Adoptive Grandparents Need Support

 One issue that has been on my mind for a long time was the lack of supportive care my grandparents had to adopt my four siblings and me. As a kid, I was in and out of foster care from the ages of six to twelve because of being abused and neglected by both my parents and their never-ending stream of partners. Both my mother and father at the time would rather buy drugs and alcohol instead of food for us children. Because of this, we starved. I was malnourished when I was first placed into DCFS. Often, my brothers, sisters and I were only allowed one meal per day and were punished if we got into any food related items in the kitchen. Some meals that I remember eating as a kid consisted of only these items: sugar cubes, canned tuna because we had to feed our cats, fruit loops given to us dry, in the box, in the morning and told to make it last, and most memorable a maggot ham that we had to cut around to eat. Reasons like this were why I often went hungry. I remember being so grateful when school time rolled around because it meant that I got three meals a day. My older brother got caught several times stealing honey buns and pop tarts from the nearby gas station. He got into so much trouble trying to keep us safe and fed. He worried so much about what we were eating next because he understood more than us younger kids what was going on. 

I know I keep rambling on about food, but it is most important to the story because it wasn't the fact that we were malnourished, abused, and smelled like pee and cigarettes every day that caught the school administration’s or DCFS’s attention. The specific situation that got us permanently taken away from our parents happened one morning when my sister woke up yet again, hungry. My mother, being high on drugs, was asleep on the couch. When she was like this it was nearly impossible to wake her up, and when she did wake up, it was crucial to get out of her sight for at least three hours unless we wanted her wrath. My sister tried to wake my mom up for something to eat and she wouldn't budge. So, my sister went back upstairs, only to come back about an hour later to try again but with the same luck only this time she went into the kitchen. She pulled a chair over to the counter to get into the cabinet to see what she could find to eat. She found a sleeve of ritz crackers and began eating them. I guess my mom had heard my sister come downstairs because my mom walked into the kitchen to find my sister eating. She beat my sister for this, probably because she wasn't high anymore and needed to get high. My sister had a phone at the time and ended up calling the police. I don't remember this day at all except for being put into a car in my pajamas and going to the DCFS office. 

After going to several different homes for a few months of my life, I was placed into the care of my paternal grandparents. While I can say that my physical needs were met with my grandparents, I think that the emotional support lacked significantly. See, at my grandparents’ home, we were emotionally abused, called pigs, told to use our brains, called dumb, basically worthless, and most memorable, my grandpa telling my sister to go kill herself and that he would help her do it. I've heard from my family that from the period of my dad and his brothers being children to my siblings and I being children, my grandpa has calmed down a lot. Generational trauma is most certainly present in my family. This makes me terrified to hear the stories of what happened to them as they have never come to light, but also a little confused. My mother and father however, after all the abuse and neglect they gave during their addiction, had to go through a significant list of requirements such as parenting classes, NA meetings, AA meetings, randomized drug tests, randomized house visits, visitations with their children, and so much more I cannot think of. What's most heartbreaking however was that after my mother cleaned up her act and completed all the mandated requirements, more requirements were added. It only continued like this until she was fed up and surrendered her rights as a parent in the state of Illinois. The system was working against her. She lost her children, relapsed, went to prison, and only now is turning herself and her life around. 

What I would like to point out however, is that my grandparents didn't have to take any parenting classes. No required meetings, random drug tests, and most importantly no follow up care for either the parental guardians or the children involved, only the fact that they were our grandparents held up. According to americanbar.org, “kinship caregivers often receive fewer supports than non-relative foster parents”. My grandparents didn't understand what it was like to raise children in today's world, let alone children that have severe trauma from abuse and neglect. They don't believe in mental illness, and they laugh at counseling and say “just pray about it” to almost everything and because of this, I think my siblings and I’s mental illnesses exacerbated more than it should have. I think it is safe to say that as children, we were all angry and mostly towards each other. We took the abuse and it turned into anger. It wasn't until we got placed together with our grandparents that we trauma bonded, leaned on each other, and became each other's best friends. I think the emotional abuse we took from my grandparents had more of an impact on us because we had just come from such a bad situation, thinking it would be better just to find out it's the opposite. We all suffer from depression, but this didn't show up until we all were in the care of my grandparents. What could have prevented it is education. 

