Because foster care is not set up to meet you need to adopt. It is to help families be successful. The last resort is adoption. If something happened in your. Life and your child was placed in foster care, would you want the opportunity to get them back or would you allow them to be adopted by strangers who have a need for a second child.

Can you imagine how high the legal bar would have to be in order to irrevocably remove the kids? I think the net effect would be that kids couldn't get removed as quickly as they need to be for their own safety. Plus you are always going to have cases like illness or incarceration which are not permanent.

Anonymous wrote:16:32 and 19:33 have it rightt. I'm an adoptive mom-- through intl. adoption---where there was no foster system and no real push for reunification. My older DS was 5 when removed from bio-mom---and had there been any meaningful framework for reunification---he would have been much, much better off emotionally if he could have returned to her. Even though by every objective (and most subjective) measurements he is better off with us, his love for her---neglectful and indifferent though she was---is just too powerful. I worry so much that his unhappiness at her abandonment is so deep that he will eventually ruin his life because of it, as he has some of the significant behavior issues that 19:32 mentioned.

His sister, on the other hand, is a completely different story.
So it just varies dramatically from child to child.

This is so sad.

16:32 and 19:33 have it rightt. I'm an adoptive mom-- through intl. adoption---where there was no foster system and no real push for reunification. My older DS was 5 when removed from bio-mom---and had there been any meaningful framework for reunification---he would have been much, much better off emotionally if he could have returned to her. Even though by every objective (and most subjective) measurements he is better off with us, his love for her---neglectful and indifferent though she was---is just too powerful. I worry so much that his unhappiness at her abandonment is so deep that he will eventually ruin his life because of it, as he has some of the significant behavior issues that 19:32 mentioned.

His sister, on the other hand, is a completely different story.
So it just varies dramatically from child to child.

My SIL was in foster care for a time as a child. Her family is a train wreck--many times she and my brother have moved, changed their phone numbers, had to call the police on various relatives and she still keeps letting them into their lives, despite the fact that there is nothing positive about the relationship.

Sometimes children are removed from parents on false grounds. Social workers make mistakes too. Sometimes it is mothers illness, like post natal depression, which does not last a lifetime, sometimes a parent agrees to bring a child in. Not all drug addicts.

Anonymous wrote:There are like three recent threads from OPs who clearly don't understand the point of the foster system.

Then good thing they are asking so they can learn.

OP, I did foster to adopt (and also international adoption) and I am also a social worker, though not in the adoption or foster care field. PPs are correct, studies have shown that it is best for the children to be reunited with their parents and second best is to remain in the biological family. The heartbreak and stress of possibly losing a child that you thought would become part of your family is difficult. But it's by far not the only difficult issue. Kids who become eligible for adoption tend to be older and they come with baggage, including, sometimes, behavior problems.

You are wise to take your time and educate yourself. One of my kids was place in multiple foster to adopt situations before ending up with me and I think that's because the other families had not prepared themselves for the reality of a child who has been removed from the home and placed for adoption. I'm sure it was not good for any of them.

Anonymous wrote:Please don't attempt to foster or adopt if you can't understand why reunification is important.

+1

You have a lot more research and thinking to do before you consider going down this path, OP.

There are like three recent threads from OPs who clearly don't understand the point of the foster system.

Please don't attempt to foster or adopt if you can't understand why reunification is important.

Anonymous wrote:I took PRIDE training to become a foster parent in MoCo last June. The way social workers and foster parents explained it, the kids who are old enough to express their opinions all want reunification. They all want to believe the best of their parents and that their parents can change.

Another thing we learned is that most (70 - 75%) of the kids in foster care in MoCo are there because their parents have drug addictions so severe that they're not always good parents. Through monitored programs the parents are given the chance to get clean, and some do. So reunification is possible and its what most kids and most parents want.

One of the most surprising things about the class, to me anyway, was just how many of the other people were there to foster a niece, nephew or grandchild, to help out a sibling or a child with a drug problem.

Of course the parents and the kids all want reunification. That's not why they push for it though -- they push for reunification because it's the best thing for the kids if the parents get their act together. They don't push for reunification when the parents have not met the goals set out by the courts for reunification within a specified amount of time, whether the kids and parents want it or not. The kids are not in a position to make those decisions (and sadly neither are the parents if they are on drugs).

I took PRIDE training to become a foster parent in MoCo last June. The way social workers and foster parents explained it, the kids who are old enough to express their opinions all want reunification. They all want to believe the best of their parents and that their parents can change.

Another thing we learned is that most (70 - 75%) of the kids in foster care in MoCo are there because their parents have drug addictions so severe that they're not always good parents. Through monitored programs the parents are given the chance to get clean, and some do. So reunification is possible and its what most kids and most parents want.

One of the most surprising things about the class, to me anyway, was just how many of the other people were there to foster a niece, nephew or grandchild, to help out a sibling or a child with a drug problem.

I think studies show it's best for the kids. Although I know someone whose father walked out on them when he was a kid. He reconnected with his father when he was in college. They have a great relationship now -- mainly I think because his father wasn't around during the tween/teen years for there to be any conflict. He thinks his dad is the greatest guy.....

I think it's the kids. Many/most kids past a certain age are irrevocably bonded to their family, for better or for worse. Social workers will tell you that some kids will continue to run back to their old families, even if they were victims of horrific abuse. If they get adopted, they often are just counting the days until they're 18 and can ditch the new family. So kinship care and reunification are considered to be higher priority now.

I have always been interested in adoption through foster care. I have one bio child now but my husband and I thinking very hard on how we might want to expand our family. I greatly admire folks who become foster parents but the heartbreak just seems too much for me. I don't understand why reunification has become so paramount? I need a social worker to answer this question for me. Do the parents really change that much and change permanently? It seems if a mom is screwed up enough to have her kids taken from her then its impossible for her to truly turn her life around and handle her kids again? are social workers just assuming that any positive change, even short term, is enough to try reunification again? I swear I am not trying to start some arguement, these are genuine questions I have wondered about.