Foster Children - Foster Care Stages to Moving Foster kids into Forever Homes

You probably know that the focus of Find Families In Mexico is to get children out of foster care. Our organization's vision is for "all U.S. foster children to have a permanent home." We make this happen by locating a foster child's relatives, the critical first step in the process to move foster youth into forever homes. Many have asked about what happens to foster kids once their relatives have been found.


When we have completed our work, called family finding, a case moves to the second stage called "engagement." During this part, agencies will notify all the relatives who were identified in the initial family finding stage. This list may include as many as 60 adult relatives.

Relatives go through a screening process to ensure they are willing and able to take in and care for a foster child. When an appropriate match is identified and verified, the process advances so that the foster youth will be put in relative placement.

Sometimes no adult relatives are found during the family finding process. Once evidence is presented that every reasonable effort has been made to identify and locate the child's relatives without success, the court will often allow the case to move toward adoption or to placement with unrelated adults.


Our organization has a success rate of 95% resulting in relatives being located. The question that people often ask is, "What happens to the U.S. foster children whose relatives are found living in Mexico?" Our work often leads to other, possibly unknown, family members who are living in the U.S. In these cases, foster children go to live with their U.S. relatives.

Another common question is, "What happens if the only relatives found are living in Mexico?" First there is the matter that virtually every case we handle involves U.S.-born children who had at least one U.S.-born parent. The U.S. courts are not known for shipping U.S. citizens to other countries. Just imagine the headlines if a U.S. child was sent to the Ukraine or Liberia!

You may argue (and please do so in the Comment section below) that foster kids should be with their families. That is a philosophical aspect that we will leave to others although we did work a case where sending the child back to live with the birth mother would have been completely amoral. What we can share is that in every case we have worked, the foster youth stayed in the U.S. either with relatives or adoptive parents.


The goal of foster care agencies is to move the 400,000 foster kids out of the system either back with their parents or into forever homes. Foster children benefit from finally having a stable home and adults who care about them. Taxpayers benefit because of the savings of hundreds of millions of dollar that are spent annually supporting children while in the foster care system.

Family finding, locating a foster kid's relatives, is vital to the foster care mission. More funding needs to be directed to this activity so that agencies and taxpayers aren't paying for damage control while foster youth continue to spend years forgotten in a government institution.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico
760-690-3995

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Get a PDF copy of this blog on where foster kids go to live.

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Foster Children - Foster Child's Birth Father Notified of Pending Adoption

Children enter foster care for a variety of reasons. The hope is that the foster kid will be returned to their parent(s) or placed with relatives. Sometimes a foster child is put up for adoption. At this point many state laws require that foster child agencies locate and serve papers to an absent parent letting them know of the pending adoption. This can be challenging when a parent lives outside the U.S.


A family law attorney with the Booker Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas needed to locate a biological father. The foster kid's mother, living in the U.S. and divorced from the father, had filed an adoption request for sole custody of their daughter with the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas.


Adoption can be a complicated process when foster care agencies have to go outside the U.S. in search of a parent as in this case. Add to this challenge that some parents make it very difficult to have papers served on them.

Sometimes an agency has a phone number, but no physical address. We have worked such case where our expertise was needed to discover a home address in Mexico so adoption notification papers could be sent. As the U.S. population becomes more diverse, the need for organizations that have international expertise can only increase.

There can also be time constraints meaning that if a parent cannot be found within a certain period of time, a TPR (termination of parental rights) can be issued by the court. However, while all of this effort is expended to locate a parent and notify them of their parental rights or ability to terminate their rights, a foster child is sitting alone in a government institution, potentially at risk of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.


Fortunately for the foster youth involved in this case, we discovered where the father was living in just a couple of weeks. We presented his home address and phone number to the attorney who promptly sent out the paperwork about the adoption.

Many mothers and fathers lose their rights to custody of their child simply because state agencies cannot find the parent. Adoption law requires agencies to do their utmost to locate and serve papers to both parents, even those who may have no moral right to block an adoption. I believe it's better to err on the side that a parent may truly want to be part of their child's life than to automatically cut them off.

Foster children need every connection to loving, caring family they can have, even those wayward parents who arrive very late in their child's life.  

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico
760-690-3995

PS. Share your thoughts and ideas below and share this post with others.

Get a PDF copy of this blog on a foster child being adopted by her mother.

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Foster Child - Adoption of Foster Kid Is Sometimes the Best Move

A primary aim of foster care is to get children out of the system as soon as possible, ideally back to their parent(s). Barring this, agencies look to have foster youth placed with relatives or non-related adults. Adoption is another option available for foster children. As much as we are an advocate for relative placement, there are times when adoption is a better outcome for a foster child.


For 90% of the foster kids who age out (are forced out) of foster care, they will stop their education, become homeless, turn to drugs, become a victim of sex trafficking or end up in prison, usually within just two years. It’s a horrific future. Any alternative that can keep a child from aging out alone is desirable.

We handled a case involving a foster teen who was in the system along with her baby. She had no relatives in the U.S. so adoption was seen as the best solution. Often in cases where a child is up for adoption, state laws exist that mandate that agencies do their utmost to locate and notify a child's biological parents. They were known to be living in two completely separate parts of Mexico, the equivalent of Los Angeles and New York.





Michael Nash, the presiding judge of Juvenile Court, Los Angeles

This foster child case is one where the judge was clearly a positive force on behalf of the foster child. The judge had almost monthly court dates and insisted on having updates placing periodic but consistent pressure on the case worker.


We understand that social workers handling foster children cases are overworked. However, that does not excuse poor or no follow up. This case dragged on for months in large part because of delayed or no response to our inquiries. Only when a court date was pending would we get a flurry of communication from the case worker. It was definitely an example of how the courts can push a case in a positive direction.

We located both biological parents. Due to issues of confidentiality, there is much about the case that we cannot share. We can say that one of the parents was in a very remote part of Mexico with no telephone or easy form of contact. It's doubtful given the situation that the agency was ever able to maintain much contact with the parent. Communication is critical because once relatives are notified and have indicated they want to be part of a foster kid's life, foster care agencies vet the family members.

Since the teen was already placed with a very caring foster couple who was willing to take in both the girl and her baby, the courts decided on adoption.


This case highlights that judges can make a positive impact on a foster child's life. Judges can provide a balance of power with social services and any Guardian Ad Litem or CASA volunteer working on behalf of a foster youth. Without the judge having taken such an active role in the case and prodding the social worker, there is ample evidence that the teen may have aged out due to inactivity.


We have to point out that all three sides involved with foster youth have come to us for help. Although we work most often with Child Protective Services, we have handled cases involving the 9th Circuit Court and are doing more cases directly with CASA.


In a perfect world, parents love, protect and support their children unconditionally. But we don't live in a perfect world. There are times that despite biology, some parents are uncaring, irresponsible and unloving. In the worst of circumstances, parents are abusive and cruel, a physical danger to the lives of their children, resulting in their kids being in foster care in the first place.

Foster children are served best when all parties: case workers, CASA volunteers and judges work together to provide the best outcome possible. Sometimes adoption is best for a child.

Regards,


  Richard

Richard Villasana
Find Families In Mexico
760-690-3995

PS. Share your thoughts and ideas below and share this post with others.

Get a PDF copy of this blog about a foster teen and her baby given up for adoption.

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