We recently (ish!) moved to a new province, and I'm not even going to get in to the absolute gong show that attempting to "transfer" foster parenting standing is from one province to another (ie: it's not possible!). So, we're going through the application process, again. We're also taking the local training course (also a total gong show with no room for adaptation to suit individual needs, but I digress).
I am/was quite keen to find out what might be different about how things are run here, and my ears certainly perked up when the topic of visitation came up. I'm totally appalled at how it works here. A friend is refering me to a friend of hers who is a current fp here, because I wanted to talk to someone who is living the experience, and I did leave a message with the social worker, but, whoa. I'm hoping this is a case of policy and reality being a bit misaligned.
Apparently, visitation is always, except in extreme cases, carried out at the home of the foster parent. For children under age two, daily visitation is the goal/norm. They talked about one family who had the birth mother come over every morning to dress and feed the child, and then came back again for dinner and to bathe and put the child to bed. This was presented as the absolute ideal situation, and again, the fact that daily, in home visitation is expected was stressed. When the idea of out of home visitation was brought up, it was clearly communicated that this would be "bad", and that you would be a "bad" fp if this was what you insisted upon.
What?!!?
Granted, we only had one placement in our old province (two brothers), but their visitation was social worker supervised, or, in some cases, supervised by the paternal grandmother. We took them about once a month, and the rest of the visits were organized so that the boys were taken from daycare to the visit and then returned to daycare afterwards, where we would pick them up after work according to our normal schedule. I'm an at home parent now, so things will be a bit different. I do believe in visitation. You can bet your booty that I'd be visiting my child every day if she was in care, so I can totally understand wanting to have that sort of set up. However, kids are in care for a reason!
I'm completely NOT comfortable having birth parents both know where we live and showing up on our doorstep every day. I know that foster care involves visitation, and re-orgaizing your schedule a bit to make that work, but I am not at all willing to being home every night by xyz time, having everyone fed and the foster child prepped for a visit.
I can, to a certain degree, imagine dropping a foster child off from 10-12 or 2 or whatever in a safe space on most days of the week. Say, on weekdays. But, seriously, how am I supposed to integrate a child into my family's life if we don't have the freedom to, say, spend an extra hour at the zoo if everyone is happy?
And, I'm just having issues with the idea of safety and boundaries surrounding the idea of having a birth parent IN MY HOME on a daily basis. How are you supposed to enforce family rules if the birth parent is there and undermines you (ie: birth parent saying something like, "No, Johnny, you don't need to eat at the table", when that is the rule at our house) in your "parental" role? We don't believe in seperate rules for seperate kids, as a general rule, and we certainly believe that, while they are with us, foster children are part of our family and will be treated as such. Not that we don't make allowances and accomodations depending on ability/need/challenge levels. Anyway, I just can't get my head around this.
Is this normal? Am I way off base here? Does this sort of set up WORK for anyone on here? We're really keen to foster again, and I don't want to jeopordize that by being too demanding right off the bat, but at the same time, I don't want us to wind up in a situation that is not going to work and be healthy for our family. Surely there's a way to make this work?! Thoughts?
I am/was quite keen to find out what might be different about how things are run here, and my ears certainly perked up when the topic of visitation came up. I'm totally appalled at how it works here. A friend is refering me to a friend of hers who is a current fp here, because I wanted to talk to someone who is living the experience, and I did leave a message with the social worker, but, whoa. I'm hoping this is a case of policy and reality being a bit misaligned.
Apparently, visitation is always, except in extreme cases, carried out at the home of the foster parent. For children under age two, daily visitation is the goal/norm. They talked about one family who had the birth mother come over every morning to dress and feed the child, and then came back again for dinner and to bathe and put the child to bed. This was presented as the absolute ideal situation, and again, the fact that daily, in home visitation is expected was stressed. When the idea of out of home visitation was brought up, it was clearly communicated that this would be "bad", and that you would be a "bad" fp if this was what you insisted upon.
What?!!?
Granted, we only had one placement in our old province (two brothers), but their visitation was social worker supervised, or, in some cases, supervised by the paternal grandmother. We took them about once a month, and the rest of the visits were organized so that the boys were taken from daycare to the visit and then returned to daycare afterwards, where we would pick them up after work according to our normal schedule. I'm an at home parent now, so things will be a bit different. I do believe in visitation. You can bet your booty that I'd be visiting my child every day if she was in care, so I can totally understand wanting to have that sort of set up. However, kids are in care for a reason!
I'm completely NOT comfortable having birth parents both know where we live and showing up on our doorstep every day. I know that foster care involves visitation, and re-orgaizing your schedule a bit to make that work, but I am not at all willing to being home every night by xyz time, having everyone fed and the foster child prepped for a visit.
I can, to a certain degree, imagine dropping a foster child off from 10-12 or 2 or whatever in a safe space on most days of the week. Say, on weekdays. But, seriously, how am I supposed to integrate a child into my family's life if we don't have the freedom to, say, spend an extra hour at the zoo if everyone is happy?
And, I'm just having issues with the idea of safety and boundaries surrounding the idea of having a birth parent IN MY HOME on a daily basis. How are you supposed to enforce family rules if the birth parent is there and undermines you (ie: birth parent saying something like, "No, Johnny, you don't need to eat at the table", when that is the rule at our house) in your "parental" role? We don't believe in seperate rules for seperate kids, as a general rule, and we certainly believe that, while they are with us, foster children are part of our family and will be treated as such. Not that we don't make allowances and accomodations depending on ability/need/challenge levels. Anyway, I just can't get my head around this.
Is this normal? Am I way off base here? Does this sort of set up WORK for anyone on here? We're really keen to foster again, and I don't want to jeopordize that by being too demanding right off the bat, but at the same time, I don't want us to wind up in a situation that is not going to work and be healthy for our family. Surely there's a way to make this work?! Thoughts?
