File this post under “my two cents.” Children in North America who have no parents are commonly referred to as “foster children.” Children from overseas, especially developing countries are called “orphans.” Why is that? They are orphaned for the same reasons reasons in Africa, Asia and the USA. Violence, drugs, and disease are orphan makers in New Deli and New York.
I ask because I am faced with the difference on a regular basis. The work we do at Forever Homes is all about helping parentless kids, and I find myself having to use the very verbose “foster children waiting for adoption and orphans from around the world” when I am really referring to the same thing. If I talk about our work to help orphans find forever homes it implies that I am speaking about the good people doing international adoption. While this annoying the prespective of trying to be succinct and pithy, it bothers me on a much deeper level.
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It has been a year of achievments at Forever Homes. We received our tax exempt status from the IRS, we are having our first big public event, and we have doubled the amount of families we serve. But one mile stone, over all the others, makes us feel “all grown up” — we received our first corporate sponsorship.
Archibald’s Incorporated became the first official sponsor of the “Not Forsaken Campaign.” The Archibald name is synonymous with the highest levels of ethical business practices resulting in unparalleled levels of customer satisfaction since 1981. They were named the fastest growing small business in Washington state and 7th fastest growing in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine. In addition to their outstanding reputation in the Tri-Cities as a dealer of high-end pre-owned vehicles they will go down in history as the first business sponsor of Forever Homes.
All of us here at Forever Homes appreciate the faith that Archibald’s has placed in our ability to help hurting kids. All money received from the “Not Forsaken Campaign” will go to serve children stuck in foster care and orphans from around the world.
The first year or two after the placement of a child with an attachment issue is very difficult on the child and the family. I equate it to a trauma treated in an emergency room. It is not pretty and there are some extreme measure that need to be taken to stabilize the patient. Having gone through this myself a couple of times, I wish I had had something I could have given to the people around me to help them know how they could help (actually not working against me would have been fine too). I wrote this list so that adoptive parent can have something to hand to their support network. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below.
1. Don’t offer unsolicited advice. You were a wonderful parent. However, adopting an older/special needs child is different. The child acts different around the adoptive parents than they do around anyone else. You probably think advice will help, but when you offer advice all the parent really hears is, “You aren’t very good at this.” If the parents feel their decisions are being scrutinized, it creates an added pressure. Instead of thinking about what would be best for the child in a given situation, they’ll be wondering how others are going to judge them. If you really want to help, see 6 & 7 below.
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2 years from the date of our incorporation, and 8 months after filing our application, Forever Homes has finally received its letter of determination from the Internal Revenue Service declaring that we are exempt from Federal Income tax. Although I knew that there wouldn’t be a problem receiving this status, I am relieved that we finally have it. We have heard horror stories about some organizations that waited two or more years from the application date to receive their letter of determination.
So what does this mean to our donors and families? First, donors gifts dating back to August of 2006 are, in fact, tax-deductible, as are all gifts, bequests, and devises from this point on. Second our families can count on increased level of support as we are now able to launch publicly, begin public fund raising, and seek grant money for programs to help abused and neglected kids find permanent safe and loving homes.
Since this is such a momentous occasion, I thought I’d take a quick trip down memory lane and take a peek into the future of Forever Homes.
Join us in for a concert at South Hills Church on Friday May 15th at 7pm for as we rally together to proclaim that the 120,000 children waiting for adoption in the United States and the 5 millions orphans around the world are not forgotten, not abandoned and NOT FORSAKEN.
Christian Music artists Shawn McDonald and Meredith Andrews will be on hand to lead in worship and inspiration. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. You can buy them online here, or pick them up at South Hills Church or Parable Bookstore. Doors open at 6:30
Yeah, kids bounced around in foster care fall behind in school. Yeah, school is important. But parents of RAD kids just can’t be involved in helping their kids with homework. Jennie has been great at separating home from school in the kids minds, while working tirelessly with the teachers. (I on the other hand want to duct tape the kids to their desk chairs until their homework is done). Because of this our first two children have made tremendous academic achievement.
I ran across this article on attachment.org that really explains this concept.
