I sent the following letter out as an email to my family regarding the HORRIBLE experience we just had with the Utah Foster Care system. Instead of rewriting it for my blog, I decided just to paste it in. Names have been changed to protect the innocent… especially the child who was in our care. That child's name has been changed to "Monkey" because that was his nickname.
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Family,
Some of you already know that Monkey is no longer with us… which is a good thing. We wanted him to transition to a home that was willing to adopt him. We wanted this process to start in September and be completed by now. It was supposed to be a slow healthy transition for him.
However, we have become more and more frustrated with the way the case has been handled. We have often felt strong-armed into adopting him and have never felt like they were working to transition him to a better home.
Turns out, our feelings were right.
In the following account, I say "the state" a lot. When I say "the state" I am merely generalizing and grouping the many case workers, managers and supervisors into one group. As much as we would like to place a little blame somewhere specific, the fact of the matter is that A LOT of bad communication between many different entities in the system lead to the circumstances I am describing below. Needless to say, everyone involved has learned a serious lesson about human feelings, emotions, passions and effectively communicating such human qualities.
After you were all here for Ethan's baptism Thanksgiving came and we took Monkey to Brent and Larry's. That 6 hour experience was absolutely terrible for me (Steve) and Monkey. It was a build up from all the stress he have been under the last month including everyone's visit etc. Friday after Thanksgiving, amidst the chaos in the house and the stress of getting the house and new deck prepared for winter (as well as lingering Christmas) I had come to the end of my rope. Sage, being the loving wife she is, could sense my frustration and decided to take advantage of the respite the state had offered us a few weeks prior.
I'm not sure if you recall, but Monkey spent the weekend prior to Ethan's baptism with a "prospective" adoptive family to take him for a "test drive". Little did we know, the state lied to us about that respite time. In no way shape or form was that family even considering adoption. In the mean time, leading up to the hearing today (more on that below) the state told us to give them a call if we needed another break. Sage quickly replied that it would have been a WONDERFUL thing to have some respite when you were all going to be here for the baptism. That would have been one less stress on us. However, the state was unable to get it together for that weekend, and so you all got to meet him.
When Sage called to ask for respite last Friday, she was requesting two nights. We wanted to pick him up after church on Sunday. However, the state called on Saturday and told us to wait until Monday before we went to pick him up, and that they would call us. 3:30pm on Monday, Sage finally calls the state to find out what the heck is going on, because on Tuesday Monkey had an appointment (in our home) to be tested to see if he could qualify for special services offered by the school districts. Sage was told to hold off on picking him up yet again.
By now we started to realize something was going wrong. I (Steve) had enough and called Monkey's case worker, who was surprised to hear that he was even in respite care. She said she would get to the bottom of it and assured us we would pick him up in time for his 2:00pm appointment on Tuesday. At 1:55pm on Tuesday, the evaluator from the school district shows up at our house. Sage was frantically running around making phone calls while this poor lady had to sit and wait to see if she was even going to have a chance to evaluate him. The state finally told Sage to take the evaluator to the place where Monkey was staying… and that Sage could take Monkey home after the evaluation. Sage had to jump in the car in the middle of a snow storm and have the evaluator follow her to the respite provider's home The whole time, Sage was fielding phone calls on her cell phone from different people with the state telling her different things. At one point she was asked if she really wanted to keep Monkey. Her answer was of course, "Yes", but she then told the state to please call Monkey's personal therapist and get her opinion on the matter. Monkey's therapist is a wonderful lady who Monkey trusts and she is also one of very few people who are intimate with the case.
At the respite providers home… who incidentally, was only babysitting temporarily for the REAL respite provider, so now Monkey has been bounced between two different homes in three days… Anyway, the evaluator does her thing, and because Monkey is so freaked out and confused, he fails the tests and ends up qualifying for services with the school district. That is about the only bright spot in the story. Sage says Monkey had perked up with her presence there and he was happy and ready to come home. As soon as she started to gather his things, she got the final phone call from our RFC (Resource Family Consultant) telling her that Monkey is no longer our foster child and that she needs to leave him with the respite provider. Sage was told that the state had talked to his therapist and that they were making the decision based off of what she said. Now, "on the fly" Sage was forced to consol Monkey, say good-bye and try to tell him he was getting a new mommy - all in a stranger's home. Needless to say, that little boy got DESTROYED when he realized he wasn't coming home. He was so upset he was uncontrollably shaking and crying.
One other thing our RFC told Sage was that we were supposed to go to Monkey's scheduled therapy appointment at 2:00pm the following day (Wednesday) with his wonderful therapist so we could give him all of his things and have a "good-bye session" with him for closure. We were skeptical.
We spent all of Tuesday night putting together a binder with all the photos we had of him. We wrote captions explaining everything that was going on in the photos. We wrote him a good-bye letter that he could read when he gets a little older. I put all the video we shot of him and all of his photos onto a DVD with music and the whole nine yards. We gathered the rest of his clothes, tricycle, car seat and toys so we could give them to him on Wednesday. I was sick and tired of the emotional mis-communicating phone calls and wrote the first of several scathing emails (to put everything in black and white - not to mention creating a paper trail) to everyone involved with the case. We didn't sleep.
