That’s what i was thinking. I’d be a lot skeptic of the worker saying it’s only minor injuries but doesn’t have the exact details

@@dangitjacques5133 Same. Like yes, out of an abundance of caution the police might bring a four-month-old to the hospital for a minor bonk to the forehead or something unrelated like a moderate diaper rash, either of which really will be fine in a few days, but "only minor injuries" without any details about what the injuries are or ongoing medical needs sounds extremely fake.

​@@MorganChaos It doesn't sound fake to me, it sounds like a crappy case worker, of which there are far too many. Some start out great but get overwhelmed and cut corners. Others are crap from the moment they finish their program but the state is so desperate (and that's basically every state in the US) for workers they act like "mentoring" a worthless social worker is even possible. It's not. I know with current and former foster parents to know that barely any info on medical cases was/is not uncommon. They know who may take a kid that could be in need of lots of care, and those who are greedy and gave become the dumping grounds of countless children that somehow just "disappear" from ongoing checks and court records. I know some states/provinces/countries are better, but some are worse, especially those that are still taking Indigenous children away from their families and tribes (US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, multiple South American countries and more). The point is that lack of care for kids in critical conditions, physically and/or emotionally, is not uncommon and the decent people fostering have a lot to think about when considering such a placement.

I don't disagree :) Just want to add some additional information. In some places, there are emergency shelter programs that foster parents can participate in. In these situations we usually do have to say "yes" and must commit for a certain number of days or weeks. I only add in because some people may want to participate in a program like this vs longer term care!

​@@foster.parenting This is exactly the type of foster care my husband and I practice. "Emergency short-term accommodation". The absolute maximum for accommodation with us is 8 weeks, but in fact no child has ever been with us longer than 5 weeks and even that was exceptionally long. Usually it's only 5 to 20 days. It gives the youth welfare office more time to look for the ideal, possible foster family. As a result, the authority in my district was able to effectively reduce the number of foster family changes over the years. We get the children at extremely short notice and, according to our contract, we are only allowed to refuse for a very small list of reasons. However, if this is necessary, we will receive compensation payments from the office for loss of earnings for the entire time, which means I don't have to go to work. I should probably add at this point that I am not from the USA and that in Germany the social system, including with regard to foster families, is organized and financed differently in some places. But I really like this concept under which we work. It takes some of the pressure off to do so many things ideally, since this short-term accommodation doesn't have the goal of being ideal. It's not ideal. Point. The children do not develop a close, trusting relationship with us; the children know from the start (if they are of an appropriate age) that they will not stay with us for long. Sometimes the children unfortunately miss school for this period because the distance is too great. But what the children get from us is security, because these children come out of such acute emergency situations that their basic physical needs must first be met, i.e. security while sleeping, enough to eat, and enough warm clothing. And I think this system makes more sense than if the children were to come directly into a family where they believe they can stay, everyone is trying to build a healthy relationship with each other and then this placement has to be lifted because of Circumstances not taken into account at the beginning. As long as the children are with us, the office can try to run through as many theoretical scenarios with many families, have time to work through files, etc. This means the children will have better accommodation in the long term.

The USA foster system is overloaded and in most areas not well managed.

It’s a first time emergency placement. They’re probably still trying to figure something out but you certainly can’t keep a 10 year old at an emergency shelter alone.

Totally agree and while you may be overloaded it takes longer to not be informed because you get these kinds of conversation and more potential foster placement that might refuse and thus more you have to call than it would take to get informed before calling, especially the medical needs part.

I've had issues with childcare too. It can make things really tricky. I wish there were better solutions when these things come up.

Hi! Sorry for the random reply, but I really want to be a doctor, but I'm not planning on getting married - do you foster? Do you find being a doctor and fostering is sustainable in the long term? I'm just 21 and in college still but would love to get any insight in how you make it work!

If there are medical needs for the child, how would you be able to take care of those while you’re at work (which was the issue the foster parent was concerned about)?

I just have to throw out here - I really appreciate your respect and awareness for the 10 year old's concern/protectiveness for his brother! A lot of times, this is dismissed as 'trauma' or 'unhealthy' when it's one of the most core parts of being human.

Thank you so much for chiming in. I totally agree. There is so much potential using data systems and better information management. It’s surprising that there isn’t a portal to log in to see information and inquire about youth that you are able to support in a real way. Not just a band aid for the next week (although we need these foster parents too for crisis times). The matching needs to be better and information needs to be accurate. Sadly I hear from foster parents all of the time about the errors they also encounter - wrong age, wrong number of siblings that arrive, incorrect information about their medical needs, and more. I am sorry you had to also experience this. 💔

You bring up a great point. I’m a substitute teacher and the schools I work for have a portal where they give the information about what I’ll need to do and I can decide if I’m able to take the assignment. Foster care could definitely use such a placement system. It would need to be very secure but I’m sure that state and provincial governments can find the resources to fulfill the requirements.

