Heartbroken

[revkev]

As many of you know or may have discerned from some of my posts we have had custody of one of our grandchildren since last summer.  It's been a joy watching him grow and thrive throughout the past 9 months. 

 

To make a very long story short he was placed in our care because his Mom and Dad couldn't maintain stable home enviroments or income - there were other reasons but this was essentially it.

 

It was determined last week that Mom now has a stable place to live and an income.  Mind you she has lived in at least 4 different apartments (mobile homes) and has not held a job but the court is considering her parent's house and income (welfare and SSDI) to be sufficient housing and income.  My son is a non-factor as he has been totally non-compliant with his case plan (he came into our family at age 7 as a foster child and we subsequently adopted him, he has a series of not immediately discernable but clearly present special needs - we knew that when we adopted him.)

 

The place deemed stable is a place that our daughter in law has been in and out of numerous times throughout the seven years that we've known her.  When she and Matt got married they lived with us and my wife helped her get her GED and kept her drug free throughout her pregnancy.  There is a history of physical abuse between her and her mother - mostly her agains her mother as a teen.

 

So our grandson who is four and couldn't talk when he came to live with us and now is closing in on being about a three year old developementally - he can talk, recognizes colors, shapes, some letters, counts to 10 will be going back into that environment, an environment that hasn't changed one iota since he left it.  What is more the child protection system in the state of Florida is heartily recommending it.

 

At this point one wonders why he was ever removed.  Money would have been better spent putting Amanda in temporary housing with an intensive case worker.  I think her rights have been trampled, mine have never been considered and Alex is a huge victim in the middle of it all.

 

My wife and I have made an adult lifetime out of caring for broken kids.  Mostly its gone for naught but there have been a few exceptions.  Even had their been none we would do it over because for us it was the right thing.  I so wanted Alex to be one of those exceptions.

 

I'm very disheartened and I'm heartbroken over it all.

 

 

[L.I. Rich]

God bless you Rev, I'll be praying for you and your family.

[dru_]

Words fail me.  Bless you and your wife

[Mr_Theoo]

Best wishes for you, your wife and the child

[Wannabegolfer67]

Rev, I am very sorry to hear about the situation, I would love to offer some words of encouragement but have nothing that is sufficient.

 

I will offer up prayers for you and your family.

[jaxbeachpackerfan]

That's very upsetting and its got to be very tough on you.  You'll be in all our prayers.  

 

There are a lot of good things about Florida, but the support systems and safety-nets, in particular the child protective services, are woefully inadequate or even non-existent.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of similar stories and poor outcomes.  Hopefully, your grandson's situation will be different.  He's got great champions and advocates in you two.  

[fozcycle]

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

 

Here is a prayer for those who have suffered a broken heart.

 

“God, you care deeply for broken-hearted people.  This is a promise you make: You are close.  We pray for all those who are crippled by broken relationships.  Our hearts take the blow of disappointment.  We feel crushed because our hopes are dashed.  God, heal broken hearts.  We cannot fix our own wounds.  But you can.  If pieces of our heart have been lost, or are held captive by another, recover them and bring them back to us and miraculously “put us back together” so that our heart is whole again.  You are a mender of broken hearts.  We ask for this miracle, in the name of Jesus.”

 

[revkev]

That's very upsetting and its got to be very tough on you.  You'll be in all our prayers.  

 

There are a lot of good things about Florida, but the support systems and safety-nets, in particular the child protective services, are woefully inadequate or even non-existent.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of similar stories and poor outcomes.  Hopefully, your grandson's situation will be different.  He's got great champions and advocates in you two.  

 

 

Thanks everyone so much - like John Barry earlier or High Fade I posted because I know this is a safe place to vent.  Foz the prayer is beautiful, I've received that same advice from co-workers even today at lunch when I said, "How will I ever look at a four year old again without breaking out in tears." 

