This post appeared as an op-ed in the Herald Leader on July 6, 2023.
By Valerie Frost and Carla Stamper
June is National Reunification Month. It is an annual reminder of the true intention of foster care–a temporary measure to keep children stable and safe with the ultimate purpose of reuniting them with their family.
This isn’t always what happens though, and not for the reasons you may think.
Nationally, less than half of children in foster care reunify with their parents, a number that has gone down in the past two decades. It’s long overdue to dispel the standing narrative against parents and parental motivation to overcome challenges. It’s time to shed light on the story that often doesn’t get told. The perspective that remains hidden and buried under immense shame, guilt, and loss of hope.
Carla was one of those parents. The year she lost her kids she knew she needed help, but she was doing everything she could to keep it together to make it through Christmas. As a mom, her kids always come first, and she was determined to get past the holiday for her family.
She went from having her nursing license, a steady job, a reliable vehicle, and two beautiful children in her home to devastating uncertainty.
Carla had no support to see her kids or complete the case plan requirements. She was court ordered to treatment due to her illness, but didn’t qualify for inpatient due to not being “sick enough.” There was no public transportation to get to outpatient treatment, recovery classes, or complete drug screens within the one-hour mandated time frame.
She was told she would never regain custody of her kids.
Carla Stamper
Carla is now a peer support specialist and brings authentic empathy to her role. “A lot of parents don’t try because there is no encouragement,” she says. “Very few make it back because of the hoops to jump through. You only get a lawyer for a year and some treatment programs are 18 months. Some parents really try to get better but when they go without help, they give up. That could have been me, too.”
The worst part of it all was the toll out-of-home care took on her children. Despite extensive medical services, nothing seemed to be working to address the physical symptoms her oldest was experiencing while separated from her.
There was an immediate difference once they started having visits.
Kids typically see things much more simply than adults do. We tend to be massively critical of ourselves and others. As a collective, we are prone to projecting our fears onto children. We want to step in and shield them from everything. Be a helicopter society.
We all want to keep kids safe. And they should be. But kids also want their parents–mess and all. We see a case number, a substantiation, a hopeless risk. They see Mom and Dad.
As adults, we take one look at someone at their worst and our minds immediately think the worst along with it. We need to look at the whole situation, the whole parent, the whole child, and the whole family.
Today, Carla’s family is thriving. “I know how important it is to believe in people, it’s easy to get jaded. With the right support and education, people can make it back. Even after a 35-month separation. Just look at me. I did it.”
Parents mess up in life but removing them from the equation is not the solution. It devastates both the kids and the parents. They lose hope. Don’t take away a family’s hope.
In many instances, family separation in the first place is not necessary. But when it is, with the right support, successful reunification is possible.
Valerie Frost is Strategic Initiatives Associate at Kentucky Youth Advocates. Carla Stamper is a Peer Support Specialist with the Kentucky Partnership for Families and Children. KY SEAT, through a collaborative partnership of Kentucky Youth Advocates and the Department for Community Based Services, is a statewide council of birth parents advocating for and empowering others who have past experience with the child welfare system.
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