I think that DCFS should mandate all guardianships to take a course at least every two years on mental illness. These courses would be created by social workers, either online or in person, to educate guardianships of mental illness, trauma, abuse, neglect, and other related issues children face. I think that a lot of the arguments and disagreements we had growing up with our grandparents involved them not understanding where we were coming from. They didn't understand our food insecurity, our mental states, or the care we needed to become active members of society, so they couldn't help us out at all. These courses could have offered my grandparents some insight into our thinking and ways of doing things. However, it almost seemed like because it was kinship care, DCFS didn't investigate any further into our situation with our grandparents, when they should have especially after our adoption. As stated by sagepub.com, “the majority of previous research has primarily focused on maltreatment that kinship children suffer, often overlooking the complex trauma, including household dysfunctions, that kinship children experience (Winokur et al., 2014). Therefore, expanding the lens from child maltreatment to include the full spectrum of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is needed to better understand children in kinship care’s behavioral problems”. I think there should be DCFS after care for up to 5 years with just 6-month checkups. During said checkups, I think they should privately interview every family member involved to get a greater picture and take any further action that is needed. 

Another useful requirement that could be implemented to help more children is speaking with them individually. A little bit after being placed into the care of my grandparents, I struggled with food insecurity. Hiding, hoarding, and bingeing food was very common, and I was caught one time, the only time I ever got caught because I never did it again. My grandpa caught me eating my cousin's valentine’s day candy that was hidden on top of the fridge, which at the time I didn't know. I was screamed at, grabbed by the back of the neck and thrown into a love seat that we had. What was most scary, however, was not getting grabbed, but being yelled at. Anyways, DCFS doesn't like when children are grabbed and thrown, so word got around and next thing I know I was sitting next to my grandparents with a social worker in front of me asking me, “do you feel safe here” and my response was “yes” even though I disagreed. I would have told them otherwise had I not been sitting next to my grandparent. It just makes me wonder how many maltreatments slip between the cracks like this because a child is scared to sit in the presence of their abuser and admit that what they did had an impact. I'm not sure if it has changed since then, but I think that, not every visit, but maybe once a month, individual meetings should be necessary. Another requirement that I think all guardianships should have mandated to them is counseling. I think that, especially in situations like mine, generational trauma was present and affected us beyond the protection of DCFS. Just like in social work, you can't help people if you don't help yourself first. That applies to guardianship care as well. 

 

 

References

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10634266221076475

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol30/september_2011/kinship_caregiversreceivefewersupportsthanfosterparents/

Considering Race In Adoption Placements

This reaction essay is a response to an article in The Independent, a British newspaper. Article Link: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/adoption-parents-children-ethnic-match-video-boy-orlando-clark-a9236981.html


As I was searching the internet (the SWK 355 Website) for potential articles to look at and research for ourselves, I came across quite a few articles that caught my eye. As I am interested in becoming an adoption specialist with my degree, I am drawn to articles that contain adoption information. The article I came across while browsing the site was, Children waiting for adoptive parents need love, not a perfect ethnic match. I think this article mainly got my attention because I believe that this is a major issue with adoption around the world today. Although this article and case took place in the UK, this is a situation that occurs all over the world. This article made many great points about what should be looked into when finding a potential adoptive family. As I progress in my education, and in one day, my career, I hope that I can help make a change to the discrimination that comes about when adopting. 

This article starts out by stating that a family in the UK was awarded £120,000 ($148,524 in USD) when a judge found that they were racially discriminated against when trying to adopt a child. This family was rejected because of their Indian ancestry. The adoption agency told this family that only white British pre-school children were available for adoption in the area and they should instead look to adopt from India or Pakistan. Although the couple had successful careers and had secure incomes and a nice home, their ethnicity is what prevented them from being able to adopt. Their ethnicity is what trumped the fact that these individuals were great potential matches to be adoptive parents. This couple has also undergone several rounds of IVF and was unsuccessful and also lost an early pregnancy. The did eventually adopt a child from the US. 