When parents push or interrupt around the issue homework and responsibility, the oppositional child will push back, and what they push away is the knowledge they have to have to succeed in life. As push comes against shove in the homework battle the parent/child relationship can be destroyed. I’ve had parents describe to me, sitting at the table, four to five hours nightly, as a child cries and argues and fusses, and whines over each page. I asked one incredibly dedicated father, after he asked me the solution to his nightly homework battle with his son, how his son’s grades were, he replied, “He’s failing!”. Parents push, the children fail. read the whole article
’tis the season to reflect on the previous year, so I wanted to highlight some of my favorite moments from 2008 and all that God is doing in and through Forever Homes.
Support Group
In March we started the Forever Homes support group and in 9 months it has grown into a wonderful, active and nurturing group. We weren’t sure if anyone would show up, but we knew that no one else was providing this kind of support for adoptive families. We handed out some flyers and made some phone calls and had 5 families our first night. We have met every fourth Monday night since then and our network has grown to about a dozen families supporting and caring for one another. More than that, this group of strangers has become great friends and allies in helping their hurting children heal. We had a memorial day picnic together, a weekend camping trip, and a Christmas party. Our mom’s have kept Starbucks and Smoovies in business through their impromptu meetings.
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A recent law passed in the Washington State legislature, allowing foster families to camp in State Parks for free, was the only excuse the families at Forever Homes needed to plan the First Annual Forever Homes Camping Trip.
Families with a mixture of foster, adopted and biological children met on July 19th at Lewis and Clark Trail State Park for an afternoon of tubing down the Touchet River and other water fun. That evening the kids cooked over the fire, roasted s’mores, told campfire stories and sang songs before heading to their tents.
The parents of Forever Homes families work to provide many positive family experiences that kids from broken homes don’t generally get to experience.
For more pictures from the camping trip check out our flickr page. (Faces of some children have been blurred to protect their identity – Forever Homes parents can e-mailThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it us to request unedited versions)
Forever Homes was featured in the Community Section of The Perfect Move Magazine. You can download the entire edition from The Perfect Move website, or get it here.
Jacob’s case tragically illustrates. At 4 years old, he was removed from his mother’s care because she was living with a sex offender.
Jacob’s father was given custody of his children, but within days he returned them to the state because he was headed to prison.
State workers shuttled Jacob through 45 different foster homes in 13 years. Not provided adequate therapy to deal with his likely sexual abuse and the chaos of being a child without a family, Jacob’s behavior grew increasingly dangerous until nobody wanted him.
Now he is within months of his 18th birthday, being held in a secure mental health treatment facility and being given psychotropic drugs to control his behavior, even though Gievers says he has never been diagnosed with a mental illness.
Tampa Tribune, February 2, 2008
This story from Tampa, FL is just one of several stories about the horrors of foster care that show up in the worlds newspapers EVERY DAY. Don’t just take my word for it though, just go to news.google.com and search for “foster care.” I post some of these articles here on the Forever Homes website because I want to make sure that people understand that Foster Care is not the long term solution for abused and neglected children.
I think that as American that we assume that our kids are ok since we don’t have sweat shops, homeless kids running the streets or orphanages (although some could rightly argue that many of the group homes and residential care facilities are pretty much orphanages). Although there are many shortcomings in the foster care system, there are many wonderful people who serve as case managers, supervisors and foster parents. The fault is not with the people, but with the system as a whole. In foster care we have given control of the child’s life to the government of the state. Here are some examples of the things the state does pretty well.
- State governments are great for making rules. Thousands of rules, some of which make sense, govern every aspect of the child’s life.
- State governments are great at receiving and investigating allegations of abuse and neglect.
- State governments are great at pulling at risk kids from their homes. Lets face it, those are the times you really want the police around.
- State governments are great at collecting taxes from the public to pay for the child’s care.
But the state government was not designed, nor was will it ever be good at parenting. Governments can not nurture, love, or care with their whole heart about the welfare of one child. That is what parents do.
The people cry for reforms to foster care and sue the government for mistreating kids, but in my opinion the fault does not lay with our state agencies. They are honestly doing just about the best job they can at something the are not designed to do. If we are going to complain, lets complain about why there are not more people doing something about the problem.
Our State agencies are working to place about 200,000 kids a year into adoptive homes. 120,000 of those kids are going to keep waiting, many until they age out of the system. Lets motivate churches to step up and recruit parents
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