Copyright by the Alaska Center for Resource Families, 2006
Why is it important to maintain ties? Isn’t it just easier to keep a child separated from his parents, away from the turmoil and the abuse?
Unfortunately, "out of sight and out of mind" does not work with children. If the goal is reunification, children in care need to keep contact with their families. If the goal changes, children need to be able to talk and have someone to help them resolve those feelings about the loss of that relationship.
Imagine yourself a child. Imagine if someone came to your home and ask you to leave quickly and unexpectedly with no warning. You were being taken somewhere but you weren’t sure where. The person who is leading you looks very official and seems to have authority tells you leave with him. “We will take you to a safe place. Don’t worry. Trust me.” The official takes you away and takes you to a home that looks unfamiliar to you. You feel very lost. You want to go back home. But everyone continues to tell you not to worry.
If you were a child, what would your fears be? Write down at least two examples.
Fear #1:
Fear #2:
In the exercise above, what did you write down as your possible fears? Some fears a child might have include:
When children come into foster care, they lose their center of security. They run the risk of losing their ties with their family, their community, and possibly their culture. The process of separation can hurt a child’s sense of safety and attachment. Even though we protect a child from harm, we may also be causing severe stress and anxiety. These ties become even more important if a child is moved from one foster home to another.
In the book, Maintaining Family Ties: Inclusive Practice in Foster Care, author Sally E. Palmer says children need either contact with their parent or at the least, a chance to resolve the feelings they have about their parents. It is important that connections with the birth parents be acknowledged either by encouraging them or by talking about them.
Some highlights of the extensive research covered in the book include the following:
This will not be able to happen unless resource families believe in the importance of supporting the connections between a child and his family. Sometimes social workers may be hesitant to have birth families and resource families work together. Birth families may need to be farther along in their treatment before they are able to accept contact with a foster parent. But children need the adults in their life to accept the connections they have been forced to leave behind and to make the efforts to keep the healthy ones alive.
Honor a child’s history and his ties to his extended family, community and culture.
A child's connections to his family and community are like the roots of a young plant. If we take care of the roots, we can move the plant into different soil and it will still grow. If we damage the roots, we hurt the growing plant. Tending to the roots of the children in our care takes extra effort on the part of the adults, but will help the young person grow in the long run.
Watch your words.
Resource parents are asked not to say anything derogatory or demeaning about the child's parents or family members. When you say something bad or demeaning about a child's parents, the child is forced to choose between you and the parent. No matter what he may feel, he will feel forced to defend his parent. Also, because so much of a young child's self-concept is identified with his parents, if you attack his parents, the child will feel you are attacking him, too.
Keep a lifebook.
A lifebook is a record of a child's life while he is in your home. Keep photographs, school projects, some drawings and special awards for the child to take when he leaves your home. So many children in foster care lose parts of their history because they don't have an adult who is actively keeping a record for them. Ask for a lifebook when a child comes from another foster home or start a book for every child who comes to your home.
Support ongoing efforts to help a child stay connected to his parents
Support the efforts of the parent to stay involved with a child's life. When parents aren't physically with their children, there is a tendency to disengage or not be involved in the important day to day activities of being a parent. You can do many things to keep a child connected to his birth parent, and encourage a parent to stay involved in a child's life.
Support visitations.
Visitations will be determined by the caseplan, so ask your social worker about the visitation and contact schedule. Getting children to visits and supporting a child in the aftermath of a visitation are important roles of a resource parent.
Actively prepare and be involved in the transition of a child to a new placement.
Help children transition from one placement to another or back home by providing guidance, information and support.
All children have a biological connection with their birth families. Children, unless they are very young or an infant, will probable have an established relationship with their families. Children have connections to sibling, to extended families, to culture, and perhaps neighborhood.
The job of the social worker and the resource parent is to help children keep their connection to their birth families when appropriate or when reunification is the plan. Think of connection and contact on a continuum. It can range from a simple recognition that a child has another family, to the active support of helping visitations happen, to a development of a relationship between resource family and birth family. What is right for a child will vary.
Following is a list of suggestions taken from the work of Pat Ryan of the University of Michigan and Vera Fahlberg, a pediatrician and consultant in Washington to help children keep connections with their families. We have also included suggestions taken from the Annie E.Casey Family to Family Project from the Handbook Family to Family: Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care, March 2002. Visitation will be covered in depth in Lesson 3.
Please note, these ideas must be compatible with the child’s visitation plan. We have listed the suggestions from use early in the placement where they may be limited contact to later in the placement where contact occurs often. If you are unsure if something is allowed, talk to your caseworker.