This article also added a case that happened in the US in Michigan as a five-year-old invited his entire kindergarten class to celebrate his adoption with him. Some of his classmates even made statements about how they felt about this child. This case became a viral video and this video shows that the young boy is African American and his adoptive parents are white. This shows that ethnicity is not important to a family and community, it is more important that the boy feels love and security from his parents and other siblings. That is what is important for these children that are being adopted into families. 

It is obvious that adoption agencies would prefer to match ethnicities between children and parents, but to only focus on matching ethnicities could potentially impact that child’s opportunities to be adopted. When agencies try to do this, children are not given the chance to go to a happy, safe, and loving home. That is what is most important for the child, one needs to think about what is best for the child as opposed to matching ethnicities. 

One final point that I would like to add is a quote from the husband. He said, “However matching cultural values and beliefs is just one of many areas that should be assessed when looking at the suitability of adopters to ensure that child’s welfare. It should never be the overriding factor to stop you even being considered— which is what happened to us” (Mander, 2020). 

Overall, I have I always known that discrimination in adoption was very possible and even common. What I want to possibly change about this in the future is to stop making ethnical reasons the main priority as to where a child belongs. I understand that it is important for families to understand the culture that could potentially be added to the family dynamic. I believe the most important aspect is that the child is placed in a home that can provide love, stability, and a safe place. 

Comment

 With more blended families, it is becoming not too uncommon for children of one racial/ethnic identity to have step-parents with different identities. Interracial marriage is also creating more blended families. And as always, there are thousands of international adoptions. All else being equal, as a tertiary consideration, placing children in families with similar ethnic and racial backgrounds may be better, but it rarely makes sense to make this a primary consideration, if we are prioritizing the child’s best interests. There is, however, the interesting case of small groups of indigenous peoples, who may be especially concerned with preserving their culture and identity, and may be especially worried about having children adopted out of their group and into the hegemonic wider society. One issue worth emphasizing is that culture is not in our blood. In some times and places, groups have supplemented their population growth through natural increase (having children) with taking in refugees or even kidnapping young people and young women from other groups and bringing them into their own culture. The idea that you could steal or purchase children from a different group and make them part of your own group was normal. Shared experiences and emotional bonds and social cohesion made tribes and clans, not some shared DNA. In the United States, partly because the culture here incorporated the concept of slavery and the resulting dehumanization of the families that were enslaved, we became obsessed with our genetic heritage and whether we had sub-saharan African ancestry. This continuing obsession with our biological heritage is a cultural attribute that continues to infect our society, and I wonder how many generations must endure this until we have outgrown it.

Student enraged by Tennessee legislation concerning adoption

As I was searching the internet for information on present day policies in the news I came across a very interesting title that caught my eye right away. The title of the article that grabbed my attention is Tennessee OK’s Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination in Adoption. Overall, the article discusses how the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, signed the discriminatory adoption bill into law. This means that any faith based adoption and foster care agencies in the state of Tennessee can turn away same sex couples and other prospective parents who violate the agencies’ religious beliefs. As I was reading this article, another aspect that stood out to me is that eight other states have similar laws, with West Virginia still pending on the law. This article had me very intrigued and I am glad that I decided to read the entire article. 

This article mainly caught my attention because I want to go into the adoption field with my degree. Reading this article actually disgusted me and infuriated me. Reading more and more into it I could not help but agree with what a lot of the individuals who oppose this bill were stating. One of these individuals, the Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David,  was expressing that with “this bill will do nothing to improve the outcomes for children in care, it shrinks the pool of prospective parents and is a blatant attempt to discriminate against LGBTQ Tennesseans.” I could not agree more with this statement made by Alphonso David. It does limit the amount of prospective parents and will eventually lead to an increasing number of children in care. What I do not understand is why they feel like LGBTQ parents would not be a deem-able fit to be parents to children that need a good home. Alphonso David also stated “These legislators are disregarding the best interests of kids in the child welfare system to create a ‘license to discriminate’ against qualified, loving prospective parents.” After reading that statement, it got me to thinking about how LGBTQ parents have just as much love to give and just as much the possibility to provide a wonderful life to a child as a heterosexual couple. Another point that was made in this article is that by allowing faith-based discrimination against the LGBTQ adoptive parents, this law is limiting the pool of potential parents. By allowing this law, agencies can even discriminate to refuse to place these children with close relatives who are LGBTQ or of a different faith than the agency believes in. This bill that is being passed as a law is only harming the children. A statement made by the Rev. Stan J. Sloan, the CEO of Family Equality, “If the bill is signed into a law, Tennessee will join a small group of states that have broken the cardinal rule of child welfare-that the needs of children should come first.” When I think about this statement, it really upsets me how some people can be so against LGBTQ and other religious beliefs that they would put children’s needs below these hateful feelings. In my opinion, if you are going to act this way towards these groups of people, you need to find a different line of work. The individuals that suffer the most from this bill are the vulnerable children, and that is not fair to them. It is also not fair to discriminate against these groups of people. 

