Timing is Everything?

Learned today that the very day we agreed to take in L and O, the DFCS office in charge of the 3 G's finally called to schedule a meeting between us and the kids.

A Decision to Make

The next phone call came almost a month to the day after we had agree to take in the 3 siblings whose DFCS office was not able to keep a caseworker on the file long enough to schedule a meeting with us.

L is a 7 year old girl; O is a 3 year old boy. They are likely to be a very short term placement as there's a mother, father and grandmother all involved in the conversation of the best permanent placement for them. However, at that moment, they were sitting in a county DFCS office, looking for a place to sleep that night.

The agency had been turning away placements for children that would have fit well into our home over the past month while they held us available to the 3 G's. They had told that county so and now called us with the most difficult decision either of us had ever had to make. Did we want to continue to wait for the 3 siblings or could we take on these 2 instead?

Over the last month we had reminded ourselves not to let the waiting affect our reaction to the children themselves. Whatever reason for the delay -- Were the DFCS workers incompetent? Possible. Were they overworked and understaffed? Highly likely. The case had changed hands in that office at least twice in that month. -- regardless of who was at fault, it wasn't the children. Could we walk away from them now . . . never having met them?

Ultimately, we decided that we had to help those we could. The 3 we had been waiting for were currently safe, although separated; L and O were sitting in an office with nowhere to sleep that night. Within a few hours, they arrived at our house.

"This will be a pretty short-term placement . . ." Well, we learned with R and A that those words mean nothing. There would be a hearing on their case in 2 or 3 days. After that, we would know more about why they were here and how long they might stay.

The Three

The next call came a few months later, after school was out for the summer. I had come to terms with the quick departure of R and A by reminding myself that we had given them a really good day. Maybe that was all we were allowed to offer them; hopefully it was all they needed. If a child returns to the foster system, their former foster parents are called; if they'd been taken into care again, we would know.

This time, there were 3 of them, ages 4, 2 and 1.5. Their father was incarcerated; their mother had surrendered the children into care, stating that she "couldn't cope." Both parents were former foster children themselves and there was no extended family to step in to help. This case was already looking for a family that would ultimately adopt the children. Was that us?

Big deep breath again. OK, we said. If it does turn into an adoption, we will have 6 children of our own and will be done with foster care. But we'll do it.

The three children were already in foster care, but split across 2 homes. The county DFCS office was looking for a permanent family willing to reunite them. Since the children were already in a safe place, we would have a slow transition process in order to make sure it was the best fit. The last thing anybody wanted was for these children to have to be moved any more times than absolutely necessary. We sent off our available dates and times for a "neutral site" initial meeting with the children and waited.

And waited.

And called to follow up only to be told that no one in the county office is returning phone calls, although they said via email that they wanted to set up a meeting with us.

So we were still waiting . . . a month later. When the next call came.