Foster care placement call errors or misinformation

Рет қаралды 11,500

5 ай бұрын

It can be frustrating to get the wrong info but it does happen. Removals are traumatic and workers can always get all of the info. Additionally, miscommunications happen, and sometimes context and nuance is missing when describing incidents or needs. I was surprised to hear how many of you have received the wrong info.
This underscores the importance of foster parents being prepared and open minded and making sure we are mindful of how we discuss in front of the child.
Here is the full post of the responses from my followers (free/public): / question-box-on-98187323
How did you support the child when you received the wrong information? Lmk in the comments! ⬇️

Пікірлер: 37

@lonesomebeetroot3376 5 ай бұрын

Oh my goodness I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be for both the child and the foster parent to have a child arrive that is probably upset and confused/scared but also doesn’t speak the same language as you. That’s a pretty big mess up on their part

@TheLeastOfficialOfBros 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, that sounds frightening and horrible for a kid. Being taken away from their parents and some stranger brings them to a new place and drops them off there and for all they know they just got fucking kidnapped

@kathy3178 5 ай бұрын

I know of foster parents who were told the wrong race, gender, and age. They suspect that case worker read them some other child's information.

@KatTheo431 5 ай бұрын

This unfortunately doesn't only happen at removal. Some workers are lazy and really don't read case files. There was massive confusion when I was removed and the reason was listed as abandonment due to a mix-up. That is somewhat excusable. But what isn't is that other foster parents years later were told I had been abandoned. I know that one foster family 3 years later was told completely inaccurate information I've been in contact with the oldest bio daughter in that family recently on Facebook and she said her parents were very upset that they were lied to about me since they wanted to adopt and wouldn't have taken me if they had understood my actual situation. A lot of the things Laura mentions in the video are about kids further along - TRP, visits and so forth. Those aren't removal information being wrong. It's workers inability to f'ing read or give a darn. This is one thing that could easily be fixed to prevent disruptions to avoid giving wrong information. But it's indicative of the low quality of work so many social workers do.

@lemolea9571 5 ай бұрын

I can't image how upsetting it must be to find out that they only took you in based on incorrect information. What was the thing they said they were lied to about, the abandonment? Was it because you were going to be reunified but they thought they could keep you?

@KatTheo431 5 ай бұрын

@@lemolea9571 Reunification wasn't possible for me, but I didn't want to be adopted. I was very committed to taking care of my mom who was left disabled after a drug overdose. That family wanted to adopt (they already had one child adopted from overseas) and weren't interested in fostering and especially didn't want to deal with biofamiles. From what I heard from their daughter, they only had a brief call with the information that I was in care for abandonment, my dad was dead and my mom's parental right had already been terminated. So, they took it as a pre-adoptive placement. They especially liked the idea that I didn't have any bio family. They ended up adopting another child from overseas rather than foster-to-adopt. They were really religious and always talked about how the bible says they have to take care of widows and orphans - but they only really wanted to take care of orphans. They weren't interested in me having contact with my mom. The best type of situation for me would have to have had a foster family willing to do a guardianship but none were. All wanted to adopt and the fact I wanted a high level of contact with my mom after TPR was a dealbreaker.

@jodiebryant2409 5 ай бұрын

My first placement, I required if there any medical issues I should be made aware of, I was told no. Discovered the little one had an inhaler in his suitcase.

@hannahkirby6051 5 ай бұрын

That’s a high percentage, I wish I was more surprised.

@joogle3328 5 ай бұрын

Have been involved in fostering for nearly 8 years and countless caseworkers, CASA’s and GAL’s. Haven’t yet spoken to one who actually knew the facts of the placement.

@amys5669 4 ай бұрын

And, these are the ones writing reports for court ;)

@fibi8346 5 ай бұрын

Thank you Lara. I am currently in the process of foster care training. Following your videos over the last year has been a great support.

@gymnasticsgirlie0647 5 ай бұрын

I understand that mistakes happen (as shown by all the other information gotten wrong highlighted in this video) but isn't there a possibility that the caseworkers were intentionally deceptive about TPR being ordered or the degree to which a child was disabled in order to place them easier?

@sarahmonte1069 5 ай бұрын

From what I understand, children with disabilities can be harder to find placements for because not all foster parents can commit to the high level of care that may be needed, or may just not have the skills or experience to feel confident doing so. Not sure about the TPR situation though.

@KatTheo431 5 ай бұрын

Possibly, but TPR being ordered might discourage a foster parent who doesn't want to adopt. These mistakes don't always encourage someone to take the child. And when they do, claiming a child has fewer behaviors or less of a disability means creating more work when the child has to be moved very quickly.

@catemiehle5783 5 ай бұрын

As a person that has been the one making places in the middle of the night, we try our best! I don't think I ever gave anyone the wrong gender but I definitely have called around at 3 am exhausted. I worked for the child placing agency so I parroted to foster parents directly what I was told by the DHS worker on the scene. It was up to me to dig up more information. They are sometimes just trying to get the kiddo a bed to sleep and we definitely had to turn down cases after learning certain things about the children involved. Most often workers would fudge or hide information about older children or teens who unfortunately can have behaviors a foster family may be unwilling to accept.

@lemolea9571 5 ай бұрын

Do you have any examples of behaviours kids have been turned down for? Making these mistakes is awful, a child has just had possibly the worst day of their life being taken from their parents and is turned down at the door of their new 'home'. That's so upsetting. (not blaming you, it's just a shame these things happen so often)

@iCookMe 5 ай бұрын

Love examples, thank you!

