I had something happen yesterday that was a bit frustrating and also a bit concerning. Before I explain it I need to explain a little about court proceedings for foster kids.
Types of court proceedings for foster kids
When kids come into foster care, there is an emergency hearing where a judge has to authorize the removal of the child from their family. Sometimes it happens before a child is even removed, but more often in my experience it happens right after the child is removed – within the next day.
During that removal hearing, typically the permanency hearing is scheduled for the child. Permanency hearings have to happen within eight months of a child’s first being placed in foster care, and then every six months after that. They are intended to provide big picture overview of what is going on for this child and their family. Is the child going to be returning to the family? That is the stated goal for a very long time. Even once a child is likely going to have their parents’ rights terminated, the goal is typically still return to parent in my county, or sometimes it is a contingent plan stating that the goal is return to parent, but if that’s not possible then adoption or guardianship.
There can be lots of other court proceedings that are not permanency hearings. Sometimes a judge will schedule an interim appearance between permanency hearings to check on a parent’s progress, or the county’s progress with regard to a particular issue that the child is facing. As a child gets closer to going home, there may be a number of appearances to modify the court’s order governing the child, so that a gradual return home can be accomplished: first unsupervised visits in the home, then overnights, then weekends, etc.
In my experience to date, foster parents have been welcomed into the courtroom by the judges for all appearances except the initial removal hearing. However, it is actually the law that foster parents are parties to permanency hearings, which means by law they have to be invited to attend. For the other appearances it is left to the judge’s discretion as to whether the foster parents will actually be invited into the courtroom.
This makes perfect sense to me. We want foster parents to be informed and prepared with regard to the overall direction a case is taking. Is the child actually likely to return to their parents? If so, we want foster parents to be emotionally prepared for that inevitability. If not, and the child is going to need to be adopted, we want the foster parents to be prepared for that. And if a child needs to be adopted but the current foster family is not an adoptive family, then everyone needs to be on the same page with regard to moving the child to a pre-adoptive home.
However, sometimes foster parents lose sight of the big picture goal of returning a child to their parents. My husband and I have never lost track of that goal, but there are families who become foster parents because they want to adopt a child and can’t afford private adoption. Because they are longing for “a child of their own,” they can resist returning the child to the less-than-perfect family they came from and to which they still belong. I wish those families could be screened out so that they never become part of the foster care system, because we need foster parents to be on board with reunifying families. But there is such desperate need for foster parents, and many prospective foster parents know exactly what to say to be allowed to become foster parents, that there are still many families that go into foster care with the sole goal of adopting an infant or toddler.
What we don’t want is those folks who are fighting to keep a child who is not theirs being disruptive or overly emotional in the courtroom while bio parents are trying to get their child back. So I think it is indeed best left to a judge’s discretion as to whether any particular foster parents are allowed into the courtroom during proceedings that are not permanency hearings.
That was a lot of background – sorry. Now to my story.
The sordid tale
Our foster daughter has a permanency hearing on Tuesday next week. My husband and I missed the last permanency hearing, which we have never done before, because I could not get the county attorney or the child’s attorney to respond to my request for the Microsoft Teams invitation. (Because of Covid, permanency hearings are still being done virtually). So this time I contacted the judge’s assistant to request an invitation.
The conversation did not go well.
When the assistant answered the phone, I said hi, gave my name, and said I was calling to see if I could get an invitation for my foster daughter’s permanency hearing next Tuesday. I was met with strong resistance. I was told that it is up to a judge as to whether foster parents can get called into a permanency hearing, which is contrary to the law. I was told I need to get the invitation from the county attorney. I explained that I have found this particular county attorney to sometimes be unresponsive to my request for invitations. The assistant condescendingly told me that he was in court right now and I needed to be patient for him to respond. I reiterated that he has been utterly nonresponsive in the past, and that I completely understand that he is busy during the day and I’ve given him multiple days lead time in the past but not gotten a response from him. The assistant started to explain to me that the attorneys are always busy during the day because they are in court.
I lost my temper internally and decided to “pull rank,” as it were, because I could.
I firmly told the assistant I am a former attorney for the child, that I completely understand the entirety of the courtroom process, that I would expect that a county attorney would invite the foster parents but that in the past he had failed in his responsibility to do so, and that foster parents have a legal right to attend permanency hearings.
As soon as I told the assistant that I was a former attorney for the child, the entire tone changed. It became polite, friendly, and apologetic. The assistant immediately sent me the invitation.
Is all well that ends well? For me, yes. For other foster parents? Potentially not. Giving this assistant the benefit of the doubt, I assume no one has explained to them that permanency hearings are different from other appearances and that foster parents have a right to attend them. That’s the first problem. It should be explained to all court staff but that is apparently not the case. Second of all, court personnel should not be condescending, standoffish, and dismissive to foster parents merely because they are foster parents.
What I really don’t want is other foster parents calling the court to see if they can attend a permanency hearing and being told they cannot. Foster parents have a legal right to attend and it’s beneficial to have full participation. They should not have to hire an attorney or have a law degree to be able to navigate a fairly simple court process.
I get it. I do. Those foster parents who are fighting to “keep” the foster child who has been placed with them can frustrate the process tremendously. And Lord help me, there are some horrific foster parents out there who are verbally, physically, and/or sexually abusive of the children in their care. The problem is, we need more good foster parents. And the good ones are the ones who get frustrated and leave because of the way they are treated by “the system.”
What’s the solution? Good question. More training for case workers and court personnel, first of all. And more funding to support the training. Those are a good place to start.
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