As part of Smashwords Summer/Winter promotion (until July 31, 2014), you can receive a free copy of Death of a Foster Child by clicking here.
Death of a Foster Child explores the guilt felt when the foster placement of a teenage girl in the home of Rick Podowski and his wife failed. To complicate matters, the foster child was brutally murdered and the authorities believe she was selling drugs on the school campus and by implication asserted that the foster parents allowed this behavior. Rick Podowski with the help of Leti Ramos, Erin McGinty and Teresa Spinelli, also know as The Hefty Trio investigate to learn the truth.
In the process of investigating, they discover the world of drug sales on the high school campus, the underlying challenges facing students in a gang infested school, as well as the difficulties faced by special education students. The reader will experience the frustrations of foster parents when faced with a system that is designed to keep the children dependent.
The novel exposes this broken system and after the killer is found, there is a chapter on how we can change the foster care system in this county. That chapter is presented below.
 |
| Rick Podowski's thoughts on changing the system. |
Changing the Foster Care System
The Dave Thomas Foundation website points out that
"nearly 40 percent of American adults, or 81.5 million people, have
considered adopting a child. If just one in 500 of these adults adopted, every
waiting child in foster care would have a permanent family."
Unfortunately, these children are not adopted and as was
stated in the introduction to this book, in 2005, more than 24,000 youth aged
out of the foster care system at the age of eighteen without connection to a
family. Of this number, one in four would be incarcerated within the first two
years after they left the system, over one-fifth would become homeless at some
time after age eighteen, and approximately fifty-eight percent would earn a
high school diploma at age nineteen, compared to eighty-seven percent of a
national comparison group of non-foster youth. Of youth who aged out of foster
care and were over the age of twenty-five, fewer than three percent would earn
their college degrees, compared with twenty-eight percent of the general
population.
Our system produced these unacceptable outcomes.
In order to have a foster child in the home, the interested
couples must complete an extensive, complicated process, which many find to be
extremely humiliating. Although there have been attempts in recent years to
make the rules less oppressive, the California Community Licensing agency
(CCL), has made complying with the rules more important than the welfare of the
child. Instead of a cooperative effort between CCL and the Foster Family Agency
(FFA) there seems to be one of "obey the rules or else" which creates
stress for all involved and works to the detriment of the children.
Fear is the overriding factor as social workers and agencies
go overboard to keep from losing their licenses or being fined. CCL acts like a
fiefdom where inspectors intimidate both foster parents and the adoption/foster
care agencies. Child Protective Services (CPS) becomes the enforcer for this
system and in many cases unproven allegations can become the basis for removing
a child.
One example of the power of Child Protective Services
occurred in January of 2001 in Campbell, California. Less than twenty-four
hours earlier, after Donna McLean had walked out of a Santa Clara County
courtroom with full custody of her sons, Anthony and Mark, then six and eight
years old, CPS removed the children from her home without indicating the
reason. Three years later, she settled out of federal court. The county agreed
to pay her $500,000 and put on record that the removal of Mark and Anthony was
"unfounded." But, she still had no clues as to why CPS had,
apparently, overstepped its bounds.
The counties want to provide services to help the child, but
often their services overlap, and often there is no logical connection between
the services being provided. Death of a Foster Child is based on the
experiences of real foster children and one of them had services from a social
worker from the county, a social worker from the FFA, a therapist, a team from
a different agency consisting of four individuals who would meet to assess the
child's progress and drive her to therapy as well as providing a mentor to work
with her weekly, a social worker to supervise visits with her birth parents, a
driver to take her to the church youth group, a child advocate, an attorney,
the attorney's social worker, an independent living team, a psychiatrist, and
teen court. This is an incredible waste of resources.
The about.com website
on fostering children asked for people to complete the statement: "If I
could change the system...." Eight-six people responded and some of the
major points were as follows:
1. The most important thing is to listen to the
children. Teach them that decisions impact their lives.
2. Emancipating is the hardest time for most foster
youth. There just aren't enough programs for them to be prepared for the real
world, which is a big reason why so many of them end up homeless, pregnant,
addicted to drugs, and in jails/prisons.
3. There must be more emphasis on the child's well being
and safety and less on reunification/parent's rights. The system is in too big
a hurry to put kids back in unhealthy environments simply to save money or
appease parents or for lack of foster homes.
