Vol. 4, No. 2 • Spring 2000

The Voice of a Child
by Donna Gillespie Foster

"Look, there is one thing I need to make perfectly clear before I move in with you. I am going to see my Mom," Kim stated forcefully during our first family meeting. My family and I had been fostering for twelve years when I met Kim in the residential home where I worked part-time as a counselor. Kim was twelve years old and fun-spirited, with an engaging personality. I brought the idea of Kim living with us to the attention of my husband, my eighteen-year-old son, and fifteen-year-old daughter. We all agreed we wanted to meet Kim to see if she wanted to stay with us.

Kim was excited at the idea. She was a little hesitant because she had some strong issues when it came to foster families. She was relieved when I told her we worked as a team and her needs were important to us all.

The first family meeting was the "get acquainted" meeting or, as the children put it, the "checking you out" meeting. Laughing and eating pizza around the kitchen table seemed so natural.

Yet I knew the two other foster families where she had lived during her first three years of foster care, and they were well respected. I was puzzled why Kim was removed from her first home and ran from her second. I was especially puzzled about the first home situation because her three sisters were still living there.

When asked why she left her other foster homes, Kim became serious and intense. Her reason was, "I wanted to see my Mom and my sisters hated my Mom. I wanted to go home with her and I felt no one there (at the foster home) would help me."

Kim loved her sisters but couldn't handle fighting to justify wanting to live with her mother. As she struggled to be reunited with her Mom, her grades suffered and her temperament became unpredictable.

She admits being angry and talking back to her first foster mother. But, she explained, her visits with her mother were used as privileges to be taken away from her if she misbehaved. She knew her birth mother wasn't completing the Judge's court orders, but she felt her Mom was trying.

Her mother needed Kim in her corner and Kim seemed to be the only one believing in her. The more her sisters and the adults in her life criticized her mother, the more Kim fought for her. Energies she needed to play, create, and learn were used to fight for her right to be with her mother. It became " you against me."

After hearing her viewpoint of her past life and future plans, I understood why she voiced her demands from the start. Kim wanted to see her Mom, talk about her Mom, and one day, go home to her Mom.

What she didn't know about me was that, as a foster parent, I believe the stronger the healthy connections are between a child and her birth family, the more resources I have available to help the child.

I never discourage children from talking about their birth families. Understanding their families aids me in understanding the children. If I want to do my part in helping children understand their futures, there isn't any room for judgment. Who they are is where they have come from. The people who take part in the growing years of a child make an imprint on the child's life; they all become a piece of who and what the child becomes.

Without compromising the child's safety, I try to bring back into the child's life the missing pieces.

Beginning the Joining Process
When Kim came to live with us, I concentrated on convincing her that I valued her family relationships. Effective communication was critical if we were going to connect.

She talked incessantly about her mother, father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. She missed them all. It was in her voice, in her eyes as she spoke of her countless memories.

She and her family were always moving from home to home. She cherished the happy memories with her siblings and her mother. Kim held tightly to the good memories of her dad even though they were tarnished by his fits of anger, during which he would physically batter the children and her mother.

Her mother took the brunt of her temper tantrums. Kim whispered to me, "No one at DSS thought about how my Mom was treated. She tried to get us away from him but he wouldn't let her. She was so scared of him."

Kim was like a flood gate that opened up and the waters were her pent up feelings. She needed someone to hear her.

I knew my listening was crucial. Kim needed to build trust in me. My trust in her would wait. I listened without giving advice or correcting her. I reflected what she said by repeating her story in my words. I leaned towards her, showing she had my attention and at the same time respecting her right for space.

I asked her, "Kim, if you could make the plan for your life from this day forward, what would it be?"

Her answer never wavered. "I want to go home with my mother," she said. "I want people to understand her and help her to get me back."

"What if your brother and sisters aren't ready to go home or don't want to go?"

"That is their decision," she replied. "I want to go."

Building the Team
The first step for me was to find out who was on "Kim's Team." I needed to talk to her social worker, her mother, her mother's new husband, any supportive family members, her sisters, her first and second foster parents, her therapist, and her guardian ad litem. Her father was off limits to the children and their caretakers, so this contact would have to wait.

