So, you may know we have a huge amount of skepticism when it comes to working with the system for our dynamic duo. Today was our meeting with our legal liaison.
Finally! Someone who sat down and talked clearly with us, not hurried and genuinely listened. Mr. J is pretty darn awesome in our books. He was a kid that had a difficult past and he was a foster worker and now he is the liaison between the kids and their lawyer since the lawyer is crazy busy. We were able to ask some direct questions, some which he was able to answer directly, and some, well, it is foster care so who knows.
He also asked us some questions. One was, if reunification does not happen what are your thoughts on permanency? It was impressive that he did not balk. I told him, some days it feels like it works and some days you just hold on and wait for the day to end. The days keep getting better so who knows. We were quite taken aback that this question is already being posed.
We asked him. What exactly is the timeline? He said to not necessarily expect more than 15 months. However, based on history some move as fast as 9 months.
He also was a little more direct with us on what the history is with the duo's family. This isn't a new family to the system and it doesn't seem like this is the first time the kids were in foster care. He didn't have a for sure on that one, and based on the ages of ours, it seems like this is the first foster situation for our duo, but I really feel for the older kids as this is most likely their second time in care.
There also seem to be some convictions that we have not been able to ascertain what they are via the internet done by either our duo's father or their sister's father. Crimes which Mr. J eluded to as not suitable for placement of children. Now, we know that Big Sister's dad is seeking custody of her, so that only leaves our duo's biodad as the evil criminal.
I'm not putting any money on anything here though as Mr. J also thought that biodad was still incarcerated and we had to inform him that he is not... we just saw him yesterday at our family visit.
Mr. J also is interested in getting the kids into some speech and play therapy. We shared that Sissy is frightened by large displays of emotion and tends to back away from large movement so there are some concerns that she is unable to tell us what has happened in the past. Then both of them are unable to pronounce most words with an "R" or a "T" and that concerns him and he would like to start addressing it immediately.
It has gotten to the point that we thing some things may be normal for foster children based on the non-reaction we have gotten from others, but Mr. J was appalled that they did not know their ABC's, colors, nursery rhymes, and other typical things. He also did not like the lack of toilet training. Wow! This was all nodded at, but not reacted to with other folks in the system. I think that we are going to work very well with Mr. J, if not for anything else other than he listens.
We also now know the next two court dates and we think we may attend. It is time that we quit getting so much information second hand and get it directly.
In other news: we didn't feel like cooking so we went out to dinner. Our original plan was closed for remodeling so we ended up at an Italian place. We told the kids it was a "fancy dinner" and they were awesome. They ate all their food and half of ours. Feeding them first made grocery shopping less of a hellish experience.
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