 

I grabed Jax's post because it's so true.  As you can imagine I left much out of my little vent.  One of those things was that on our first meeting with Alex's case worker we asked for a brochure or pamphlet or any type of document that described what would be expected of us as Alex's guardians.  After all, we thought, Indiana had something like that when we fostered there and laws change, Florida is a different state, so we needed to know. 

 

She looked at us like we came from a foreign country. There wasn't even the prefunctory, "I'll check and see," there was a simple, "I don't know of anything like that."  The next time she came to our house I asked, "surely there must be some foster parenting course that we can attend."  Again the answer was negative.  As recently as last week I asked her supervisor for something in writing and he said, "Oh there's nothing that's why we have the staff meetings, you'll learn everything there."

 

Well hello, "how can we learn everything when we don't even know the law that we are operating under or the burden of care level it places on us?"  So I went on line to look for help and of course there it was, the State of Wisconsin has a wonderful 30 page document that carefully lays out a foster parent's duties.

 

Throughout our time with Alex we have been asked to do things that would never have been expected of us in Indiana or Wisconsin.  That is what has lead to the estrangement between myself and my son because guess what?  I hold people accountable.  If his case plan says, "He's to have supervised visits." and the guideline for supervised visits says he's to call the night before and he doesn't - no visit.  If it says that he's not entitled to a visit when he's more than half an hour late and he shows two hours late - no visit.  The state of Florida effectively put me between my son, daughter in law and their child and expected me to enforce their law and be the referee without ever actually giving me any sort of document that legally said I had to. 

 

During this time I was called to court twice by the department of revenue even though we were not receiving any financial support towards Alex's needs.  My attorney was able to allow me to appear by phone both times but it was a pain for me and him and had he not worked Pro Bono I would have incured a cost there. 

 

My attorney has also had to intervene with the contracted company on two occasions just to get a worker to call us on the phone - can you imagine having to secure a lawyer so that you can get a phone call from a social worker in regards to a child that's supposed to be under their care who lives in your home?

 

I promise that the more I would write, the sicker you guys would get.

 

Somehow this has to shift so that children's rights are protected even as parental rights are safeguarded.  I think it's more than possible if people would actually care to.

[DanUsh]

This is truly unfortunate to hear for all parties involved.  I wish you and your family nothing but the best and my prayers are with you.  You sound like a amazing person Rev and Alex is lucky to have someone like you and your wife who care so much.  

[HighFade]

I get the feeling you will see him again. Sounds like mom will mess up again, and you can be there to take care of him.

[revkev]

I get the feeling you will see him again. Sounds like mom will mess up again, and you can be there to take care of him.

 

 

Remarkably in the past couple of hours the case worker has admitted that if we were to send him to his other grandparents the reunification plan would almost surely fail and he'd be back with us in a month.  Could you imagine toying with such a young life in this way?  He's in a safe environment, he's thriving, we are no real threat to his biological parents in that we always build them up to their son, we will gladly keep him safe until it's legitimately time to return him and yet they've concocted a plan to reunify him that would topple because he goes to the very house they want to send him too.

 

No wonder I haven't slept more than four hours in a night for the past week.

 

All I want for my grandson is someone to hold his parents feet to the fire while they learn how to be adults.  I don't care if it takes them a year or two years or three years.  I really will be happy to give him back better off than when he was dropped off - I'd stake my life on it in fact. 

 

I don't know how amazing my wife and I are - there are a lot of talented people that frequent this site, some are in the golf industry, others a variety of businesses and are quite succesful in their chosen fields - we parent children, particularly the so called difficult ones, its what we do, Alex is nothing compared to a teen that's on probation which was the norm for us back in the day, so there's nothing amazing about us at all. 

 

If you want amazing we have friends who have adopted 10 special needs children.  They are amazing.