It was essential that everyone on Kim's Team agree on the definition of the team. Often, I hear people say they are on a team, but their actions say differently.

A team is a group of people who have the same goals that are their highest priority to accomplish. A team consists of members of different personalities, skills, and experiences. They commit themselves to the objectives that will meet the team's goals. They do this through dedicating themselves to certain activities, as developed by he team as a whole. The members do not seek personal achievement but support one another, communicate openly, and maintain a clear understanding of each other.

It may be too much to expect the birth family to be a part of the team: if they do participate, it only makes sense they want personal achievement. If they decide to be active on the team, their part in achieving their goal would be important to the process.

If a team works together and meets on a regular basis, the benefits can be incredible. If the goal for the child is in the child's best interest and the team works toward that goal together, the child wins. The benefits include support, trust, open communication, commitment, sharing of resources and strengths, joint partnership in making decisions and solutions, and sharing of responsibilities and rewards.

Family Bonds and Grief
Usually children who enter foster care want to return home to their families, whether it is safe or not. If they can't go home, they want to see their parents. If that isn't immediately possible, they at least want to talk to them. Children identify with their own family. This family is a part of them.

Kim looks like her Mom and her siblings. They share a common history and a bond, one she fought to preserve even when some family members resisted.

Children start grieving for their birth family from the moment they are removed from their parents' care. Until the children can see that their family is alive and nearby, they are stuck in their grief stages. Much is the same for their birth parents. They experience grief as well. (For more information on grief go to "Understanding Birth Family Grief.")

Engaging Kim's Mom
Kim's mother was very angry at me and at the DSS social workers. She didn't think she should have been blamed for the family's destruction. She left the family to get a job so she could come back and take her five children. Many times before she tried to take her children with her, but her husband found her. Her last plan failed, too, when she found out her husband willingly volunteered the children to the department of social services, accusing her of abandonment. This was what the Judge ruled when Kim's Mom tried to win her children back.

She refused to accept the verdict and resisted the Judge's orders: parenting classes, therapy, stable employment, and adequate housing. She had the employment and was ready for a larger apartment if the children could come home. But she felt she didn't need to do the other things.

When I first met her she was forceful and angry. But when I acted in ways to build her trust in me, such as sitting behind her in court to support her and giving her updates on Kim's daily developments, she mellowed. In time, she did all she was ordered to do. Kim's mother had a personal disaster which lengthened Kim's return, but throughout the years, she showed her love to Kim. Kim and I wrote a letter to the Judge stating our strong support for reunification and listed the factual proof of Kim's mother's involvement with her.

In the five years Kim lived with us, her mother, my husband, and I shared in parenting Kim. Her mother attended all of Kim's school events, meetings, and church activities. She and I developed the house rules and consequences and we enforced them together: She chose to use the same discipline plan with Kim on her visits home.

Kim's grandmother stepped forward when Kim's mother needed a support person to help her raise Kim in her teen years. In the end, Kim, her mother, and her grandmother lived together for two and a half years until Kim went out on her own.

Kim needed this time to reconnect with her family. There were hard times (raising a teen is difficult for any child) but the good times were wonderful. Kim regained her relationships with her siblings as the years passed. I felt instrumental in aiding Kim on her adolescent journey and we will be there for her throughout her life.

An unexpected benefit to being a foster parent for Kim and working with her birth family was that our two families became one. Kim never felt she had to choose one family over another.

Not all children have happy endings. There are birth families who don't want to cooperate or are dangerous to their children and others. There are absent parents. There are children who don't want to reunite.

Even so, there are ways to help children gather information about their families and understand their situation. Time spent helping children fill in their life's gaps through talking and creating a life book builds a stronger relationship between foster parents, social workers, and the child. In the end, the child wins.

Donna Gillespie Foster, an author, national trainer, and consultant, lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her years as a foster parent have been her greatest learning tool. Included are excerpts from her books, Fostering Relationships: Working with the Birth Family and Team Building: A Workbook for Foster Families and Social Workers, published through American Foster Care Resources, Inc.

Copyright � 2000 Jordan Institute for Families