Our first little boy was four years old, and he was with us for 10 months before he reunified with his family. Our next placements were a sibling pair, a 2 year old boy and a 15 month old girl, that we had for a little over 3 weeks before they went on to live with an aunt and uncle. Our next placement was a 4 year old boy who we had for 15 months. His 7 year old sister joined us for 4 months before they moved on to another foster family last year. We also had a little newborn girl for 2 months before she reunified with her dad.
Our foster care journey has been very rough at times but has also included some great moments. I think the most surprising and rewarding part of fostering for me has been building relationships with the biological families of the children we have had in our home. We were able to do that with the mom and aunt of the first little boy we had. Reunification was the plan from the start for him so we worked to connect with the family. He had to have a minor medical procedure done during the time he was with us, and we had his mom and aunt at the doctor's office with us on that day. We also texted and sent photos regularly to his mom. The family was very appreciative of us being willing to communicate with them.
With the most recent siblings we had, toward the end of their stay with us, we began communicating with their mom. She came to our home on Mother's Day weekend last year to see her kids. I spoke with her on the phone several times, and I texted her photos.
With the little newborn we had for the first two months of her life, we knew right away that reunification with her father was the goal so we immediately started communicating with him. It started with meeting him for lunch at a local restaurant, sending texts and photos, and quickly led to him coming to our home on Saturdays and spending large chunks of time holding his daughter, feeding her, and just being with her. By reaching out to him and starting that communication, we were able to get to know him. Once he was reunified with his daughter, he graciously allowed us to continue to have visits with her. She would come to our home on the weekends pretty regularly. We have continued to stay in communication with her dad, and we have become an "aunt" and "uncle" to her. They have both become family to us. We love them dearly.
The last 2 years of fostering have been very difficult for us and our biological kids so we are pretty sure we will not be continuing on this journey. We have a desire once our children are a little bit older to adopt a child out of foster care who is waiting to be adopted. There are websites you can go to that are full of children waiting to be adopted. Many of these children are older and have been waiting for a long time. It is heartbreaking to say the least.
One desire and goal that has grown out of this foster care journey is to find a way to help biological parents in reunifying with their kids. There is a lot of support out there for foster parents, but from our experience, there is not much available to help biological parents work to bring their kids home. Care2Foster is an organization that has a support group called Moms Matter that assists birth mothers who have lost custody of their children. It is a wonderful program, but these type of programs are far and few between, and I have not seen anything for birth fathers. More support groups and programs are needed to come alongside birth families.
In our experience with journeying alongside the father of the sweet newborn we had, birth parents need encouragement and hope to keep going and to not give up on the goal of getting their children back. They need people willing to advocate for them and walk alongside them through court dates, family group meetings, and all of the other things involved in working their plans and reunifying with their children. I truly believe that if birth parents had more people to advocate for them, there would be more foster children returning to their birth families.
I plan to share more as I start delving into this world of advocating for birth families. As I look back over the last 4 years, it is truly amazing how things work out. We got into foster care hoping to adopt eventually. Now we are coming out of it hoping to help birth parents reunify with their children.
