Are you my child?
We're going to try something new for this post. Last weekend, Trey and I were invited to attend an event hosted by the Central Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), and we'd each like to share our point of view from the event with you all.
Alania: The event we went to last weekend was one of the weirder things I have ever done. At first, when our case manager reached out with the opportunity to “meet children available for adoption, as well as case workers in the Austin area”, I jumped at the chance. I think that in my desperation for our child, I was beginning to look at any opportunity that may lead us to “the one” as a great thing. I also thought it was a good opportunity to actually meet the case workers in person, so that they would have something more than just a paper file when determining the placement of children in their care.
However, as the week leading up to the event wore on, I began to have my reservations about the event. How would the children feel about being put on display? How would the children react to us? What is their understanding of the event, and do they know what is going on and why we’re there? All of these questions continued to build inside of me and my anxiety continued to build as Saturday approached. However, I still thought that attending the picnic was the right thing to do because, what if we found our child there? And, how terrible would it be if the children showed up and there were no adoptive families.
We arrived Saturday morning to a beautiful church in Lakeway (if you’re not familiar with Austin, it’s a suburb west of Austin that is fairly affluent and very pretty, with lots of hills/lakes and on Lake Travis). The Rotary club had done an amazing job of getting all kinds of blow up games, bounce houses, a train; lots of stuff to keep the kids entertained and able to engage with you. This helped ease my anxiety. A little.
We walked up to the check-in table and were given the run-down. One color on the kids’ name tags meant they were “singles”, another meant they were part of a sibling group. Case workers had another badge type. There were books available for us to look through that had pictures and short bios of the 54 children (yes, 54) who would be at the event), and their case worker information was included in case we wanted to inquire for more information. We took a quick look through the book, because a lot of the children had not yet arrived, but then decided to jump in and talk to some of the kids. At this point we were probably one of two adoptive families I saw.
First we walked over to a couple of girls playing a football throwing game and tried to strike up conversation with them. We learned that they were sisters and that their brother, who had already been adopted separately, had taught them to throw their perfect spirals. I’m not sure how old they were - I’d put them between 13 and 16 - but it was very clear that this was not their first time at this type of event and they knew exactly what was going on. We chitchatted with them for a few more minutes about sports and school, before awkwardly trying to figure out how to end the conversation, since we knew they were outside of our age range.
We then walked over to some younger kids - 9-11 - playing in a “batting cage” setup. One kid came over to us and introduced himself and his friends and said that they all lived in the same home together. He was so sweet, and smiling so big, and maybe he hadn’t been but it seemed like he had been coached for this and I just wanted to reach out and hug him (which is a big no-no); how am I supposed to tell this kid that, “sorry, you’re too old for us.” As a woman in a society that constantly tells us we need to be younger to be better, this feels so hypocritical. However, it is what Trey and I have set as our parameters, so I put on my game face, chat with these kids about baseball (thanks Dad for teaching me all things sports), and then excuse myself to the restroom when there is a break in conversation. I need a few minutes to pull myself together.
When I come out of the restroom a LOT more kids have arrived, including some younger kids. Trey and I find ourselves back at the batting cage where a little girl is persistently learning to knock them out of the park. She realizes we are watching her and starts talking to us, and asks if we will go on the train with her. Of course we say yes. On the train ride, she charms us with her innocence, but I am also drawn to her strength and her leadership - she may have been directing the conductor on where to go. After the train ride, we take this child inside for some water and a quick snack and some more conversation. She wants to go in the bounce house, so we follow her there, and this also gives me an opportunity to sneak away and chat with her case worker.
Which is when I find out that this precious child is suffering from a myriad of issues from trauma that Trey and I are not licensed to handle; this is difficult to hear, because we have already started to grow attached to her, and I can tell she was becoming attached to us. With this information in hand, I head back inside to find Trey; when I find him, my heart almost breaks because he is painting her nails. It is the sweetest most precious thing, and I want to capture that moment forever. She actually has to leave at this point because her ride is leaving, so I am able to tell Trey what I learned in talking to her caseworker. We both agree that it is unfortunate, and there will be another child for us.
We head to the basketball game, where a precious little boy whom I had seen playing in the bounce house earlier is now playing. I was a little confused, because he was calling a woman “mom” who was with him, so I wasn’t totally sure of his situation, and went and spoke with his case worker. Some of the children at the event were accompanied by their foster moms - hence the name mom - but they would not be being adopted by their foster family and would still need a forever family. I decide to go up and speak with the foster mom, and she’s super nice and open and forthcoming about both the little boy’s challenges and growth, but also why they would not be able to permanently adopt him. I can only imagine what a hard decision that was for her and her partner to come to, but I respect why they made it.
We spent some more time with him at the basketball hoop, and he was a fun, sweet six-year old little boy. We’ve asked our case manager for his full file, and are currently evaluating whether we will look into submitting for permanent placement. We still don't know if he'll be a good fit for our family, based on his full background, but we're optimistically and cautiously awaiting word back. So, while the event was awkward, and hard, and weird, I couldn’t right now tell you a better solution to help our kids who need permanent homes find them. The case workers of these children whom have had their parental rights terminated are in the unenviable position of having to essentially "market" the child if they are not a toddler; there are simply more kids than families willing to take them in. I'm not sure yet if I would go to another one of these events - I would need to give it a lot of thought - but I do know that these kids need homes.
