Question about foster parenting

[Alpo]

I saw this in the movie and it really didn't make sense.

 

The child that is going to be the foster child shows up at the house. The foster parents let him in and introduced themselves, and say how nice it is to meet him.

 

It seems to me that if I was going to foster a kid, I would go down to where the kid is and meet him, and we would see if we could stand each other.

 

Having the kid just show up and you introduce yourself to him makes sense with exchange students. That kid flies over here from France and you don't meet him until he shows up. But the orphan that needs fostered? Isn't he downtown in the orphanage, with child protective services? So you can just drive downtown and meet him? That certainly makes more sense to me.

 

So there's my question. Do you meet the foster kid before he becomes your foster kid? Or does CPS just bring him by the house and drop him off?

[Pat Riot]

It depends on your agreement with CPS. But any kid coming to your home would be escorted by CPS staff. 
 

If you foster kids you can be an emergency foster parent where kids in need would be brought to your home after a phone call from CPS. 
You can also be a foster parent that meets the kid to determine if you and the kid are a fit. 
Like I said, it depends on what you sign on for. 

[Dilli GaHoot Galoot]

56 minutes ago, Alpo said:

I saw this in the movie

 

Well, there's your problem! 

[Alpo]

Well you see, every once in awhile I will see something in a movie that strikes me as just so damn stupid. And I will question it. Here in the Saloon (ACS) I will ask about it. And find out that that is exactly the way it is done. Wow.

 

Just because it is in a movie does not mean it has to be BS.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

17 minutes ago, Alpo said:

Just because it is in a movie does not mean it has to be BS.

Frightening as it may be, I must agree with Alpo. Too many times, movies, TV shows, and books, will do something just to forward the plot with no regard knowledge of how it would be done in real life. How often do we find ourselves yelling at the TV over gun errors? Constant racking of a shotgun with no shell ejected, Glocks being described as plastic so they don't show up on a metal detector. 27 rounds from a 6 shot pistol, or my all time gripe, hearing the 4 clicks of a SAA being cocked when ANY handgun is being drawn from the holster.

Sometimes it's BS, but once in a while they might get it right despite their best efforts. I usually don't retain the memory of it long enough to ask. But Alpo does. Of course, it might also be that Alpo doesn't have anything better to do. 

Some of Alpo's questions can be strange. But SOMETIMES, he's like the Enquirer used to be: Enquiring minds want to know.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Usually, CPS will notify you of the need, you will agree, and they will deliver the child or children to your home. This is when you first meet the child, in most circumstances.

 

This is fostering, not adoption. You are a foster parent to help in what are often emergency situations. 'Meeting' ahead of time doesn't come into it.

[Alpo]

Interesting.

 

I have met some children in my lifetime that I would not want them in my house for 10 minutes, let alone for days or weeks. I guess it's a good thing I was never a foster parent, because I would definitely want to meet the kid before he showed up.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

It's voluntary, you don't have to receive a child in the first place unless you agree, and if the child doesn't 'work out' for behavior or whatever, you can have CPS pick them up.

 

It's true you have to have a certain level of tolerance. Not many of these kids have happy family backgrounds.

 

As far as older kids are concerned, you can of course ask to meet them.

 

Consider this issue: my parents don't want me, and now these people don't want me either. Didn't do well enough in the interview, I guess.

Edited August 24 by Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619

[Pat Riot]

1 hour ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

Usually, CPS will notify you of the need, you will agree, and they will deliver the child or children to your home. This is when you first meet the child, in most circumstances.

 

This is fostering, not adoption. You are a foster parent to help in what are often emergency situations. 'Meeting' ahead of time doesn't come into it.

Perhaps not today but I knew foster parents in 1978 that had the option to meet perspective foster children at the CPS office. 
 

Also, it depends on the individual state regs and laws. 
 

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

37 minutes ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

Consider this issue: my parents don't want me, and now these people don't want me either. Didn't do well enough in the interview, I guess.

Quick question: what percentage of kids ARE there because their parents don't want them as opposed to how many have been removed from the parents?

It's an entirely different matter if you are basically rescuing the kids from a bad home, or whether the kid is a up and coming psychotic serial killer whose parents just can't handle the continuous bad behaviour. 

My ex-sister gave her kid up to the state when he was 14 because she and her husband simply couldn't take his constant refusal to behave like a civilised human being and the running away from home, only to be brought back, literally kicking and screaming by CPS authorities, just to have those same CPS people watch to see whether the kid was handled with kid gloves or not, with the unspoken knowledge that if they tried anything more than "Please be nice" to get him out of the van, THEY would be in trouble.   

Several years after this happened, when he aged out of the Foster System, (I got the impression that he never lasted long with anybody), my daughter found out on Fakebook that he was in a homeless facility,  and invited him to come out here. 

Long story short, (I know, THIS is SHORT?), he was here about 9 months, and by the time he left, he'd cost my daughter 2 jobs, her apartment, uncounted tears, and earned himself a Police record in Tucson.

I had to pay off his drug dealer at least once to keep him away from my daughter, It was so bad that my daughter lost about 30 lbs over the whole situation.

He is a complete Sociopath, on drugs, and a master manipulator. He went to the County Psych unit several times and was kicked out of a number of Drug Rehab facilities.

The last time he was kicked out of one, he wanted to stay with us. He was basically told NONBFN. I was finally able to convince him to accept a bus ticket back to Ohio, and I was worried so much about it that I sat at the bus station while be boarded the bus, watched that he didn't get off, and followed the bus out of town just to make sure that he left.  

I'm actually surprised that he hasn't made national headlines as the latest serial killer. It's not a stretch to say that the world would be a better place with him not in it. 

I thank God every time I think about it that he hasn't come back out here knocking on my door. 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

In our personal experience, over a ten year period several decades ago, most kids were the product of neglect rather than outright abuse, and the goal was to return them to their parents when said parents got their acts together. Most of the kids had a strong desire to return home, too, and eventually did.

 

Older kids, adolescents, were another issue altogether.

[largo casey #19191]

Here in New Mexico there has been a lot of problems with CYFD.

My grandkids are in the system.The two boys were placed with their fathers brother who admitted to molesting theyer dad.They are somewhere in Arkinsaw now.The oldest got out youngest still there.To me they are a dirty courupt orgination.

                                                                                                                                                                                  Largo

[Gateway Kid SASS# 70038 Life]

Don’t know about other places but my wife’s BFF photographer friend was a foster parent for forty years in Alaska. Her husband was a correctional officer for most of those years and during that time they fostered 50 children, often 2-3 at a time to keep a family unit together. Most were infants or young children under the age of eight. She has stories of neglect, apathy and outright abuse that would leave you crying. Most were children who had been removed from their parents after repeated complaints through the system to CPS and some were emergency removal usually after some kind of domestic violence incident. She says the majority were just brought to her and that would be the first contact though as time went on she tried to at least meet them in the CPS offices. I have nothing but respect for those who will take in unwanted children, especially so many. She looks back at that period and says most were eventually placed in loving homes and went on to (relatively) normal lives but some were definitely destined to become adults in the criminal justice system. Even those she cries for after all that time. 
Regards

    

Gateway Kid