4. We throw money at the DCFS, kids and the parents, but
money can't fix everything. There are Foster Family Agencies that make
thousands of dollars per child and don't provide meaningful services that help
these children.
5. Simplify the process of becoming a foster parent.
Taking all the above into account, as well as my experiences with children in foster care and my review of the research, I feel that the system needs to change in the following ways.
Currently, the training for foster parents emphasizes that everyone should work as a team, but the reality is quite different. The private agencies live in fear of the Community Care Licensing Agency, and meeting its requirements is much more important than dealing with the needs of the foster families. A true team approach must be implemented.
The emphasis is on placing foster children with relatives.
Often grandparents who raised dysfunctional children end up raising their
grandchildren. Searches are done to find distant blood relatives who have never
had contact with the child, in the hope that, acting out of shame or guilt they
will take the child. There are cases in which the child who is functioning
perfectly well in a foster home is taken away to live with strangers whose only
claim to the child is a blood connection. This model must be examined, and the
placement must be made in the best interest of the child. In addition, it is
the duty of the social worker and the courts to develop a plan in which the
birth family remains an integral part of the foster child's life.
There is a dual structure when a private agency is involved
with the child. The private agency social worker meets with the child, and this
is often followed by another meeting with the county social worker, thus creating
an unnecessary duplication of efforts. The county should turn all supervision
over to the private agency.
Instead of CCL investigations designed solely to establish
blame, they should instead focus on why the placement failed and provide an
analysis of how the situation could have been handled differently. By adding
this information to a database, training programs could then be improved and
the number of failed placements would decrease.
We need a model that focuses on preparing the children to
take their place in the community and become productive citizens, and this is,
perhaps the most important change that should be made in the foster system.
One program that seems to be working is the Ontario Looking
After Children (ONLAC) project, a program that focuses on the Forty
Developmental Assets developed by the Search Institute. There are twenty
external assets, divided into the four categories of support, empowerment,
boundaries and expectations and constructive use of time, as well as twenty
internal assets, also divided into four categories including commitment to
learning, positive values, social competencies, and positive identity.
The external assets, working together with internal assets,
promote protection and resilience of the children in care. When children and
youth enter the child welfare system, they often come from situations of
extreme poverty, parental substance abuse, emotional and/or physical abuse, and
sometimes sexual abuse. By focusing on the developmental assets, the children
in foster care will develop better resistance skills to cope with the negative
aspects of their lives.
In the Ontario
Association of Children's Aid Societies Journal (summer 2008, vol. 5, no
2), Cynthia Vincent, Shaye Moffat, Marie-Pierre Paquet, Dr. Robert Flynn, and
Robyn Marquis reported on "Developmental Assets and Resilient Outcomes:
Findings from the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) Project." They hypothesized
that there would be a positive relationship between the number of developmental
assets that the young person had and his or her level of pro social behavior,
academic performance, and mental health.
The study was based on 713 teenagers from ten to seventeen
years old of which 56% were male and 44% were female, 85% were in foster care
and 15% were in-group homes.
Data had been collected on all of the 713 participants which
included: a summary profile of the forty assets rated by the child welfare
worker, a questionnaire yielding pro social and total difficulties scores, and ratings
of academic performance. Lastly, the young person provided self-esteem and
placement satisfaction data.
The measure of developmental assets was calculated as
follows. The child welfare worker was asked to rate the young person's
possession of the asset in terms of three response options: "yes,"
"uncertain" or "no." A total score was computed for the
young person by summing up all the "yes" responses. Thirty-one assets
are considered optimum for an adolescent. The mean asset for the total sample
(N = 713) was twenty-seven. Females had a greater number of assets, with an
average of twenty-nine while males rated twenty-six.
There were statistically significant positive correlations
between the young person's number of assets and his or her pro social behavior,
self-esteem, relationship with the female caregiver, placement satisfaction,
and academic performance. That is, the
more developmental assets the young person possessed, the more positive were
his or her outcomes. The study also
found a statistically significant negative correlation between developmental
assets and psychological difficulties, in that young people with a greater
number of developmental assets had fewer psychological difficulties. Overall,
the results suggested that, as in the general population, the possession of a
larger number of developmental assets were beneficial for young people in care.
