big teddy bear are sitting in white medical masks on a blue wooden background. Respiratory medicine.

From the editor: We are pleased to feature another article from Kelly Rose Waller today on the impact of Covid-19 specifically Social Distancing and Foster Care. As a Foster Mom herself, Kelly knows first hand the impact this pandemic is having on these families and these kids. The excerpt below provides some great insight, and we’ve included a link below to the full article.

Please click here to see the remainder of the article.

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Are there other moms out there who have been blessed by your state’s Early Intervention program? Google tells me this service has all kinds of names across the country: Help Me Grow, Baby Net, Birth to Three, Infants & Toddlers, Early Steps, First Connections, Babies Can’t Wait. This service in Pennsylvania has been awesome for us as foster parents. We’ve had three different “types” of therapists over the last three years—physical therapy (PT), speech therapy, and occupational therapy (OT).

(By the way, in case you’re unfamiliar—like I was—Occupational therapy, according to kidshealth.org, helps kids with various needs improve their cognitive, physical, sensory, and motor skills and enhance their self-esteem and sense of accomplishment.)

What Is Early Intervention?

In our state, Early Intervention is a free service—yes, free—offered through the county that comes to your house—yes, to your house—to offer professional services to kids under age 3. As a foster mom who already drives my son to a lot of medical appointments, it’s life-changing. All you have to do is be home (and dressed).

EI Therapists Work With Your Life

They’re in your house, so the therapist might include playing with the dog to get your kid to move around. They might include looking in your snack cabinet to get them to talk. Our therapists play in our backyard, look at our flowers, and follow Lil Man up and down our stairs. Obviously, a kid will be most comfortable on his own turf. The best results we’ve gotten have all been from familiar toys and familiar spaces (and without me having to entertain anyone in a waiting room beforehand!)

EI Works With the Parent

I constantly joke to our visitors that they are really there to coach me. They aren’t trying to get their little patient to make the complicated “z” sound in a single hour. They are teaching ME as the mom how to get my kid to make the complicated “z” sound over the next two weeks. They are smart enough to recognize that an hour every week or every two weeks isn’t going to cut it—you as the parent are there 24/7. Their job is to help you do what you do (parenting) in the best way possible to help your kid get more experience in overcoming whatever their difficulty is.

We set goals, and then we actually met them! I really can’t put into words the feeling when you once made a goal of your child turning their head equally on both sides to offset NICU neck, and then you blink and you’re checking OFF a goal that says your child is putting together 3-4 word sentences. What a change!

These therapists make me a better mom. It’s idea after idea, tip after tip. On any given day, we’re sitting, eating lunch, while our therapist talks casually and offers suggestions that fit the moment.

“He might be having trouble feeling that in his mouth since it’s room temperature, maybe add something crunchy.”

Boom.

“That might be easier for him with increased lung capacity; why don’t you get some feathers or some pom-poms and make a game of him blowing them across the table?”

Boom. [Side note, blowing pom-poms is the funniest game ever if you’re willing to wipe up a lot of spittle afterwards.]

Those are just two examples of a thousand suggestions that have been game-changers for us. These awesome women have helped with a wild and amazing transformation as our son has learned new skills, overcome challenges, and broken through his barriers.

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Unicef has a program called “1,000 Days.” It focuses on good nutrition during the first 1,000 days from the beginning stages of pregnancy until a child’s second birthday. Their website declares,

“Good nutrition in the 1,000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday sets the foundation for all the days that follow… We are the leading non-profit organization working in the U.S. and around the world to improve nutrition and ensure women and children have the healthiest first 1,000 days.”

What an admirable mission!

The “1,000 days” period since my foster son came into our care (not since he was conceived, not since he was born) has now also come and gone. He has been a “ward of the state” (I shiver at that term) for almost 1,100 days in fact, still with no end in sight. For anyone not quick at math, yes, that’s three years “in the system.” Yes, that’s double the time that Federal law allows a child to live like this. Only there’s no one enforcing the law; the judge can flip past the case number literally as many times as it conveniences his grace’s schedule.

So… what does it look like when ALL the days of your life are spent with no certain future? Here’s what it looked like for my son:

He smiled his first real smile.

He spoke his first word.

He started walking.

He calls me “mommy” and my husband “daddy.”

He wears shoes and plays in the snow and waves at me from the top of the sliding board. He points out airplanes and hides when he has a dirty diaper and whines when he’s hungry. He plays with Duplos and colors with crayons and eats cake and goes to the doctor’s and rides in the van and gets sweaty and takes naps and looks under the rug for candy and cleans up his toys.

