The Judge

About a week after Joshua came to live with us, Joshua's mom was summoned to family court.  

The purpose of this initial trial was to determine whether removing Joshua from his parents' custody by CPS was warranted or not.

I had not been informed that any court was happening, or I probably would have attended, even with the short notice and even though it was so close to the beginning of the school year.  

The Agency cannot tell me anything about WHY a child is put into foster care.  The only details a foster parent gets is on the permanency paperwork from CPS six months in or at court.

Unless the family discloses, you are kept in the dark, which kind of sucks.

I found out about this one because, in the middle of day, I started getting texts from the case planner.  

She was in court with Joshua's mother who, understandably, was frantic not knowing where her son was or who he was with.  The case planner wanted to know if I was willing to give Joshua's mom my phone number so she could text me (no one uses phones to actually make calls anymore, do they?) and see how he was.  Of course I said yes.  If there was one thing I was good at, it was being open to the parents of our foster kids.

Back when we had Bram, his case planner would constantly tell me that the relationship that Erin and I had was atypical and NOT to expect that with other families.  She said they were tolerable at best, but mostly, parents were outright hostile towards the fosters who had their children, in many cases blaming them for their children not being with them.  

I get it.  Rarely does a parent, even one who has been deemed "unsafe" by CPS think anyone could do a better job with their child then they could.  And there is the jealousy aspect; as a foster parent, you get to see the child many more hours a week than they do.  There is the fear that the child will love the foster family more...  I get it. I do.

The case planner told me that Joshua's mom couldn't stop crying, even when she showed her the texts from me saying that I would happily text her, call her, and send her pictures and videos of Joshua whenever she wanted.  

The judge did indeed find that the removal was warranted and set another date for two months later.  I asked the case planner for the date and she gave it to me (I don't know if that was allowed or not).  I immediately put it in my planner and called in for a sub for a half day on that date.  

We knew we would have him for at least two more months.