Sage and I both went to the therapy appointment to say good-bye. We were waiting in the lobby for the therapist when the respite provider showed up with him. She didn't know why she was there other than she was told to do so. Monkey acted like he hated us. He clung to her like a baby monkey. Being is foster parents for so long, we knew why he was acting that way… we was just destroyed by Sage the night before. We found out he didn't sleep Tuesday night, and he looked it. He was in a terrible state. Finally, his therapist walked into the lobby and sat down next to us and watched the interaction between all of us… not saying a word. Finally, after about 10 minutes, she asked us, "Why are you here?".
It turns out, there was a message from the state on her voicemail that she hadn't had time to check yet. Regardless, the state lied to us when they said they acted on HER RECOMMENDATION. When she came out to meet us she HAD NO IDEA what had transpired and certainly wasn't prepared to have a "good-bye" closure session with us. You should have heard the gasps and see the faces of not only the respite provider, but of the ladies behind the desk of The Children's Center where all of his therapy takes place. We attempted to have a "session" with them, but ended up leaving because Sage was so upset at seeing the pain Monkey was in. Later that the day Monkey's therapist called to let us know how WRONGED Monkey had been and that he should have never been removed from our care.
I wrote a couple more *nice* emails and even received some ridiculous replies from the state. These replies weren't answering any of our questions and forced us to pull out the "Foster Parents Due Process" card. To read about what our rights are as foster parents in regards to Monkey's removal, please read this website: http://www.rules.utah.gov/publicat/code/r512/r512-031.htm - it enlightened us.
That brings us to the "permanency hearing" today. This hearing was scheduled to let a judge decide if the state's case is strong enough to go ahead with the "termination hearing". We already had such a hearing back in September and the case was postponed until today. Well, today we found out that the state's case is an ABSOLUTE JOKE. The judge ordered the termination hearing for February 1st, BUT ALSO ordered a different type of hearing (I forget the name) to be combined with the termination hearing so the defense can rebut the state's evidence (or lack thereof) and even submit more evidence. Then the judge also ordered a "formal kinship report" for Monkey's aunt because the state messed up the first one. That report has to be filed by mid-December. Basically, that means Monkey's aunt gets a second chance at fostering/adopting the kids because the state didn't handle it right the first time around.
The kicker about today's hearing is the fact that Sage and I have been saying all along that this case wasn't going to be decided today - November 30th… but EVERYONE we have talked to with the state has ADAMANTLY said, "Oh, the parent's will definitely get their rights severed on the 30th". In fact, after the first hearing in September is when we finally decided we couldn't adopt Monkey… and the number one reason was that this case was FUBAR and it was going to continue to be FUBAR no matter what the state said. They all thought, we didn't want to adopt him because of his behavior. That had something to do with it, but it was far down the list of reasons.
Now that I have all your blood pressures at above normal levels, here's what is going to happen… or at least what we hope is going to happen.
We wanted Monkey to move on… that was no secret. We are just severely sad at how he was removed… not sad for us, but for him. This isn't how it was supposed to go down. On the other hand, we are GLAD he was removed because we were right… this case is going to drag on for months, maybe even years… and there is no way we could have survived him that long. Our goal was to have him transitioned by Christmas… well, we got that wish.
However, because we are so passionate about the injustice that occurred, we aren't giving up on him. If you read the "Foster Parents Due Process" law, you know we have the right to some repercussion. We have offered the state a way to resolve this without having to go through the painful process of "Due Process". The ball is in their court. The great thing about our right to due process is the fact the we don't want to push the issue for OUR SAKES. We don't want him back. If we end up going through the whole process it will be as a voice for Monkey. His story will be recorded as part of the process for the betterment of future foster children, foster parents, and the people who work for the state. It will take his case to an administrative level ABOVE the managing fiasco we saw this week. Let's hope the state steps up. We will be fine either way… as long as the state fesses up to the way Monkey was wrongly disrupted and actually does something about it - to our satisfaction.
This story is far from over… we are waiting to see what action the state takes.
Oh, and incase you think this story is crazy, out of the ordinary, or even extreme… This is a NORMAL OCCURRENCE in foster care. It happens all the time. It sucks, and we aim to make it better.
… Now bring on that baby girl!
Love, Steve and Sage
The baptism itself was one of the most spiritual baptisms I have ever been apart of. Grandpa Service (Craig) and Uncle Ian both gave wonderful talks from the heart. Grandma Service (Diane) played the piano, and I was able to baptize and confirm my son. The whole room was full of friends and family from all over. The confirmation circle was huge… I thought we were going to push Ethan and the chair into the floor.
As I stated earlier in the post, I had my ENTIRE family in town at my house for the weekend. It was a blessed weekend. Since we were all together, we actually planned ahead and family pictures taken at Wheeler Farm. Here's a "preview" of what the REAL photos MIGHT look like… I'll post tthe real photos here when we get them. It was the first time we have ALL been together in about 2 1/2 years.
Another treat was having my Grandmother Cogdill (my mom's mom) and my Grandpa Ben down with us. They parked their large RV on the side of my house and stayed for a few nights. On Sunday, my mother made a FANTASTIC "pre" Thanksgiving dinner and we all pigged out. We had to borrow a few tables and 16 chairs from the church to make sure we had enough seats for all of us. While my Grandmother was here, we snapped this photo of 4 generations of girls… Great Grandma, Grandma, Momma (Holly), and baby McKenzie.