[PlaidJacket]

My words might not be comforting but dammit.... Why have we as a society allowed things like this in our country happen? A very large population in our country doesn't give a RA what they do to themselves and most certainly others. In this case it's a child. This isn't a political site but I firmly believe governmental meddling and overly liberal policies have created much of the mess we have. Including this sad true story Plano has written about. What's the answer? I don't know. But... one of these days the good and lawful and peaceful people will say enough!!! I'm ready now. This kind of stuff makes me boiling mad

[silver & black]

I'm very sorry to hear about this. As one who has had to deal with "Child Services"  (other reasons) over the last 6 months, you have my sympathy and my prayers.May God bless you and your family, and I hope it works out the best for all of you.

[revkev]

Man you guys really are the best. Plaid jacket nailed it. My son Matt does lots of stupid things. I don't care he's my son, I knew he'd do stupid things when I adopted him. But now it's a kid, his kid, my grand kid, that's being affected. We can't roll over on this one. Richard's sooner or later is today!

 

We retained legal counsel this evening and will go down swinging on our grandson's behalf. Emergency hearing has been requested already. We will see what tomorrow brings. Golf for sure but the maybe a little courtroom drama.

[HighFade]

Good for you, man. Don't go down without a fight.

[SeeRed]

Alex does not know it yet as he's too young, but one day he will, and he will have you and your wife to thank for what will (hopefully) be a great future. I'm rooting for you and your grandson. He deserves the better chance at a good life, a chance that you and your wife are ready and willing to provide. I admire you and those like you.

[kygolfer1980]

Sorry to hear this Rev...

[BIG STU]

I am like dru on this mere words fail me. You and your family will certainly be on my prayer list. That is what Brothers in the Lord do pray for and support others in the time of need and so I guess you have a lot of brothers in both the Lord and MGS. I do my prayer list every week and tape it to my sound board panel on Sunday so I don't forget anyone.

[BIG STU]

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

 

 

Here is a prayer for those who have suffered a broken heart.

 

“God, you care deeply for broken-hearted people.  This is a promise you make: You are close.  We pray for all those who are crippled by broken relationships.  Our hearts take the blow of disappointment.  We feel crushed because our hopes are dashed.  God, heal broken hearts.  We cannot fix our own wounds.  But you can.  If pieces of our heart have been lost, or are held captive by another, recover them and bring them back to us and miraculously “put us back together” so that our heart is whole again.  You are a mender of broken hearts.  We ask for this miracle, in the name of Jesus.”

Very good scripture quote Foz and correct me if I am mistaken but have I seen that prayer in the Book Of Common Prayer? I am not an expert on the BCP but I think I need to study and reference it more

[Paul S]

I'll keep you and your family in my prayers. You've got strength beyond measure, and I admire it.

[Txstcatman]

Rev, I am sorry for how this has all developed.  It's a sad situation and a true indictment of how many, especially in government, seem to not care about the welfare and well being of children and people with special needs.

 

I commend you for how much of your time, money, love, and life you've devoted to being a stable part of so many lives.  Working in a state school that serves students across our state with varying degrees of needs, you'd be amazed how many adults either don't care about their child's education and development or how many of them use their child as a pawn in battles with their local school districts.  Every weekend I have a handful of students on my mind as they go home, because I fear even a day and a half with their "family" might cause some type of regression in their development.

 

Fortunately, there are people like you who truly do want the best for kids and offer them a fighting chance to succeed in their development, whatever that success might look like.  It's something that so many politicians do not understand when writing/interpreting/executing laws (I don't single out one party or another on this, they're all generally bad on the subject) regarding these issues.

 

Good luck to you, and I hope that the matter works out in your favor for the sake of your family and especially for Alex.  Next time I get to Florida, I'll buy you a round and a beer!

[wbealsd]

Heart wrenching... Thoughts and prayers for you and yours.

[revkev]

You guys are the best and yes I'm sure the Foz's words came from the. Book of Common Prayer. That is a great resource, I may be Lutheran but I have one in my library and use it frequently.