After reading this article and trying to let my brain process all of this absurd information, it made me that much more determined to try and change some aspects of child welfare. As I want to work on adoption cases when I earn my degree and start working in the field, I am getting a first look into what I may be dealing with. This article has made me want to change some aspects of the child welfare system but it also makes me nervous to see what the system is going to be like in a year or so when I do start working in the system. Is the system going to be even more beyond repair to where it may be a lost cause? I have always told myself that “I know I can’t change the whole world, but if I can change the life of just one individual, I will consider myself successful.” Overall, this article infuriated me, but it also made me that much more determined to start working on the child welfare system. 

First, I agree that it’s infuriating that people have such prejudices and will be allowed to base decisions on placement using these prejudices to discriminate against potential parents. Any argument that homosexual or queer parents are by nature of their sexual relationships or identities unfit parents isn’t supported by evidence, because even if this were generally true, the adoption agencies could still screen adoptive parents and use valid reasons related to actual unfitness rather than using sexual orientations and identities as a determining factor.

But, for the sake of enhancing our critical thinking, let’s consider the possible motives. 

One possibility is that these adoption agencies have people who dislike LGBTQ, and they are motivated by hatred and a desire to harm the LGBTQ parents who would like to have children through adoption. Another possibility is that they want the “best interests of the child” and believe that any child that grows up in a household headed by LGBTQ will be harmed in some way, and the harm that the child suffers as a result of being in a family with LGBTQ parents is greater than the harm the child suffers if they are must wait longer to find an adoptive family. This would raise empirical questions: how much longer would children have to wait if LGBTQ adoptive parents weren’t allowed to adopt from some agencies? If the discrimination is only allowed in regions where at least agency does not discriminate, would all potential LGBTQ adoptive parents go to the agency that didn’t discriminate against them, and would that remove all harm children would suffer by needing to wait longer for adoptive parents (because there would be no increase in waiting time)? What moral principle would a person claim justifies this sort of bill? I understand that freedom of thought and religious belief is a very fundamental value, and would that freedom of religious expression be damaged by any policies that forced religious groups to allow children in their custodial care to be adopted out to families that were LGBTQ, or atheist, or non-Christian, or “immoral” according to some peculiar religious teachings of the sect operating the child welfare agency (e.g., interracial marriages?) 

But, what if we aren’t so much concerned with the violation of the religious rights of those family welfare agencies, but the religious groups operating them said they would shut down if they weren’t allowed to discriminate against parents who weren’t “spiritually worthy” in some sense (were atheist or LGBTQ or whatever). That would raise questions about harms to children arising from the new decrease in supply of child welfare agencies providing services.  

If our priority is the well-being of the children, I could imagine a situation where religious child welfare organizations could extort from me approval for a bill allowing them to discriminate.  This could happen if: 1) the agencies were doing a lot of help to a lot of children in foster care, and were very successful in placing many children in homes of people the agencies considered spiritually “worthy” (e.g., straight, religious, racially homogenous, and Christian); 2) there was in the same region an agency that did not discriminate against prospective adoptive families based on their “spiritual” condition (e.g., was happy to place children with LGBTQ, atheist, interracial, and non-Christian adoptive parents); 3) the religious agency would cease its operations if it was not allowed to discriminate; 4) there was no plausible alternative possibility of non-discriminatory agencies to take up the increase in demand for chid welfare services if the religious groups closed their child welfare services; 5) there was evidence that if the religious child welfare was forced to not discriminate, and therefore reacted by closing down operations, children awaiting adoption would face much longer waits and placements in areas much further away.  If all those five conditions were met, I think I might regretfully allow some agencies to discriminate, because it would be a way to avoid harm to the children. 