He also exhibits signs of trauma and displays huge amounts of stress. He is inconsolably clingy and has to be in contact with my skin and weeps before visits and vomits afterwards.

Then he yells peek-a-book and pulls his hood up and says that a sheep says ‘moo’ just to make his brothers laugh. He builds with blocks and asks me to take his picture and tries to read over my shoulder. He asks to call my mother and bangs his feet on the stairs and sits in the laundry basket like a boat and licks the window and claps his hands and pets the dog for hours.

People ask me so often when they see the very real struggle to cope with the realities that pop up for me as a foster parent,

“How do you do it?”

Every time, I think,

“How could I NOT?”

These 1,000 days, just like the Unicef nutritional period, are foundational to this little person’s future. He has learned to smile looking at my face, to form words by listening to his brothers, to walk by standing on my husband’s feet, to dance (most unfortunately) by wiggling along with me to The Beach Boys, and to bow his head to Jesus before meals—he’s learned all of this by being in our family and by living in our life.

Foster care isn’t just about keeping him safe today (although that is inestimably important); it’s also about helping to establish who he is so he can grow into who he will be.

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I consider myself a positive person. I’m upbeat, maybe even spunky. But the constant drone of the unknown in my child’s life sometimes threatens to squelch my smile. People mean well when they ask if there’s an update on a foster care placement, but there often isn’t. Even when I can give them a “court date” to look forward to, there’s a strong chance that nothing will happen.

Some people handle this with grace, saying that they’ll be praying about it or nodding in understanding that “the system” is hard to navigate. Other people ask questions I don’t have the answer to. Why aren’t they moving faster? Haven’t you told them X-Y-Z?

***Heavy sigh.***

I realize more each day that God didn’t call me to be a foster parent because I would be good at it. He called me to be a foster parent to teach me how badly I need Him. (And possibly that I’m a control freak.)

It’s become my mantra to end every conversation about foster parenting with one staple line:

“…But the good news is to remember that this is all God’s plan. God isn’t surprised by these delays, and He’s put our son exactly where he’s supposed to be at each moment.”

Honestly, I don’t usually say it with much feeling, because it’s easy to feel like He isn’t there. But that makes it more imperative for me to say it. To speak it as a witness to myself, reminding ME of the truth. God doesn’t wait for a call from the caseworker to hear if court was another continuance. God knows already. In fact, He planned it that way! He’s not surprised.

My daily battle to fight the boring, fight the mundane, fight the unchanging status quo that seems to threaten my family is a fight I can only win when I let go. And so, I preach to myself. I remind myself daily that this has been the plan all along.

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! – Psalm 27:14

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When it comes to medical care, foster parents operate in a strange sphere – a kind of medical no man’s land! Because I have two biological kids, I was accustomed to a fairly standard procedure when it came to the seeing the doctor. When they were sick or needed a well-check, I’d call ahead to the doctor to schedule and appointment. On the day of, we’d check in, show an insurance card, see the doctor, pay a co-pay, and come home with a sticker (sometimes multiple stickers). It was pretty standard. Now that I’m a foster parent, the relative simplicity of those visits is now a thing of the past. Those were the good ol’ days!

Now, I’m sure the rules vary from state-to-state (as everything in the foster care system does), but in my home state of Pennsylvania, here’s how it looks…

First, birth parents have the right to always be present at medical appointments (as they should). But, honestly, it can be awkward. The kid might be cranky, the doctor NEVER knows who to talk to, and it can easily descend into an opportunity for the bio parents to visit with their child instead of participating or engaging in the appointment.

Some of the best advice I ever received in terms of drawing everyone’s focus back to the medical appointment at hand was to earnestly ask for the birth parent’s opinion on something. For example,

“Have you had any luck getting your little cutie to eat broccoli?”

A simple question like this accomplishes multiple things: it acknowledges their position as the parent, compliments the child, and puts you on equal terms. From my experience, it has been easy for a doctor to unintentionally create a power dynamic where the person the child lives with (meaning me, the foster parent) has all the answers and the bio parent has nothing to offer. Try to casually direct the doctor to include them in the appointment and make them an equal participant. At the same time, if the doctor asks a question that only you know the answer to, be sure to speak up. The child’s medical needs being adequately addressed is more important than a recently-graduated-out-to-save-the-world caseworker’s admonition in the waiting room that “you need to just observe and let his mom lead this appointment.”