If there was a system like this, it would still need to be updated the same as physical paperwork. Whatever the system, we need to have enough budget allocated to make sure there are people who have both the time and training to properly document everything. A system is only as good as its worst user.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves that I have gone round and round with our department with. Our state has a "Child Care Placement Form'' they are supposed to use where they write down known information and provide it to foster parent at placement. They don't use it. Our policies are posted online and it says it was required because a child known to have SA issues was placed w/out it being disclosed to the foster parent. Child committed SA on another child in the house. County says they don't use it because "We don't know any of that information.' Blanket statement for all cases. Untrue for those kids moving from one foster home to another. Untrue for children who have been working with family preservation and now entering care. Untrue for biological parents/family willing to answer the questions. Not every removal is a quick in and out. You know- basic information like "What formula does the 4 month old use?" "Known allergies" "Are the kids on any medication?" Issues with self harm, fire starting etc. I do short term care and usually workers have the next care giver meet the child /I get to talk /email known information. But, the placement form should be filled out with what they know, should be updated at worker's monthly home visit (if they don't want us updating it.) and should follow child to next home. It could be emailed to placement workers to have basic info to help place long term. They don't want to disclose information known when trying to place so you will just say yes. Then, it causes children to bounce from house to house which only adds more trauma. Technology - our department maintains an Excel spreadsheet of homes, availability, do we have pets? (Kid allergies), location. We have about 125 regular foster families and then some more with kinship who wouldn't be accepting these types of calls. They can't keep a list of 125 families updated. So, someone who already has 2 kids under 2 was called for another baby/newborn. "Needs to be the only child in the house" calls to someone with 3 kids already. It goes through so many people to get updated and the list is rarely correct. We have said "Put it online, password protected, we update just our section ourselves" Crickets. They are always in crisis mode. Sometimes more than others. The two+ years of Covid when placements were down...no long term planning done. System is so broken. They know things that would help us and the kids and choose not to use existing resources or work toward solutions.

@@dutchvanl It's true that digital systems still need maintenance, but it's worth noting that it's a lot easier to maintain a digital system than a paper one. To take an example from OP, update some info and save the file, and then there's no risk of accidentally pulling an old version of a file with wrong information on it. It's also much faster to find something in a computer system than in a physical file cabinet. Even if that system spends two minutes searching because there's so much data, you'd have spent a LOT longer than two minutes looking through an equivalent amount of data in folders. Not dismissing you, of course, it's true that we need people just as much as an updated system, but it's kind of insane that we just...refuse to update the system, ever, even though it would pay for itself almost immediately in saved manpower.

Many caseworkers in my experience are even worse. Or, they have someone else making calls so they really know absolutely nothing and don't bother reading anything.. I contacted a former foster family on Facebook and heard from them that they had all sorts of wrong information about me when they agreed to take me and I had been in the system for 3 years at that point so it wasn't a situation where they didn't know. It was someone who glanced at my file and repeated information that had been corrected later. So clearly they didn't do any research. My file was rather large and I think they needed a TLDR summary since every new caseworker I had to explain everything to. And I had a new caseworker every few months. Eventually I gave up even bothering with them. I think I could have run away and they wouldn't have noticed.

@@KatTheo431oh dear, that’s so sad that you went through that. The system needs to be improved, for sure.

Sometimes there are multiple workers involved, an emergency worker, a placement worker, an agency worker, and more. Sometimes the person making the call has never met the child. Other times the removals are chaotic. Workers try to get as much info from the parents as possible but it isn’t always a situation that is calm where everyone can talk. There’s also human error. I welcome any workers to chime in and share about this! 💛

The miscommunication between those involved is staggering 😢

@@foster.parenting Totally fair, multiple different people working on one case seems like it would get chaotic. However, you would think in terms of trying to place a child as quickly with a good match (as to not need to rehome the child again), the person making the call should be the one with the information, or at least most of the info. Those different workers should have a way to share this information to the one making the call otherwise. I know in this case it is super hypothetical, but in a real situation, the caller not having enough information could just cause the child to be placed in a home that isn't suitable. Like in this case, you wouldn't wanna transfer the child to a new school. I mean clearly the child is going through a lot, and to make them switch schools and be away from any friends they have would make it harder. At the same time, maybe if more information was known, maybe switching schools could be good for the child. Sometimes the child may need a fresh start. Without enough information it would be really hard to make a good decision.