 

We are in the battle as I write. My wife and I had an hour and a half conversation with the CEO of the company that is charged with supplying case work support staffing for Alex. She is meeting with her staff. We gave her the conditions under which we would continue to care for Alex. Of course she couldn't commit to them but she believes that we need to restart the case and go to court with a different recommendation. My attorney said that at this point the last thing anyone would want is my wife or I testifying before a judge.

 

In the meantime there still has been precious little talk about what's best for our grandchild.

[BIG STU]

Just to cheer you up Rev this is funny in a way. Our church is basically with a few other Episcopal churches in SC are now independent. Last week we got a new associate priest who is a retired Lutheran minister. Our vestry got clearance from the Lutheran church and of course our bishop. Pretty good minister he spoke last week I like him. Goes to show whatever faith we are all brothers

[SeeRed]

In the meantime there still has been precious little talk about what's best for our grandchild.

Isn't this the kicker? I mean really! Without you and your wife, who WOULD be looking out for him? Honestly, the number of times we hear about a "system" that has completely lost sight of those for whom the system was established to help is appalling. Rooting for you every day, Rev!

[MarcKilgore]

Geeze Rev, I've never met you but your story hit me like a ton of bricks. There are many that are thankful we have such selfless people as you and your wife in the world. You truly were put on this earth for a reason.

[revkev]

Isn't this the kicker? I mean really! Without you and your wife, who WOULD be looking out for him? Honestly, the number of times we hear about a "system" that has completely lost sight of those for whom the system was established to help is appalling. Rooting for you every day, Rev!

There are two other victims here as well. My son Matt and his ex wife Amanda. The case plan that they were given is very well designed. Were they to follow it they would become responsible adults and good parents. By not holding their feet to the fire this agency has confirmed their dysfunction and robbed them of perhaps a last chance to get out of the sludge that they came from.

 

So the condition that we have given is that the home they were declaring fit for Amanda to call stable be properly investigated, if it is it will be declared unstable. The case would regress back to the point that it was at where both Matt and Amanda have supervised visits under a professional's eyes and proceed from there. And we will have a new case worker.

 

The fact that no one called back yesterday gives hope that this is the direction they are moving.

 

The other option we presented was to call an emergency hearing to have Alex moved from our care this week. If that were to happen we would tell the judge in open court everything that has happened. It's a brilliant strategy that our attorney has devised. He's also made it clear to them that he can and will get us a hearing in front of the senior magistrate in our county. He happens to be the one who approves all juvenile social work contracts.

[revkev]

Alex goes back to his Mom today. We have in place for him every possible service and protection and in reality have given her all that she needs to succeed. What is more we look like heroes in her eyes because she's getting him back sooner than she expected.

 

We are far from done with the system however. Now that we've finally received a policy manual, yes one does exist, we have filed an internal grievance against two of the workers at the social service provider that the state contacted to oversee and provide for Alex's care. Of greater importance we will be filling a motion on Monday for a complete judicial review of their handling of this case. That review takes place in front of the chief administrative judge in our county. You know the guy who negotiates the contracts.

 

While I was horribly discouraged when I first posted and have a very heavy heart in anticipation of Alex leaving today my wife and I are actually resolved to reinstating our license and fostering again.

 

Iwe realize that it's what we do so we might as well do it.

[SeeRed]

That's great news, and I'm so glad that you reinstated your license to Foster again. Outside of raising one's own children, I feel that it is one if the most noble, caring and beneficial acts that an individual/couple can do for a child.

Have a great week-end

Thoughts & Prayers,

Richard

+1

[revkev]

Thought I'd revive this for an update. We have the ear of the states attorney general on this matter. We've also managed to maintain a relationship with our daughter in law and are an ongoing part of Alex's life. He even spends many weekends with us.

 

Just had a respite kid for a week. We love parenting children. So what not, while we're young (enough)?