Second, as the foster parent you don’t get to pick the doctor. If the child already has a PCP, you’ll likely be going there regardless of whether or not you have another doctor you’d prefer. If the child needs to see any specialists – someone else will pick who that specialist will be. We live in Lancaster County, and our child has had appointments in Philadelphia, Exton, King of Prussia, Sinking Spring, and Harrisburg. If you aren’t familiar with that part of the country, that means we drive miles and miles, hours and hours…

Next, as you may have guessed, kids in the system are on government insurance (Medicaid). This was a whole new beast for me to meet including required referrals and suddenly learning that not every doctor will see your kid! Fortunately for me, the pediatrician my bio babies go to was happy to waive their office policy that this particular insurance provider was not accepted. They only did this because our family already comes to their practice, and many foster parents are not that lucky. Expect to make several calls before any appointment unless your case worker is willing to do that legwork for you. If you are able, though I’d advise you to handle all these calls yourself. That way you get to pick the appointment dates and times that suit your schedule instead of just being told when to show up (which might be in the middle of nap time or when you’re supposed to be picking big brother up from school).

At the actual appointment, check-in seems like it would be an easy thing, but it isn’t. You can’t just walk up and say “Freddie’s here to see Dr. Jim!” and enjoy the waiting room toys. First, you’ll usually need to have a letter from the county saying that you have permission to bring the child for medical care. Next, the well-meaning check-in clerk will have a dozen questions:

Question: “I have three addresses in here, which is correct?”

Answer: “They all are. One is his birth mother’s address that you already had on record, one is children and youth’s since they are his legal guardians at this time, and one is his place of residence, my house.”

Question: “Where do I send paperwork?”

Answer: “You need to send copies to all three addresses.”

Question: “What phone number do I call for appointment reminders?”

Answer: “Mine, foster mom.”

Question: “Can you sign here please?”

Answer: “No, I can’t sign anything.”

This brings me to my last point: the entourage. Because my family works with a private agency, we have an agency case worker and a county case worker at many medical appointments. They are the ones who can sign things. Foster parents generally can’t sign anything — not financial or liability or consent to treat. All the paperwork either needs to be faxed ahead of time to the county agency, or the case worker must be present. I’ve generally been lucky and someone from the agency usually comes, which alleviates some of the upfront legwork. Bonus: someone else to take notes on anything that’s said as well as distract a cranky kiddo.

It’s true; foster care medical appointments can be one big clown car.  I actually had a child’s birth parent show up with balloons (yes, plural) in a doctor’s office! (Not kidding; the date was near his birthday.) In addition to me and “the patient,” a biological parent usually comes, plus two caseworkers, and sometimes I have to bring a big brother or two. We are QUITE the parade walking down the hallway to the exam room which inevitably ends up being a teeny 4-foot-square. Sigh. There are never enough seats, but I try to take one for the team and climb up to sit on the wrinkly, paper-covered-table.

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Editor’s Note: Several weeks ago, we shared with you the story of Kelley Rose Waller, a Foster mom and contributor to Hope 4 Hurting Kids in an article titled The Winding Road of Foster Care and Adoption as Kelley and her family prepared for and attended what they hoped would be the final court date for their foster son of the last two years whom they’d like to adopt. This past week, Kelley wrote the next installment in that story which we share with you now. 

We have presented excerpts from each of Kelley’s three articles below and encourage you to click-through to her blog to read the rest of the story.

Part 4: Waiting for Tomorrow

I can’t handle another emotional adrenaline rush, so I’m just enjoying today. Tomorrow we go to court. Again.

I’m not thinking about tomorrow and yesterday and the irony of Mother’s Day and court falling a day apart.

I’m thinking about a giant pile of dirty dishes and who’s going to fold all this laundry. I went to the gym and did a normal work-out (as opposed to the angry work-outs where I set personal bests). I went to the grocery store. I need to get gas in the van at some point.

Normal Monday. Actually, better: fun Monday!

Because life is real, and time is moving forward. And tomorrow is coming…

Read more

Part 5: Yesterday’s Gone

After court yesterday, I didn’t want to go home. Not in a dramatic way, but I wanted to be out in nature and surrounded by people. So first we walked in a park, then we went shopping. My husband had our two youngest in the cart, and something distracted me, so I wandered off.

My littlest didn’t, of course, understand that his life had been dramatically altered by a man’s word just hours before. He doesn’t know that in a few days, he’s leaving forever the only home he’s ever known in his 29 months of life: 872 days and counting. I guess it’s a countdown now…

Read more

Part 6: It Isn’t Like Packing for College

I think when you pack up your kid’s room, you should be packing university sweatshirts, not onesies.  Maybe if you’re moving your whole house, then you can pack someone’s tiny socks along with everything else. But it’s weird to pack up someone’s entire belongings and have it only be three boxes.