@foster.parenting 5 ай бұрын

If you click the link in the description you can see all of them that were submitted by other foster parents!

@divine_mortality 5 ай бұрын

The system is so broken.... only through advocates like you can we see the change these children truly need: that they're apart of a bigger family not just the system ❤ love all your videos

@Lilli_Loves_Bondi 5 ай бұрын

We were supposed to get a two year old and we got an 8 month old. Lol

@amys5669 4 ай бұрын

Yes. Have to ask date of birth not age ;).

@randomshorts6862 5 ай бұрын

When the caseworker was transferring me and my sisters to a new foster care placement she told the foster mom wrong information she was ur going receive 1 elementary school child boy , 2 regular education girl children and what the correct information was she was going have 3 preteen girls all in middle school and 2 being disabled in the learning department, the foster mom was oh no when she looked at birth certificate copies and the case file realizing she wasnt qualified for children who was learning delayed unfortunately the caseworker refused to fix it and it created a lot of problems, i would have outburst of just crying because I struggle with learning things at slower pace and she expected me to have homework done within 5mins after dinner when i needed extra time and help

@tejaswoman 4 ай бұрын

How terrible for you and your sisters. Sounds like you managed to find a way through, but it just never should have been made so much harder for you than it already was going to be.

@sarah.s.flanagan 4 ай бұрын

Why is the information so bad so much of the time? With so much being digital, it feels like we could be doing so much better. Is it the caseworkers/social workers being disorganized? Are they getting bad info from the agency to begin with? The state? Law enforcement? All of the above? I would ve so interested to know where in the chain most of the misinformation is occurring

@LP-tu8li 5 ай бұрын

Looking for low maintenance casual wear as stay at home mom. Where do you get your sweatshirts, cardigans and cute tees?

@lynnes11 5 ай бұрын

This is where you have to focus on the kids and their own experience. You need to have a flexible mind, just like you say. There's no use getting upset when 3 kids slow up instead of 2, that's not the kids' fault but getting upset about it can definitely make them feel badly. It's not about you.

@lemolea9571 5 ай бұрын

Sorry, they got the gender or language or number of children wrong? Can they not count??

@10hm18 5 ай бұрын

Are things truly just lost in the process? Or do you think information is sometimes skewed intentionally to try and get a placement? So frustrating and confusing.

@amys5669 4 ай бұрын

Both - skewed in the phone trees from intake/assessment worker to someone on their team 'helping' to the placement worker. One of my placement worker just calls with the age/gender and if you are interested will put you directly in contact with the worker. The skewed intentionally - yes. And, I think some of it is lack of knowledge. "We have a 3 year old that is a little speech delayed"...non-verbal, walking on tip toes, in own world autistic. Trauma behaviors can look like a lot of things but there are a lot of autism indicators everyone should know. This sets the child up for disruptions/bouncing around b/c clearly not 'just a little speech delayed', often harder to find child care etc....

@tejaswoman 4 ай бұрын

I think another thing is when people are assigned as many cases as social workers sometimes are assigned, the likelihood of confusing one kid's information with another's increases, apart from any social workers who might intentionally misrepresent a situation in their desperation to secure a placement. When I was training as a CASA, they talked about the importance of keeping all our information detailed and up-to-date and writing good reports, with the example of a time an overloaded lawyer for a parent stated facts of a case that would absolutely clear the way for reunification, only to realize when the CASA presented their report with clear, objective details listing the various services the bio parent had failed to complete and the times they had failed drug tests, the attorney realized they were presenting the case of a completely different client. I don't deny there have to be people out there who will _deliberately_ misrepresent the facts, but one thing they drove home to us in CASA training was that we would be the only folks involved who definitely had one case (and one case only¹) at a time, and we needed to use that advantage for the child(ren)'s benefit at every opportunity. Note: a CASA is assigned only one case at a time, although that case may involve a sibling group, and they stay on the one case until reunification or permanent adoption takes place or all children in the case age out.

@caspenbee 5 ай бұрын

Could those mistakes be reported to someone? Any worker who makes mistakes that big should get a formal evaluation to figure out how to never make them again.

@lemolea9571 5 ай бұрын

These organisations are critically underfunded and understaffed with more kids than they can handle, unfortunately I don't think they'd risk punishing a worker in case they quit, if they even have the time and cash for that meeting. And people think it's a good idea to stick more poor kids in there because of their negative views on abortion. Ugh.

@tejaswoman 4 ай бұрын

@@lemolea9571the issue of overloading the system even further is one reason it pissed me off so much when our governor and attorney general here in Texas briefly insisted CPS should start investigating as abuse any case in which parents supported the transgender child, _even if it was something as simple as haircuts, name and pronouns_ , with no physical alterations at all. As if it weren't bad enough that our system in Texas is doing so poorly that multiple federal judges have chewed out our attorney general for what a crappy job his office is doing on rectifying the problems in that system.

@ettinakitten5047 3 ай бұрын

@@lemolea9571 I'm sick of people dragging the foster care system into the abortion debate. Most foster care children were wanted by their parents, many came from planned pregnancies, but something went wrong. Meanwhile, most newborns given up for adoption go straight from their birth mother to an adoptive family (generally chosen by the birth mom before the birth) and never spend time in foster care. It's a convenient lie that abortion access would reduce foster care overload, but in reality the two are basically unconnected.

@lemolea9571 3 ай бұрын

@@ettinakitten5047 Well that just ain't true. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37930718/

@lemolea9571 3 ай бұрын

@@ettinakitten5047 That just ain't true. Abortion restrictions increases foster care intake, particularly in minority groups. (source: PMC10628841)