It's like the child game talking on two cans through a string. Or, the one where you whisper something to the person beside you and they whisper to the next one and by the time it makes it round the room there's incorrect information, missing information etc. So many people involved in placing a child. Also, with lack of homes to place, our placement workers are desperate to match someone who *might* take the proposed age and gender of the child/children so they start calling with little info. "Baby at hospital ready to be released now, gender, weight, date of birth" that's all the info. Which hospital? "don't know". If you could even consider it, then they connect you with worker who usually does have additional information. This seems to work better than the multiple phone calls with info passed between many people before it reaches you directly.

Yes it's allowed...but ...once you take them they will convince you to keep them...and they'll have you driving miles away from home...

I mean, yes, there are lots of great questions to be asked but sadly the caseworker doesn’t have many answers. Which makes me wonder why she’s making phone calls before getting that info.

yeah! getting things in writing right away can be helpful. i was able to get daycare support expedited upon placement of a baby.

Wanting placement before the one weekend? Is this pressure from the hospital to clear their space? Social worker needs to do their due diligence. And wanting placement before a long weekend and willing to say blithely “we can transfer a kid to another school”. Glad this is hypothetical.

Yes you can ask follow up questions, you just may not ever hear back

The workers will tell you NOTHING...they say they can not give you that information...or just say they don't know...when they actually do know😢

@@michellehood3345That’s so weird! I’d think that more info would help, not harm, the success of the placement. I’d love to know why the placement workers withhold info.

@@muriel5826 My understanding is that it's more or less one of two things. 1) They're hoping that the kid gets placed and it works out. Either the family's concerns turn out to not be major concerns with these kids (e.g. the worker hears "what are the medical needs" and doesn't want to say "you're going to have to care for asthma and broken bones" but it turns out the parent is totally fine with that) or the family just falls in love and makes it work. The latter can happen, especially if a parent is the type of person who doesn't want to make waves, doesn't want to give up, doesn't want to fail a kid, etc. 2) They're just trying to get the kids out of situations they Absolutely Cannot Be In Any Longer (like waiting to be picked up at a hospital, or being at an emergency shelter alone) and whether or not they have to get moved later is frankly less important than getting them a bed for the night. (Of course, there's also the third option of malice and/or incompetence, because any group of people will have malicious and incompetent people in it. But assuming it's neither of those, the above reasons are at least somewhat valid.)

Good luck. And it sounds like your family may have to look into changing the authority figure’s abilities…

You can ask for more info! They may not get back to you though. Often they call the next family until someone says yes.

@@foster.parenting I understand this is how it works and I feel for the sorkers. And at the same time it makes me angry on behalf of the children because how can an institution properly make care arrangements for a child in the least traumatising way unless they just spend 20 min longer getting as much details as they can from available sources before they cold call foster parents.

@@Cyberia398 In my county, with about 125 foster families, placement workers start calling immediately BECAUSE it is so hard to find anyone to say yes. Homes already have placements, homes only accept certain ages, genders. People out of town, vacation plans, end of school year plans. I've had so many calls recently where worker says "I have called 24 people and all said no or didn't answer the phone"...It is panic mode. In April, I got a call at 5:15pm on a Friday afternoon. They said they were 'close' to me. Child was removed, had nowhere to go and was literally less than a mile from me and at my door in 3 minutes.

Yes, the caseworker needs to put down the phone and pick up the file. And maybe drive to the hospital to find out about the baby’s current medical condition. Then they can start making phone calls.

"I really want to find the right placement for them" is the ideal. With lack of homes, holiday weekend, it is crisis mode. Hospital may not agree to hold 4 month old for a long weekend. If child is ready for discharge, they want them out b/c child is there w/no family and all care is on nurses (also already overworked). This is especially true when they are full (covid, RSV outbreaks) . This is a standard call in my area.

These employees can't help it that they haven't been given much information. Though pressuring foster parents to make a decision quickly is a problem. I get that the kids have nowhere to stay and don't want to be stuck at hotels/hospitals/offices/jails overnight while CPS tries to find a home for them, but still it sucks that workers are incentivised to just get a "yes" out of foster parents even if there might be a better fit elsewhere.

They work their butts off, each person trying to do a job that should take 5 people. Juggling priorities from the court, the agency, the attorneys, etc while staying within the law and keeping the kids' best interests their prime concern. Trying to find placement on their co-worker's case because the co-worker is in court, and the person trying to find placement has third or forth hand information.

​@@KayoEllI get it...but they should be forward with information...why do they keep pertinent information so secret...how can we be trauma informed if we have no idea what the trauma even is ..😢

It really isn’t sustainable - I think an experienced and well connected foster parent could manage it better though that knows how to navigate the daycare and transportation departments (as example). I wouldn’t say yes unless I was confident I could line up the support myself.

You are so right...and they hide information...they tell bio parents about us but keep everything about the bio parent secret...then they tell you an hour before a major action occurs...no time to prepare 😢

She may have. She might have known that there were some real dealbreakers but claimed they did'nt have that info.