In Shasta County, California the Foster Outreach
Strengthened through Empowerment and Resources (FOSTER) program is designed for
youth ages eleven through eighteen developed to address at-risk youth in the
foster care system. The focus of the FOSTER program is to improve services to
foster youth by linking them with county wide activities, both public and
private that will increase their resilience using the Search Institute's 40
Developmental Assets Model. The goals are to reduce risky behaviors, reduce or
prevent alcohol and substance abuse, and promote positive change.
The current model clearly isn't working, and I believe that
a revamping of the entire system is necessary in order to achieve one primary
goal, which is to provide the resources so that our foster youth become
productive adults. I believe that models incorporating the developmental assets
have the best chance of being successful. Also, the oversight agencies (CPS,
FFA, County Social Services, and CCL) need to take more of a support role and
work to improve placements.
40 Developmental Assets for Adolescents
(ages 12-18)
External Assets
Support
1. Family support—Family life provides high levels of love and
support.
2. Positive family communication—Young person and her or his
parent(s) communicate positively, and young person is willing to seek advice
and counsel from parents.
3. Other adult relationships—Young person receives support from
three or more nonparent adults.
4. Caring neighborhood—Young person experiences caring neighbors.
5. Caring school climate—School provides a caring, encouraging
environment.
6. Parent involvement in schooling—Parent(s) are actively involved
in helping young person succeed in school.
Empowerment
7. Community values youth—Young person perceives that adults in the
community value youth.
8. Youth as resources—Young people are given useful roles in the
community.
9. Service to others—Young person serves in the community one hour
or more per week.
10. Safety—Young person feels safe at home, school, and in the
neighborhood.
Boundaries & Expectations
11. Family boundaries—Family has clear rules and consequences and
monitors the young person's whereabouts.
12. School Boundaries—School provides clear rules and consequences.
13. Neighborhood boundaries—Neighbors take responsibility for
monitoring young people's behavior.
14. Adult role models—Parent(s) and other adults model positive,
responsible behavior.
15. Positive peer influence—Young person's best friends model
responsible behavior.
16. High expectations—Both parent(s) and teachers encourage the
young person to do well.
Constructive Use of Time
17. Creative activities—Young person spends three or more hours per
week in lessons or practice in music, theater, or other arts.
18. Youth programs—Young person spends three or more hours per week
in sports, clubs, or organizations at school and/or in the community.
19. Religious community—Young person spends one or more hours per
week in activities in a religious institution.
20. Time at home—Young person is out with friends "with
nothing special to do" two or fewer nights per week.
Internal Assets
Commitment to Learning
21. Achievement Motivation—Young person is motivated to do well in
school.
22. School Engagement—Young person is actively engaged in learning.
23. Homework—Young person reports doing at least one hour of
homework every school day.
24. Bonding to school—Young person cares about her or his school.
25. Reading for Pleasure—Young person reads for pleasure three or
more hours per week.
Positive Values
26. Caring—Young person places high value on helping other people.
27. Equality and social justice—Young person places high value on
promoting equality and reducing hunger and poverty.
28. Integrity—Young person acts on convictions and stands up for
her or his beliefs.
29. Honesty—Young person "tells the truth even when it is not
easy."
30. Responsibility—Young person accepts and takes personal
responsibility.
31. Restraint—Young person believes it is important not to be
sexually active or to use alcohol or other drugs.
Social Competencies
32. Planning and decision making—Young person knows how to plan
ahead and make choices.
33. Interpersonal Competence—Young person has empathy, sensitivity,
and friendship skills.
34. Cultural Competence—Young person has knowledge of and comfort
with people of different cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds.
35. Resistance skills—Young person can resist negative peer
pressure and dangerous situations.
36. Peaceful conflict resolution—Young person seeks to resolve
conflict nonviolently.
Positive Identity
37. Personal power—Young person feels he or she has control over
"things that happen to me."
38. Self-esteem—Young person reports having a high self-esteem.
39. Sense of purpose—Young person reports that "my life has a
purpose."
40. Positive view of personal future—Young person is optimistic
about her or his personal future.
The 40 Developmental Assets
are used with permission from Search Institute, Minneapolis, MN. More
information is available at www.searach-institute.org.