Shared Parenting and the Foster Care System, Part One: Roles and Challenges

In the beginning shared parenting was created to help create a more stable environment for children whose parents were divorcing.  However, this issue is also a large component of the Foster Cares System.  There are five types of parents who exist in the system and each has a very specific role in the lives of children.  They are: Primary Parents, Division of Family and Children’s Services (DFCS), the Court, Foster Parents, and Court Appointed Special Advocates/Guardian Ad Litems.  Each of these players has a succinct and important role in the parenting of foster children.

Primary Parent-the “birth parents” of the child are called to rear children into healthy, happy, and contributing adults.  However, they develop some issue that prevents them from completing this task and find themselves in need of help.  If they are proactive many parents seek this help on their own if not then sometimes DFCS must step in. Then it becomes their job to learn the skills they need in order to be able to parent more effectively in the future. This may include life skills as well as parenting and other issues.

DFCS-is a governmental agency with many layers of responsibility.  First, there is Child Protective Services this is the branch that investigates allegations of child abuse and neglect. If the case seems to be warranted then the child comes into custody.  Once in custody the Intake unit takes over.  This unit is charged with finding the child a placement, hopefully the best and permanent placement, and to begin the work of investigating the charges and assessing the needs of the family.  Once a child becomes a ward of the state by court order the child is assigned a Social Services Case Manager ideally this person stays with the child for their whole time in custody.  DFCS because it is a state agency has to follow all of the laws and regulations enacted by the state and federal government.

Courts-the Division of Juvenile Justice oversees the cases that involve deprivation of children due to either abuse or neglect.  The state entrusts these judges to ensure that all parties are working for the best interest of the child. The judge needs to hear from each of the participants in the shared parenting structure in order to make good quality decisions. 

Resource Parents-once a child is in custody a “foster parents” takes the child into their home.  Resource parents are professional parents whose job it is to oversee the daily care of the children.  This includes getting them to school, to the doctor, dentist, and therapist appointments.  In addition, these parents are involved in working with the team to ensure that the primary family develops strengths and skills so that they can reunify.  Resource parents are the people most interactive with both the children and the primary parents.  Ideally, resource parents will become mentors and coaches to primary parents as they learn to re-train their abilities.

Court Appointed Special Advocate/Guardian Ad Litem-these hard working CASA volunteers or attorneys represent before the court what the children’s needs or wisher are.  They are the ones who tell the judge what the children want and why.  It is their job to ensure that the children’s voices are heard.  They talk with the resource parents, primary parents, school personnel, and SSCM to determine the whole picture and also see and talk with the children in their care. Based on all the information they tell the court what they believe to be in the best interest of the child.

The Challenges

          Each of these parents has challenges in dealing not only with each other but also with the situation in which they can find themselves.

Primary Parents are dealing with anger, stress, fear, depression and guilt on many levels.  Depending on the situation either someone has come into their home and taken their child away, they dropped their child off at the child care center and came to pick them up and they were gone or their child went to school and never came home. For any parent this would create large volume of fears.  In addition, they must now work with the very people who “threaten” their family.  DFCS and any person who is involved with them can be seen as the enemy they are not to be trusted they are to be feared and fought.  Primary Parents must overcome these feeling in order to be able to function well enough to learn new strategies and life skills.  Many parents allow their grief to overwhelm them thus they can slip into even more destructive patterns than before.  Others work very hard, but are unable to pull it together.  But, then there are those who overcome their feelings and take the opportunity to learn and grow.  They eventually reunite with their children and form a stronger and more stable family environment.

DFCS case managers have some of the greatest challenges.  They include meeting the needs of all the state and federal guidelines missing a due date or deadline can radically affect the well-being of a child in care.  In addition, it is their job to visit the children at least twice a month, see the primary and the foster parent.  They are also in charge of Family Team meetings.  These meetings are where everyone on the team meets together and discusses the family’s needs and progress. SSCM’s conduct this on every family.  In addition, to these they also have court dates, case filings, and keeping up with each child’s progress in the system.  They are often running from one meeting to the next and working to keep all of their balls in the air at once. 

Courts Judges and Judicial Review Panels are charged with ensuring that every need of children is being met.  They must get information from every member of the team in order to make sound decisions.  The biggest issue for these folks is trying to make good decisions on limited information.  In addition, judges care about children and do not want to unnecessarily make children into orphans.  This is a heavy weight to carry and judges need to discern who is working in the best interest of the children and who has their own agendas they are working to fulfill.

Resource Parents arguably have the toughest job in the Foster Care System. They are the adults that take in hurting children and care for them.  At the same time they are to become coaches and mentors to Primary Parents and help them to improve their parenting skills.  Then entrust that as children return home they will be safe at home.  Foster parenting requires selflessness and an ability to put aside the natural protective instincts and help the parents who have either hurt or allowed to be hurt the child in their care.  They must overlook this issue and help the parent and the child maintain a bond and support the primary family relationship.  In addition, many foster parents want to adopt children and often hope to adopt the children in their care.  Many face the fact that these children they have come to love as part of their family will and must return to their primary families and depending on the relationship they may never see them again.

CASA/Guardian Ad Litem these are those who speak on behalf of the children’s interests. The volunteers or attorney’s for the children often need to overcome the issues of seeing parents as villains.  We all tend to see people who hurt children as monsters.  However, these folks must learn to listen to children and their desire to go back to their primary families.  They need to find out the actual desires of their clients and speak up for their needs and wishes even when they disagree.  It is the sole job of this person to express the desires of the child to the court.  Often they must reject their own thoughts and feeling to express their clients’ hopes and wishes to the judge.

In conclusion each member of the parenting team needs to understand the roles and challenges of each other team member.  As the adults we must work to stay in our own roles and not step on the toes of others.  In addition, we must understand one another’s challenges and work to offer as much support and room to adjust as we each need.  It is our goal and responsibility to put our differences and needs aside to meet the needs of the children.

 To read next Article: Shared Parenting, Part Two Working Together

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