Chapter 4
The Agency
The team at Children’s Garden worked 24/7. It was a high burn-out job, no matter whether you worked in the Evaluation Program, the Treatment Home Program, or the Foster-Adopt Program. Our director, Debra, had a prominent sign on her desk with a quote we all knew by heart: “I know you can, but will you?” That little sign said it all.
No matter how capable we all were, the issues of plodding through the tiredness of the constant barrage of problems with one or more of the sixty-five children we served daily was a real one. There was never a day that one would consider “normal” for any of us.
So it was no surprise that a houseparent from the Treatment Program was waiting in my office to talk with me about one of her charges. Phil was a sad boy who set fires, and today had set one directly under the housemother’s chair! Life was never boring at Children’s Garden.
I suggested we discuss Phil and his problem behaviors with our consulting psychiatrist, who also evaluated and treated our children in their various placements and stages of getting well. Phil had done well for two years, but suddenly seemed to be reverting to his old ways. We weren’t sure why, though we suspected we knew. Phil was about to enter an adoption placement, as that was what his southern California County had requested for him. We disagreed, knowing that his original attachment to his biological parents, despite their horrific abuse for years, was very strong. Such children often cannot sever that original attachment and form another, and we were pretty sure Phil was among those kids who would balk and begin to tell us he didn’t want a new family through his behavior. Such events were not unusual in our agency. But it was difficult to convince referring county agencies that a long term foster placement would be better for a particular child than an adoptive placement. They were under enormous pressure to get the kids off the state and federal welfare rolls, despite the child’s real needs.
Children’s Garden often went to court as an advocate for a child about to face what we felt was an inappropriate placement. We pleaded what we believed to be really in the best interests of the child, not the State or County who had referred the child to us. After generally a minimum of three months in the Evaluation Program, and often two to three years of intensive treatment in our Group Home Treatment Program, we were determined that our kids get the very best shake they could in life. For that reason, we also had a third program, a “Fost-Adopt” Program where our children could be placed with therapeutically trained foster parents who might later choose to adopt, if they, we and the child agreed that was a good final step. These parents were not hired by the county, but rather hired and paid by the agency, who provided two years of training before they ever received a child, and continued supportive training for all the years they continued to have one of “our kids.”
You will note that I included the child in our final decision making, something few if any Social Services workers are able to do. We genuinely felt that the major job we had with each child was to teach them to make reasonable and self enhancing choices in their lives. Choices might be as small as whether to buy an ice cream cone or spend the money they had saved on a toy instead. Or it might be as large as whether to stay in a foster placement that was working well, or try to move on to a legal adoption. We always sought the child’s opinion, and after two or more years with us, they came to expect to be consulted about their futures. Consequently, they also learned to trust us and would turn to us later in life when they faced difficult dilemmas.
The Journeys of Bumbly Bear Page 4
