-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to Robin Arnhold <=-
Hi, Sondra,
 >It would seem to be a
 >common sense idea for social workers to routinely look to see if there
 >are relatives willing to raise a child or even shelter a child
 >temporarily, not to mention that in this money-conscious era, it would
 >save a lot of taxpayer dollars.
 SB> 
 SB> And, in many cases, it would place the child in a home where she or he
 SB> is already loved.
 
And, provided that the child can reasonably be reassured that an abuser
(if that's why the child must be removed from his/her birth home) will
not be allowed access to him/her, being moved to a home and people that
the child is already familiar with is much less disruptive
psychologically than being placed with strangers.  After all, if the home
environment is such that the child has to be removed from it, the child
already has a full load of psychological disruption on his/her plate
without adding the stress of a totally unknown environment.
 >I think this needs to be
 >rethought so that a child need not be routinely completely severed from
 >his or her kindred.
 SB> 
 SB> I approve of open adoptions in cases where contact with the birth
 SB> family would not be detrimental to the child.  In some cases (heavy
 SB> drug abusers or pedophiles, for example), such contact has too much
 SB> possibility of damaging the growing youngster.
 
This perhaps needs to be considered on a case by case basis.  Dorothy,
who I mentioned in another message, discovered by accident that one of
her daughters was a drug addict and was neglecting her two daughters.
Dorothy didn't waste any time removing her granddaughters from her
daughter's apartment, getting her daughter into a treatment program, and
getting legal custody of her granddaughters.  She was determined that the
only contact her grandchildren would have in the future with their mother
would be strictly supervised.
I feel that when a child has been sexually abused by a family member, the
child should never, ever have to see the abuser again unless he or she
decides to after he or she grows up.  
 RA>A lot of times this doesn't seem to happen.  Debbie, my neighbor next
 >door, has been a foster mom for over fifteen years now.  Over the years,
 >she and Vic have adopted two of their foster children.  They want to
 >adopt a third child, who has been with them since birth.  The little
 >girl, whose name I can't remember offhand, is three-four years old and
 >the social service agency still hasn't moved on terminating parental
 >rights.  Good grief!  This little girl was a crack baby who was given up
 >at birth by her biological mother.  There is no reason for waiting this
 >long to terminate parental rights.
 SB> 
 SB> There is, actually, although it is not a moral reason.  Child
 SB> protective services get more money from the federal and state
 SB> governments for every child NOT placed in an adoptive home, then for
 SB> every child placed.  It's strictly an economics gains issue in many
 SB> cases.  
Gah!  I had never even thought of that angle, but it makes sense
(financial, if not ethical).  In this case, since it's a private,
church-affiliated social service agency that may not be receiving any
state or federal funds, it would be the size of the piece of the United
Way pie that it gets and the amount of money the local branch gets from
the national organization.
 SB> Some states are beginning to talk about changing that balance,
 SB> and giving rewards to agencies and social workers who successfully
 SB> place children for adoption.  New Jersey is one of those states, but
 SB> it's only in the talk stage right now.
 
It sounds like a good idea, but those that are working on drawing up new
legislation need to consider that common garden-variety greed is going to
have some agencies and social workers placing children into wholly
inappropriate and possibly dangerous situations just to get them placed
so the agency/social worker can collect the reward.  I shudder to think
of a child molester being allowed to adopt children so the social worker
can get, say, a 25 cent an hour pay raise.
 RA>I would also toss plain ignorance into the picture.  There are a lot of
 >different cultures making up society in the US and they tend to have
 >widely differing views on adoption.  Some believe it doesn't matter who
 >adopts a child as long as that child is raised in a loving home.  Some
 >believe in the statement 'we take care of our own', some view a
 >mixed-blood child as an unwanted outcast, others do not, etc., etc.  I
 >doubt if social workers are taught that there are such cross-cultural
 >differences and that these differences need to be taken into account.
 SB> 
 SB> They are not.  About the extent of what a social worker hears is "The
 SB> feds want you to place Indians with Indian families, but don't worry
 SB> too much if you can't find one.  It doesn't really matter anyway." 
 SB> When we adopted Robert, we were told we were the only Indian family
 SB> looking for a kid.  Maybe that was true.  Maybe they didn't look very
 SB> hard.  
 
Some of the social service agencies around here are actively recruiting
minority families to be both foster parents and adoptive parents.
Several had booths set up at Indian Summer this year.  This is the first
time I've seen an agency actively recruiting at a pow wow or other Indian
event, and I was very glad to see it.  And the pictures of minority
families on some of the brochures this one agency had had Indian families
as well as African American and Asian families.  It looks like a step in
the right direction.
 >I consider this a glaring omission, but in some sense hardly surprising.
 >This year they offered a class in cross-cultural communications at work
 >for the very first time.  About half a dozen people signed up for the
 >class, so they postponed it from June to August in hopes of getting a
 >few more people.  A few days before the rescheduled date, one of the
 >people in the human resources department called to say that they had to
 >postpone the class again because the instructor had cancelled out and
 >they were having trouble finding a replacement.
 SB> 
 SB> Bummer!  Would the cross cultural class have included Indians?  I know
 SB> that in New Jersey, "cross cultural" almost always means "Black";
 SB> occasionally it includes "Hispanic"; and it never means "Indian".
The course listing didn't contain any information about what cultures
would be included--they're normally one or two-line listings.  To be
truly representative of the cultures present in Wisconsin, all of whom a
state worker is likely to have contact with at some time or another, such
a class would have to include the Indian cultures here as well Black,
Hispanic, several Asian cultures, and a variety of European cultures
(after all, the Polish, for instance, are quite different than the
Norwegians, and both are found here in large numbers).  I hope they can
find an instructor for the class.  In fact, I think it would be a good
idea to have a class like this required as part of the orientation
classes new state employees are expected to take during their first year
of work.
Take care,
Robin
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20
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