Trey: Last week on Wednesday we got an email from one of our Case Managers that there would be an event this past weekend that was a Match Picnic on Saturday. I was a bit wary for several reasons but I am very committed to this and the thought that we may miss out on our child really weighed heavy on me so I enthusiastically agreed to go.
Now, my reservations were well founded. For one, it was very short notice and we had to rearrange an already full weekend, which was the least of the reservations for me. I was more concerned with the implications of actually meeting potential children. There is a carefully curated process that usually takes place that involves us reading through files but never actually meeting the children before we decide to apply to be their foster parents. This makes a lot of sense to me. For children that already have trauma from being removed from their birth families, it could surely cause additional harm to meet potential caregivers that for whatever reason didn’t work out. This was the main cause for concern for me. I was immediately concerned that we could be causing harm or stress for the children by showing up and not “picking” them.
Additionally I was concerned that Alania would have some trauma by seeing all of these children. WE cannot possibly care for all of them no matter how much we want to. Increasingly, she has been bending our agreed upon parameters because she feels guilty that we can’t take care of all the children. I was worried that this would tug on her heart strings and we would agree to take a child that we were ill equipped to deal with because of level of trauma or them being older that our original parameters.
Despite these reservations, I really wanted to go bc the prospect of meeting our newest family member was very exciting. So last Saturday we drove out to a church in Lakeway with butterflies in our stomachs to see what it was all about.
My First impression was that the Rotary Club did a good job of setting this up. There were bouncy castles, a train ride, blow up batting cages and basketball hoops like at the arcade. There was also more than enough refreshments: sodas, pizza, chips, cookies and coffee. There were also 54 children that showed up, ranging from about 5 to (from what I could see) 16-17.
For me, it was heart breaking to see some of this. It looked like some of the children had been at these before and were jaded as to their chances. That made it even worse for me. To think that some of these children felt unwanted was very sad to me. I knew Alania was feeling it too. Despite how bad it felt at the time, I knew it was best if we stuck to our guns and tried to stick within the 1-6 age range.
When we first got in we checked in at the front desk and asked to see the book that held all the info about the children that were at the event. We one through every page regardless of the age. We are familiar with this type of info as we have been receiving reports like these for a few weeks. They typically contain a few paragraphs of background and personality as well as a picture or two. The reports we get via email typically come with a bunch more information on the family and the like, but this was a good abbreviated version of what we had seen before.
After this we decided to walk around the event and see what was what. We walked over to a couple young girls (I’d say 12-13) playing a football throwing game. Essentially giant blow up set up to allow the children to throw the footballs at holes in the wall for different points. They both had pretty good arms. We ended up talking to them for a few moments. We figured out that they had an older brother who was being fostered by another family, but he was who had taught them to throw footballs so well.
We kept walking around the area and came next to the t ball blow up thingy. There was a young girl with a couple toy iguanas (Pancake Biscuit and Broccoli, aptly named for their colors, yellow and green). She was trying hard to hit the ball and was doing quite well making really good contact. She turned out to be seven.
She was a cute little girl and certainly knew what she wanted. Her case worker was standing by watching as well so we spoke to her for a bit. This young girl was very spirited and certainly knew what she wanted so she asked US if we wanted to go on the train ride, which we did. She even gave me the privilege of holding her iguanas, Pancake Biscuit and Broccoli.
After the train ride we went in to the inside part of the picnic to get some refreshments. Alania went to talk again with her case worker and this young’un talked me into taking her over to a table where there were some nail polishes and decorations like glitter. I have never painted nails but figured I’d give it a shot. We decided on blue with glitter. I only made it a couple of nails in when we had to call it based on her having to leave with her foster family. As it turns out, we are probably not equipped to handle some of the trauma that the case worker had detailed but it was still hard to let her go.
After that we also got to spend some time with a young 5 year old boy who was playing some basket ball. We were a bit confused that he kept referring to a woman as mom, but as it turns out she was just his foster parent and they are not looking to adopt and are looking for a permanent placement.
We played basket ball with him for a while and talked with him and his foster mom. He seemed very eager to play with us. I am not sure he knew what the event was about, but he was really friendly and a lot of fun. For his age he also had a killer shot.
While I played with him Alania spoke more with his foster mom. It turns out that they had 6 kids and took this one in because they adopted his older sister, but were just not in a place to permanently adopt him. He was bright and energetic. He was a little behind developmentally but that's to be expected in a lot of foster kids that haven’t had the nurturing that most kids get. We did speak at length to his other mom and in the end decided that we would put in for a placement for him.
We are waiting to see, but are hopeful this time as with all the times we put in for placement. I think all in all I am glad I went to the event, but its also a bit sad for us as it makes some of this more personal and less abstracted. All in all I am glad we went though.