But that’s what happens when everything is small. Small pants. Small PJs with dinosaurs on them. Small dress shirts with only four buttons.

This is crappy…

Read the conclusion of this installment of Kelly’s story here

You know how in Terminator 2, Sarah Connor knows the truth about Skynet and the future and Judgment Day and death and approaching mayhem and no one believes her?  She knows what’s coming, and she’s right.  So she fights for what she believes and is “rewarded” by losing custody of her son and being institutionalized.

Granted, this gives us one of the awesomest girl-power scenes of all time (pull-ups on the side of your bed in a State Hospital is about as tough as you can get).   But I sometimes feel for Sarah Connor as a foster parent.

Walk with me down this long, winding comparison:

Sarah’s hands get tied because she fights too hard for someone she loves.  (Ridiculous. As if that’s possible.) She’s fighting primarily against a bunch of government employees who are overworked and underpaid and just don’t have any more energy to care.  They no longer look at each situation – at each child – and feel empowered to say, “I can make a difference here.”

The weird part of my comparison, of course, is that I’m a foster parent and John Connor is IN foster care at this point in the movie.  Sarah Connor, his birth mom, is the one fighting the system.  But I think this further illustrates my point: the kids are the ones who so often lose in the foster care system.

Whether you’re a birth parent fighting your past or a foster parent fighting for a child’s best future, the system is the enemy.  People assume since I’m a foster parent, that I think adoption is the obvious problem-solver.  You’re wrong; each situation is unique and when reunification can happen, it’s a beautiful thing.  I have prayed steadfastly for the birth parents of children in my home to defeat their addictions and literally held my breath, whispering, please show up, please show up, as we waited for a weekly visit.

Skynet is the foster care system.  It took over a child’s life, promising to make things better and safer, and instead everything around them is blowing up.

Sarah Connor didn’t stop Judgment Day.  She tried, but knowing what’s coming doesn’t mean you can stop it.  For better or for worse, whatever the judge decides at court will be the future of this child. BUT…

The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves! Despite John Connor’s rallying cry, I have good news: the future is set, it is secure.  God’s plan never fails. I don’t have to look at a child’s “judgment day” at court and fear that the wrong decision will be made, because it’s been The Plan all along.  Sarah’s best line sums it up: The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it with a sense of hope.

Editor’s Note: Many users of our site know Kelley Rose Waller as a Foster mom and contributor to Hope 4 Hurting Kids. Recently, she and her family prepared for and attended what they hoped would be the final court date for their foster son of the last two years whom they’d like to adopt. Kelley posted about the very real and heart-wrenching countdown to that date last week on her own blog (KelleyRoseWaller.com). For anyone involved in Foster Care, you might recognize some of your own journey in her heart wrenching account of the five days leading up that final court date. For those who know someone involved in this process, out prayer is that in Kelley’s story you will discover a new found or reinvigorated empathy for families you may know currently involved in the process. We are so grateful for Kelley’s transparency and willingness to share her own family’s journey with the users of Hope 4 Hurting Kids.

We have presented excerpts from each of Kelley’s three articles in the countdown and encourage you to click through to her blog to read the rest of the story.

Part 1: My Five-Day Countdown

Five days until a judge determines the future of my family.

Or will he?

I choose to embrace the truth that in five days we will simply find out what God has had planned from the beginning. It isn’t a decision to be made; it’s a decision that has already been made. And it is GOOD, my friends. I don’t even know the outcome yet, but God’s decision is GOOD.

On Tuesday, we find out if my son is my son or not.

Read more

Part 2: But God

I cried on the way home from church yesterday. I guess it’s ok because a lot of people feel emotional at Easter at church. He is risen! Except that’s not why I was crying. I was crying because I feel like a dry, wrinkly sponge that has nothing left to give and just got run over by a car. Somehow there had been a tiny bit of life left, but now that moisture is squeezed out onto the pavement. The reserves are empty.

Wrung out.

I know this is what we signed up for, BUT GOD can’t you see what they’re going to do?

Read more

Part 3: Worth It

So much anticipation over nothing. So much tossing and turning and not sleeping. So much time spent waiting in an uncomfortable chair!

Read the conclusion of Kelly’s story here

Along with love, patience, faithfulness and the other fruits of the Spirit, foster parents need another important “fruit” in their lives: flexibility. My husband and I had taken our two biological sons to the zoo one Saturday in August a few years ago when we got our first foster placement call. It had been a long, fun day, the kind that leaves you happy but exhausted. Boy, did our plans for that evening change! I didn’t sleep much. Unexpectedly, we were making phone calls and moving furniture around because we were getting not one, but two babies!

