This week I shot an email to Sunny’s attorney and asked her to give me a call when she got the chance. She did so promptly, and I told her in no uncertain terms that Sunny is struggling emotionally here more and more as time passes, and that both her therapist and I think it’s time for her to go home where she so desperately wants to be. I suggested perhaps a return after the end of this school year would make sense.
The attorney – with whom we’ve worked for years now and for whom we have a lot of respect – asked about the older sister’s status and I explained how she’s doing medically. Then the attorney simply said “Okay. I’ll give the [agency] attorney a call about sending [Sunny] home to her [relative].”
Two days later the attorney called me back and said she’d talked with the agency’s attorney and case worker and they were on board with a return at the end of the school year. And she said she hopes that brings this poor kid some peace – just knowing she’ll be going home at a date certain.
As I was about to hang up, the attorney said, “I just want to tell you that you are the best foster parents there are. I wish they were all like you. Your advocacy for these kids has been exemplary and never ending and I appreciate it. Just let us know when you want another placement!”
I teared up, because god knows it’s been hard to decide what to do and how to advocate for the kids in this family. The agency has been incredibly hard to deal with at times in the nearly 4 years this family has had kids placed with us. Don’t get me wrong: we’ve had some incredibly wonderful case workers over that time – women I came to care about a great deal because of how they cared for the kids. We’ve also had some spectacularly bad case workers in that time. And agency higher ups who dislike us are always miserable for us to deal with.
I can’t tell if the current worker is just overwhelmed by the demands of the job, clueless, or uncaring. I suspect the former. But sometimes it comes across as one of the latter two and that just infuriates me because every single kid in foster care deserves to be treated with respect and care, and to have their best interests pushed for. Period. That hasn’t always happened for this family.
I mean, as a dumb but scary example, at the last visit the case worker took Sunny on she didn’t read the case file notes that Sunny requires a booster seat because of her dwarfism, and just plunked her in the back seat and put the seatbelt cross strap behind Sunny’s back. If they’d been in an accident on that snowy day, Sunny would very likely have been killed. I think my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head and I swallowed my tongue when Sunny told me it had happened. What would cause a case worker to be so careless about a child’s basic safety? Gah! You can bet I’ll be buckling Sunny into the car on her next visit myself!
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Sunny is very likely going home at the end of the school year. The attorney had been pushing hard for her to stay with us permanently because from her perspective that was what was in Sunny’s best interest, and I get why. She gets the best medical care here, and the best education here. But all I had to do was say I felt going home was in her best interest and within a couple of days, that became the plan. Why? Because the attorney trusts me implicitly about all this because she’s seen what we are willing to do and put on the line in our advocacy for kids. She knew if I was saying Sunny needs to go home, there’s damn good reason for my saying it and that I’ve weighed the pros and cons thoroughly and made a measured decision.
We still have to get the judge on board at the Permanency Hearing coming up in April, but I don’t think it will be an issue. The judge, too, trusts me. She’s seen me advocate in her courtroom on this case and on others. If I explain that Sunny’s therapist and I both feel strongly that she needs to be with the rest of her family for good, that’s what will happen.
Speaking of Sunny’s therapist, we had a long talk about how Sunny is doing the other day. It was super productive and helpful and will shape her therapeutic treatment plan for the rest of the time Sunny is here. When Seth and I explained some of the behaviors that we are seeing suddenly appear, and others that are escalating, the therapist noted they sound like Reactive Attachment Disorder. Sunny is constantly testing how far she can push us and still be loved. It’s exhausting beyond words. Somehow hearing the therapist say that was an “a ha!” moment for me. It is like she’s developing RAD. And RAD has got to be one of the hardest disorders to parent, I swear.
So I’m not crazy in thinking this child is difficult to parent. I’m not crazy thinking this child is seriously struggling here. And I’m not crazy in thinking she needs to go home because her emotional well-being is more important than having the very best doctor or the very best school district. Emotional well-being underlies everything else. It’s the foundation. And if this young girl is never going to be okay not being with her family, then she needs to be with her family. Period.
I feel like I can breathe better these past two days, knowing we have a plan for her return home to her relative and her other three siblings. She’ll be with aunts and uncles and siblings daily, speaking Burmese, eating Burmese food, and living in her culture. She’ll just plain be home.
I am worried, of course, about Sprout and how she’s going to do without her sister here. Sigh. There’s never a good answer in foster care. It’s probably time to get Sprout on a wait list for a therapist so she’s got extra support when her sister leaves. But Sprout has a great support system here and is where she feels she belongs, and she’s a strong resilient kid. I think she’ll be okay.
And with luck, so will Sunny.
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