Amirae's First Essay

 

A Team For Children

            Team work is like a puzzle, every person is a piece, and each of their gifts is needed to form a perfect picture. If one piece in missing, the puzzle will never be complete, and the outcome of the picture could be altered. For instance, if the picture is a girl playing with toys, but her mouth is missing, no one will truly know her emotion, people may just assume she is smiling. I was eight years old when my parents chose to take in foster kids, and for years I have wished the DHS (Department of Human Services) could work together as a team. I wish all differences and power trips would be put aside, and everyone would fight to save children socially, mentally, and physically before the damage is permanent. Instead, children are left hanging in uncertainty for an unnecessary amount of time because the departments don't agree. Pieces of the child's puzzle are tossed out the window, and teamwork becomes a word, not an action.

             A big reason for the system's current disputes, is the many levels of authority within the DHS, and a lack of communication between different departments. Some of those departments working to help kids, are case workers, counselors, foster parents, and CASA workers (Court Appointed Special Advocates). Caseworkers, primarily decide the child's future, but the counselors have some say in the decision . The foster parents are considered the baby sitters for the kids and can not do much to change the plans for them. A CASA spends time with a child, to understand what the child wants for his/her future. The CASA can speak for the kid in court, and have a slight chance of altering the decision, but only if proof is found that contested decisions would be damaging to the child. These departments have trouble working together because they all see a different part of the child. Various people in these departments think they know what's best for the child, and they fight each other to get the upper hand, losing sight of what's more important. If all these people were equal in influence and communicated on the same level, there would be less focus on who has greater power and more time spent addressing children's needs.

             A scenario that demonstrates a lack of team work in the system, is based on true life events. It is a story about a three year old boy whose mom left and dad was on drugs. The dad beat the boy regularly and did not care for his well being. Then, one night the police broke down the door and arrested the dad right in front of the boy. They took the boy to the DHS office, and he was then sent to a foster home. That first family he stayed with felt he was not normal and wanted him moved within the first week. In the course of four months, the boy went through six homes, and all that time saw his abuser twice a week. The foster parents noticed that he had nightmares nearly every night and would become aggressive for no reason. Counselors thought that he may have some disorders, so in turn, the doctor prescribed drugs for him. The volunteer drivers, who transported him to visits witnessed him screaming and crying in the car all the way there. However, at the visits the caseworker saw a boy getting along with his dad, and the dad doing what he was supposed to do. A year went by and nothing got settled; the courts couldn't make a decision because information about the child's well being was a jumbled mess. While everyone fought over what was best for the boy, no one saw the torment that the he suffered while living in limbo. They didn't see him cry himself to sleep and beat on himself out of frustration. They didn't see how all the broke promises made to him, shattered his attachment and trust towards humans. All he understood was that he had been beaten, tortured, and pulled from a tank of sharks but left dangling above it, always afraid, waiting to see if he would be dropped back into that shark tank, or tossed into another.

            Many argue that decisions for a child's future, need to be in the hands of people who have the degrees and experience, not volunteers. I agree to an extent. I believe the courts and caseworkers have a great education and can do a lot of good, but they don't always have the time to get to know the child. They end up blindly making decisions based almost entirely by what they see on paper. The volunteers, such as the foster parents, who have lived with the child should have some part in the decision making. There are some foster parents who are in it for the money. This is why many caseworkers worry about letting foster parents have a input about the child. I completely understand, I have seen foster parents take in kids sole for the money, and have wrecked young lives forever with their repugnant lies. However, not all foster parents are this way, most do it to love and help children who have suffered. These kids don't always have control over their lives. Their future is in the hands of this system, and everyone needs to be involved in finding the best solution in a timely manner.

            Sad situations, like the one I described, happens everyday in the world of foster care. So much suffering could be avoided and resolved quickly, but until the whole system starts to communicate and pull together, there will never be a change. In those thirteen years of taking in foster kids, I had a brother sent to jail, a sister taken back to her sexual abuser, and other brothers and sisters brought back to their hell. Such memories still haunt me today because they could have been prevented. That little girl playing with the toys could be unhappy or scared, but if people are too stubborn to work together and search for that missing puzzle piece, she could end up with the same fate as my siblings. Abuse that has happened can't be undone, but for the sake of future foster children, diversity in the DHS system needs to expire. This starts with all the advocates for foster children working together as team.