> SB> Words With a Friend's Adopted Child
  > SB> by Sondra Ball
RA>I think that little girl is very lucky to have you for a neighbor;
  >otherwise, I do not think she would ever have a chance to learn anything
  >about what it means to be an Indian.
RA>Incidentally, part of United Nations definition of genocide from
  >the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
  >Genocide includes forcibly removing children from their
  >racial/ethnic/cultural/religious group.  Just because it is covered with
  >the 'proper' legal trappings doesn't make it any less forcible.
It's interesting that this adoption is one of the few times that I have
"approved" the adoption of a small Indian child by whites, simply
because the child protective services had so blundered the case, that by
the time the adoption issue arose, it really *was* the kindest thing to
do for the child.  The child's parents have been friends of mine for
many years, since before we adopted our son.  They are wonderful people.
They are also foster parents, and almost always have a couple of foster
kids in their home, some there for only a day or two, some there for
years (who consider them their parents, and whose kids call them
"grandma" and "grandpa").  This child was taken from her mother, and
placed with them at birth.  The child protective services were right in
taking her from her mother.  Her birth mother is truly crazy, and has
spent most of her adolescence and adulthood in mental hospitals.  She is
schizophrenic, and often hallucinating.  When the little girl was born,
the doctors lay her in her mother's arms, and her mother threw her
across the delivery room.  So the social worker put her in my friends'
home; did an initial contact with the birth father, who signed release
forms (and didn't want her); and then dropped the case.  She lived for a
couple of years with my friends, who kept asking the social worker to
procede with termination of parental rights of the mother, so the child
could be placed for adoption.  The social worker was "too busy" with
other cases, and the child was "in a safe place", so nothing was done;
No relatives, not even the grandparents, were contacted at this point,
although that would have been the normal thing to do in a foster care
placement.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles often take in their
relatives.  As it turned out, when they finally did the check just
before the court terminated parental rights, the birth mother's parents
were not alive, and the birth father's parents, like the birth father,
just weren't interested. They weren't even convinced the little girl
really *was* their grandchild, since blood tests for paternity had not
been done, and the father had already signed away his rights.  The
social worker didn't bother looking for other relatives.  In any case,
the kid was a couple of years old when the child protective services
finally made their first moves to terminate parental rights, was three
by the time the courts completed the termination, and by that time a
strong bond had formed between the foster parents and her; so it really
did seem right to keep her there.
All of that could have been avoided, however, if the courts had placed
her for adoption at six to twelve months, as they should have done.
The result is one more genocidal move in a genocidal society.  But I
honestly don't think the social worker was thinking genocide.  I think
the social worker was incompetent, did to this kid what she has done to
others, and will do to others (except most of these kids she's doing
it to are white or black, and not as isolated from their cultures.)
However, incompetency isn't the only answer.  One thing I'm learning,
now that I'm working more closely with the child protective services of
this county, is how very, very overworked they really are. The office is
severely understaffed.  Case loads run 200 to 1000 kids, sometimes more.
When people resign from a county board, it may be months, or even a
couple of years, before the state will approve a replacement worker.
Our county is curently three social workers short in the child
protective services division, and can't get the state to approve more
hirings.  Most of the social workers work far in excess of 40 hours a
week, for no extra pay.  Most of them really care.  There's some truth
to her statement about this small Indian child.  The social worker *was*
too busy, and the child *was* safe.
It's downright frightening.  Social workers pull kids out of good homes
on heresay, and fail to act in truly atrocious cases.  They have their
facts wrong in every case I've seen in which I personally know the
family and the kid.  Even when they pulled the kid out of the house, and
should have pulled the kid out, they still have their facts wrong, and
pulled the kid out for the wrong reasons.  For example, one young
teenager I know cannot be returned to her mother because her mother
broke her arm (according to official records).  I've known this kid
since she was three.  She shouldn't be in her mother's home.  Her mother
is a prostitute and a drug dealer; her mother's boyfriends have sexually
abused her, etc.  Everybody who knows the kid and the family knows the
tragedy of her life.  But she has *never* had a broken arm.
My friends currently have a six year old foster son placed with them,
probably a long term placement.  They were told he was extremely
hyperactive, and would have to take ritilin, and be very, very closely
supervised.  Having been foster parents for years, they knew the word of
the Child Protective Services was *not* golden, so she called her
pediatrician, and asked permission to take the kid off ritalin for a few
days to see what would happen.  The result:  this kid is one of the
calmest, quietest six year olds I have ever met.  His favorite activity
is to have grownups read books to him.
                          Sondra
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ It IS as bad as you think, and they ARE out to get you...
--- Opus-CBCS 1.7x via O_QWKer 1.7 
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