journey though parenthood. I feel bad because Will and I actually started our current (2nd) foster/adoption process over a year ago and I’m just now starting to blog and capture the moments of the process. There is so much to catch up on!! Life has been so very busy the past five years since we brought Jameson home from Haiti. I never knew my life would be projected in this way where I would have two adopted sons as my forever children. After Jameson was home for a few years, we slowly started talking about the idea of bringing a sibling or another child into our family. We knew adoption was what we had to do to achieve this. My plan with this blog is to catch up on our initial stages of our foster to adopt journey. Then continue to write about our experiences until our second adoption is complete. I once again hope that my blog and experiences help others going through the same process as it did for our first adoption in Haiti.