Thirty some years ago I read all the articles and books about foster care and adoption. I was well informed about the serious trauma a child, even an infant goes through separated from their first parent, and moved from home to home, placed in a genetically unrelated family. I was prepared intellectually, I worked on the emotional preparation to fortify myself for the children I would parent.
The agencies that certified the Foster parents and approved the adoptive parents, taught classes, gave us information about the children available, and mostly tried to match us with older, more difficult children that needed homes. In order to convince us that these children would be "the right match" for our families, they offered to provide "services".
These special Post Adoptive Special Service Subsidies went beyond the medical needs of the child. Medical subsidies meant you would never have to worry about providing glasses, dental care, medical care, or even wheelchairs or medicine. These additional promises of services included:
Respite Care
Camp in the summer
Tutoring to catch up or keep students in a grade
Baby-sitting for older children(some teens acted WAY younger than their age!)
Psychotherapy
Psychiatric Care
Items not covered by the medical cards or family insurance
These are not frivolous when you have a difficult child living in your home. Keeping a child as part of the family may depend on tutoring, some weekend respite, or a babysitter for the parents to get a weekend away. For SURE mental health therapy for the family is essential! Often it is the entire system of the family that needs to be addressed in therapy, not just the "newcomer", to make the family regain the new balance it will find with the addition of a Foster or adopted child or two.
Can you see a six year old, waking up to find two new children in their home, his or her parents deeply involved with their care, and now having to share time, toys, space, and love with these "strangers" who talk, walk, and eat 24/7 in the family that seemed only "his/hers" ? With the best of preparations, education, prayer and pre-placement visits, it is never easy.
You must realize that in the past the "state" housed children without parents, whose parents were in jail, or where the parents were considered unable to parent properly, in homes or institutions. In many cases, the outcome of the children and history of these homes was not good for the children. It was decided that a family environment was better, and Foster homes replaced orphanages. Because of the cost of daily care in these homes, adoptive homes were sought, where parents volunteered to accept cost of raising the child. The medical costs were still covered by the state, even though the larger cost of housing, feeding and clothing the child now became the burden of the adoptive parents. It is far less expensive for the state to promise a few extras, very necessary to maintain a child torn from its birth family, than to raise that child totally til the age of eighteen.
In addition, adoptive parents parent beyond the age of eighteen. They will parent through college, help with jobs, cars, apartments, walk that child down the aisle, help with grandchildren. The only thing our government can do, is sign up the next generation for Foster Care and food stamps.
The first children I adopted were difficult to parent, I was very new to this profession. As I got older, with experience and help from family therapy and support groups, I was better able to adjust to the issues my children faced. The promises made by the counties from where my children came were important. Hamilton County had to honor my special subsidies, and I received tutoring, educational help, boarding school for one child, therapy, camp, respite care, babysitting services, and other specific needed services. In no case did I receive any funds. I only requested services for the children.
One case that a group of Hamilton County Adoptive Parents filed suit against the Agency for denying services, was that we required a specific therapist for adoption issues. they insisted we can use the medical card for any therapists listed. We won the case. For the last several years we have had therapy paid for using the therapist that is a specialist in adoption/separation/loss issues.
Here is the issue: Our mental health professionals do not have a system by which we can count on service that is immediate, reliable, consistent, and effective.
When I call for service(Which I have) I get a recorded message, and when I leave a number, I get to wait until a call back. Then I wait for the initial intake, an interview for the doctor, and evaluation. After several months, if I am lucky, I will have an appointment , and a second one a month later, again if I am not on the "triage as most needed" maybe not. The chances that I have the same therapist is highly unlikely, or that the therapist will change within a short time. Family dynamics of adoption indicate we need therapy from time to time, we have emergencies, and then things go quite well for a time. We need someone "on call" who really knows us, and can give therapy over the phone, can get us in today. It is NOT the kind of therapy that the hospitals and the mental health professionals are doing today. They are not in the loop. They do not even know what goes on in a foster family, how the child can split the parents, and work them apart, causing chaos. They do not see when the "new" child is the "good cop" and makes everyone see the child from the family as the "bad cop". Or that the child in the family is doing exactly that to the "new" child. But an experienced adoption therapist can see that!
Now I have a letter from the county denying services. I no longer get, or request any services other than therapy or Psychiatric Doctor visits. The reason they deny services, is that we have a medicaid card, and should use that for our visits, and not the doctors we have used for the last 10 years. How cruel is that, to tell the child s/he can no longer go to the doctor she is used to visiting, and has to start all over. She is doing GREAT with the medication and therapy she is getting. Why would you change?
No, the doctors don't all take the medical card, because they do not get paid! We have to start all over finding another doctor, getting a diagnosis, and medication, it is a nightmare! It is so fortunate I just have two children right now. I just have to figure out how to manage their needs.
Promises to them have not been kept. Now finally all the promises made to me, as an adoptive parent for services have been broken. The mental Health Services we have used all these years and fought to keep, are denied. How sad for the children. I'm sure it means that many other ways the children are being denied.
No comments:
Post a Comment