The article did not give us enough information to understand if the government in Tennessee was going to pass the law because failing to do so would cause a collapse in the provision of child welfare services in their state.  Were the child welfare services and adoption services in Tennessee highly dependent on private religious organizations that were threatening to close their doors if they were not permitted to discriminate?  Were there other private child welfare organizations that could place children with LGBTQ parents, so that there would be no delays in adoptions, but where those non-discriminatory agencies unable to take up the service demand if all the discriminatory private agencies ceased providing services?  I wanted to know those, so I could know if this was an entirely ridiculous case of politicians conceding to demands from ignorant citizens to implement stupid policies, or whether this was a case of politicians genuinely concerned about religious freedom and making a pragmatic decision to accommodate some people for the sake of maintaining an adequate level of services to children in foster care and awaiting adoption. 

The Adoption and Safe Families Act

An example of a student descriptive paper.

            Within all classes, races, and statuses there is present the problem of child abuse and neglect. For decades now professionals and citizens have been debating over how to manage this problem and protect the children affected. While now most people agree that there should be some intervention, some are still hesitant about allowing the government to intervene in private family life. Among those who do believe government has a right to intervene, there is still question about how.  Some argue that the best solution is to remove children from homes deemed to be damaging to their welfare. This is called out-of-home placement. Others argue for family preservation. With this model, services are provided to the family in order to better care for children as to prevent out-of-home placement or to speed reunification. One attempt to reconcile these differing viewpoints is the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

            In addition to considering the human cost of not implementing such a program, it is important to evaluate the financial cost of such a program. According to the Child Welfare League of America, the Adoption and Safe Families Act allowed a budget of three hundred and five million dollars for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Program for the fiscal year of 2001. This program was previously known as the Family Preservation and Support Services Program. While a portion of this budget goes toward research and evaluation, it also includes reunification services such as counseling and substance abuse treatment.

            Also according to the Child Welfare League of America, the Adoption and Safe Families Act authorized twenty million dollars for each fiscal year between 1999 and 2003 for states that increase their adoptions from the previous fiscal years. This portion of the act is meant to give the incentive of encouraging adoption which aids in the goal of permanency placement. Permanency as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act is meant to give children stability and permanent homes. Also as part of reaching this goal, the act established a timeline for terminating parental rights and determining permanent placement of the child.

            It is difficult to put a number on the amount of people affected or helped by the Adoption and Safe Families Act. This act applies to families who are going through crisis or have been referred to a child welfare agency. According to the U.S. Children’s Bureau (2012), more than two hundred fifty thousand children enter foster care each year. Although these children are the ones most affected by the act, their entire families are affected by the policies of the act. The people that get services through the Adoption and Safe Families Act receive these services as part of the foster care and reunification or adoption process. These services have been integrated into such systems and some programs such as substance abuse treatment may be mandated in order for a parent to prevent termination of rights and to initiate reunification.

            In order to determine how well the Adoption and Safe Families Act is performing, one must consider his or her own perception of success. According to the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (2002), foster care adoptions increased greatly from 1996 to 2000. They also estimate that the Adoption and Safe Families Act resulted in an additional thirty-four thousand adoptions from 1998 to 2000. This means a large increase in the number of children in permanent homes rather than foster care placements. If one believes in the importance of permanent placements, the program was certainly successful through that time period. Others believe that the immediacy in finding permanent placements has led to the destruction of families. Regardless of one’s own opinion, the Adoption and Safe Families Act led to great change in the child welfare system, particularly the areas of foster care and adoption.

             

References 

Child Welfare League of America. Summary of the adoption and safe families act of 1997. Retrieved from http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/asfapl105-89summary.htm.

U.S. Children’s Bureau (2012). Meet the children. Retrieved from http://www.adoptuskids.org/meet-the-children.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (2002). Foster care facts. Retrieved from http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/FactOverview/foster.html.