Many times when I tell people we are getting certified to fost-adopt, they ask, "can the kids be taken away from you?"
The answer to this question has two parts:
1. Once adoption is finalized, you are the permanent parent, and the birth family has absolutely no parental rights.
2. Before that there is a period of uncertainty, but it's not as bad as it sounds if you educate yourself.
I find the easiest way to understand is going from best case scenario to worst case scenario.
When Birth Family is Doing OK
Every birth parent has the right to parent their children, as long as they can provide a safe and stable home life for their children.
When Birth Family is Struggling
In some cases, birth parents don't know that there are resources to help them provide that safe and stable home life and when social workers show up at their doors, it's a simple matter of helping the birth family learn how they can get access to diapers, childcare, food stamps, etc, and the kids don't need to enter the foster system.
When Birth Family is Endangering Kids
In more dire cases where the birth family has untreated drug addiction or mental health problems that prevent them from being able to safely parent the kids and the kids are in immediate danger because of abuse or extreme neglect, then the kids are removed from the home as a last resort and placed into emergency foster care.
Side Note: emergency care is usually a temporary placement - anywhere from 24 hours to several weeks until the social worker finds a foster family willing to take the kids for a longer period of time (months) or a fost-adopt family who is interested in adopting the kids if they become free for adoption.
When Birth Family Gets It Together
Once kids are in foster care, the birth family begins support services. This may mean therapy, parenting classes, anger management classes, drug or alcohol rehab, or other services. In many cases, these services in combination with a break in parenting allows the birth family to get their lives back in order and be able to create a safe home for kids come back to. This is called Reunification (more on this at the end of the post).
In other cases, the birth parents are not able to do so but someone else in the birth family can, such as an aunt or uncle or a grandparent. Then they can apply to legally adopt the kids if they can demonstrate that they are able to provide a safe and stable home life. Adoption by kin is part of what is called Concurrent Planning (more on this at the end of the post).
When No One in Birth Family Can Parent The Kids
If there is no one in the birth family who can provide a safe and stable home for the kids, the state does not want the kids sitting around in foster care forever. They want kids to be out of foster care within a year and a half, whether because they reunify with their birth family or because they are adopted into a forever home.
Essentially, adoption into a new family only happens when everything else fails. This is a good thing. It's wonderful when kids are able to stay with their birth family, as long as they can live a safe and healthy childhood. But that is not always possible, and where it isn't, adoption is a beautiful thing. Remember, the goal is always to do what is best for the child.
Uncertainty During The Process
Concurrent Planning
When kids are in the foster system, their social workers are working on multiple plans for the kids. What if the birth parents get it together? What if they don't but there is a grandparent who can and is interested? What if they end up needing to be adopted? For each of these three possibilities, the social worker has to create a concurrent plan. They are looking for potential fost-adopt families while simultaneously looking for kin who can and want to adopt, even while the birth parents are working toward getting their kids back.
Before terminating parental rights, which clears the kids for adoption, they want to see that the kids are in a home with adoptive parents where the whole family is settled in and thriving. This means that fost-adopt parents always bring kids into their home who may reunify with some member of the birth family. One of the things a fost-adopt family learns about any potential placement is where the kids are in the process, whether the birth family is actively working towards getting their kids back, whether there has been contact with any other adults in the extended family, etc.
Reunification
Every fost-adopt parent needs to be educated about the process of fost-adoption and the possible outcomes they may face by choosing this route. No case is certain until adoption is finalized. At our FFA, about 35% of kids who get placed with fost-adopt parents reunify with some member of their birth family, whether their birth parents or a member of their extended family.
HOWEVER it is critically important for foster parents to get attached to their kids regardless of whether they reunify or not. If foster parents are crying, devastated, and heartbroken to say goodbye to the kids that leave their care, it shows the kids that they are worth caring about, that they are difficult to say goodbye to. Attaching to kids is a huge investment of time and emotion, and it's a gift that foster parents give to children. All children deserve to be loved and to be shown that they are worthy of love.
It Will Be OK
Things that are painful aren't always harmful. Rather than thinking of it as an emotional risk, going into fost-adoption with understanding and compassion makes the uncertainty more bearable and the end result more rewarding. Any kids we fall in love with who reunify with their birth family will be better off for having been in our care, and we want to be happy for them that they get to reunify with their birth family.
I'm not one to believe in the "everything happens for a reason" mantra, but when it so happens that the children we love need a forever family, I know we will be the right family for them.