Taking photo of the child with birth family to give to parents
Request pictures of the child's family to display in child's room
Talk with child about memories he has of his family
Make a family tree or scrapbook of photos for the child
Take the child to cultural events
Have different books, arts movies and magazines featuring the culture or race of the child
Have child draw pictures or write a story to share with parents at visits
Remembering Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
Dress child up for visits so they look nice and well cared for
Help a child write letters or make pictures to send to parents
Help a child put together a scrapbook or a life book
Adopt a ritual or tradition from the child’s family to help celebrate holidays
Making or buying gifts for birth parents
Making allowed phone calls or allowing phone calls to child
Making a birthday cake or giving a birthday party for birth parents
Host or arrange visits with brothers and sisters
Learn about, understand and respect the birth parent's culture
Send the parents current pictures of the child.
Give parent school pictures to share with others
Refer to birth parent's child as "your child" in their presence
On visits, make it a point to tell the birth parent some compliment about the child
Showing parents grades, awards, etc.
Ask birth parents about schedule or food preference of the child
Share copies of homework and report cards
Give parent verbal progress resports
Ask for parents input on clothes, toys, equipment or behavior change
Help parents find community resources
Include birth parents in school conference, Parent’s Nights, school plays
Ask parent to come to doctor or other care appointments
Invite the birth parent to dinner
For more of the suggestions given by the Annie E. Casey Foundation Family to Family Project, check out the posting called "Bridging The Gap of Separation Between Children and Their Families" at http://www.nysccc.org/linkfamily/Realities/Bridging.htm.
Lifebooks are a simple tool to help children stay connected to their past. They also help to keep track of time spent in your family. The activities, memories and connection a child experiences while in your family are an important part of his life.
Lifebooks can be a simple photo album with pictures of his family, your home and your family. Lifebooks can be boxes that hold special papers, mementos, and objects of special significance. A lifebook might also be a life history of a child to help him understand his past. This kind of lifebook can be especially helpful for children who have been adopted out of the system. It helps him put meaning to some difficult concepts.
The lifebook is a way to hold memories and history for a child. Send the lifebook back home with the child or pass it on to his adoptive home. If a child is coming from another foster home, always ask the social worker if a child has a lifebook. If he doesn't have one, start one for him.
What should you put into a lifebook? Put both material things (such as pictures, photographs, school items) and intangible memories (such as writing down stories, a handwritten letter, writing down memories, nicknames)
Make it fun. It can be as simple as a notebook, but you can also have the child select a photo album or scrapbook, cut out pictures in magazines or decorate blank pages. Many foster parents suggest making copies of the lifebook in case it gets lost, damaged or worn.
One lifebook exercise is to write a letter to your child about a funny or enjoyable memory you have of that child. On a separate piece of paper from your learning journal, think of a child currently in your home or a child that you remember. Write a short letter to him beginning, " Dear Johnny, One thing I remember about you is……” If you are writing about a child currently in your home, use it to start a lifebook or to put in his or her current lifebook.
Lifebooks - Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child (Beth O'Malley, published by AdoptionWorks, Winthrop Massachusetts, 2000.). Beth O’Malley has written a book that helps adoptive parents put together a lifebook to help a child understand his past so he can feel more rooted in his present. It is available through the Alaska Center for Resource Families and the Office of Children’s Services in Alaska. Find out more about this book and the concept of lifebooks at www.adoptionlifebooks.com
In Lesson Three, we will look in depth about making visitations go more smoothly. To review the concepts learned in Lesson Two, take the Review Quiz on the next page.
INSTRUCTIONS: These questions test material learned in Lesson One of this course. Type in or select the correct answer for each questions. When you have finished, check your responses against the correct answers at the end of the page.
1. Children may have trouble forming relationships with substitute caregivers because they are afraid of being: (CHOOSE ONE)
___a. Abandoned
___b. Disloyal to Birth Parents
___c. Moved to Another Placement
2. If a child is unable to have a relationship with his parents, he may still have healthy relationships with: (FILL IN THE BLANKS)
a. _____________________________________________
b. _____________________________________________
c. _____________________________________________
3. A __________________________________________ is a record of the child's life when hes is in your home or a record that also can help a child understand his history before he came to your home. (FILL IN THE BLANK)
4. Name two (2) ways to encourage a child and a parent to stay connected to each other. (FILL IN THE BLANKS)
a. _____________________________________
b. _____________________________________
5. When foster parents speak badly of his birth parents, a child often interpret that the foster parents are speaking badly of the child as well.
1. b. DISLOYAL
2. SIBLINGS, EXTENDED FAMILY, GRANDPARENTS, or CULTURE
3. LIFEBOOK
4. Return to IDEAS PAGE for a list of ideas to keep children connected.
5. a. TRUE
In the Lesson Three, we will look at how to help visitation go more smoothly, how to help children after a visit, and how to deal with common problems.