You’ve gotta be flexible when you are told that birth family visits will be Tuesday night. No, wait, Wednesday morning. Sorry, didn’t Cathy tell you they got moved to Sunday afternoon?  You’re early, they start at 3:30 not 2:00.

Sigh.

Beyond the immediacy of the little annoyances like changing schedules and waiting (oh, the endless sitting around in waiting rooms!) a big challenge in foster parenting is the overarching unknown of life. Most people live their life with a general idea of what the next six months will look like. Not foster parents! It’s April and someone just asked me if we had summer vacation plans. I said that we will probably leave for a week in June or July, but we had to wait to book because we weren’t sure how many rooms we’d need. [Insert blank stare.] Most people have 9 months to plan for a new family addition, but ours is unknown.

The funny part about MY reality is that it’s no different than anyone else’s reality, but they are usually less aware of it than I am. Their life is not as secure as they think. The curves God sees in their future may be much wilder than anything He has for me!

Paul writes that we are “lovers of self” (2 Tim. 3:2). We want our way, and we want it now!  Bending to the “system” is exhausting and can quickly leave you feeling stretched beyond your capacity. By all means, please have compassion on foster parents and be supportive of their service and love. But imagine this same experience as the child(ren) and suddenly the powerlessness is magnified by a million. Consider what is being asked of this kid.  Flexible to move three times in a year. Flexible to give another adult a chance to let them down. Flexible to change schools two times in third grade. Flexible to sleep in a fourth new bed of the summer. Flexible to see his mom, his brother, his sister, his grandmother only once a week — and flexible to understand that it isn’t his fault if they don’t show up.

Flexibility is more than “going with the flow,” which implies passively moving wherever ‘fate’ takes you. It’s adapting actively and moving consciously in the direction God has marked out, however surprising it may be.

Imagine there was a tornado coming at your house. Suddenly and unexpectedly, you have to leave. You have less than five minutes — what do you grab? Unfortunately for children coming into foster care, they may have as little warning that they are entering a devastating emotional storm. Sometimes, even if the county is able to bring over a child’s own clothes and belongings the next day or a week later, the first night in foster care often leaves a child surrounded by strange, alien, unfamiliar items that bring little comfort.  If you can help make them feel welcome, instead of like an unexpected houseguest, that’s a good step in the right direction. Remember, this probably feels like the worst day of this child’s life.

Here’s what I suggest you have on hand:

• A couple blankets and stuffed animal options — You’re probably not going to guess just the right stuffed bear out of all the bears in all the world, but if there’s anything that feels familiar and safe, that’s a win. Same goes for blankets: get a cotton one, a fleece one, a crocheted one, and a dimple dot one. Let the child have any or all that help.
• Clothes that fit — Keep in mind this means you might need pajamas and one versatile, all-season outfit for boys and girls in a huge range of sizes. Not all two-year olds fit a 2T! Get a range and judge what works best. Call friends with older kids and ask for a box of nice hand-me-downs with this night in mind.
• A new toothbrush — Maybe the child won’t want to brush (and I wouldn’t personally recommend dying on your sword for this the first night) but if they are willing, you want to be ready. Same goes for other personal hygiene items, depending on a child’s age: a new hairbrush and comb, a new deodorant, shampoo and lotion options appropriate for the child’s race or ethnicity.
• A crate or a pet-sitter for your critter — Sure, your dog is “part of the family,” but until you know how this new child will react to Fluffy, allow at least this first night without one more “unknown.”
• Easy food — This could mean many different things to many different kids, but having a bunch of choices is a good way to start. Noodles, chicken fingers, tater tots, and pizza with two gallons of ketchup for dipping may not be the healthiest meal, but a few bites of something is probably better than a howling tummy their first night sleeping in your home.
• Baby things — If you are taking foster placements of babies, you should have a good stock of various diaper sizes, wipes, a car seat/booster seat, bottles, formula, a crib, and every single style of pacifier you can possibly locate. (You never know which will be the golden ticket!)

If you’re a friend to a foster parent, ask what ages of children they typically have in their home, and if it would be a help for you to be on the look-out for deals on clothes in those sizes.  If your foster parent friend tells you she’s getting a placement, offer to bring her that easy dinner for the child’s first night (but don’t barge in and “meet” the kid — drop it off and go). If nothing else, ask what time you can order a pizza for delivery to their house.