PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ AS THIS HAPPENED WITH MY HUSBAND AND ME WITH OUR FIRST EXPERIENCE WHICH IS OUR LAST
'They came home to find all their stuff packed' — A local couple wanted to become foster parents -
their first experience ensured it would be their last
If you love something, set it free, goes the saying.
Michelle feels she didn't so much set two girls free as have the Children's Aid Society wrench them from her with little consultation, notice or, most important, regard for the charges she had been the primary caregiver for these last eight months.
"I don't feel they protected those children," said Michelle in a recent interview about her first experience as a foster parent.
It's an experience she and her husband, David, say has soured them from ever opening their door to a needy child again. (The Sault Star has changed their names to protect the identity of the children.)
The story begins long before the Children's Aid Society of Algoma called Michelle last October.
Eight years ago she was providing respite care, through the Children's Rehabilitation Centre of Algoma, for frazzled parents of children with disabilities and special needs.
She had four clients, including the family of the little girl in the wheelchair; she also became close with her baby sister.
After she found full-time work as an education assistant with the Catholic school board, she whittled down her clientele to just them.
Maybe it's that she never had daughters, said Michelle, 40. "I have three boys. I wasn't filling a void but it was nice to see what it was like to have girls."
She had long talked of becoming a foster parent. "I work with children. I love children. I help them grow, spiritually, physically, mentally," she said.
She got her wish sooner than expected.
The father of the girls, now aged 14 and eight, who had sole custody, called last October, begging her to take them for the weekend.
It was not the first time she and her sister would have visited -- "It was her second home," Michelle said -- only this time the CAS was involved, for any of the myriad reasons troubled families get tangled up with child protection services.
So Michelle said yes, and again Monday when "they asked for another week, then another month. I said fine."
If she said no, she was told "they'd be made wards and placed with strangers."
For the last couple of years, child protection services have had another tool to place children rather than get a court order to place them into bone fide foster care.
"Kinship service" provides greater flexibility in placing children with an extended family member or close friend, like Michelle.
But, as she and David learned, much less flexibility in other areas.
Kinship service
Jim Baraniuk, executive director of CAS Algoma, calls kinship service "very good legislation. It allows us engage in a whole number of family caregiver situations that we never had before."
In fact, out-of-care kinship services number about half of available foster homes, which has "flatlined" at about 175 the last few years, Baraniuk said.
While foster care is up from the beginning of the decade, it's nowhere close to meet growing demand.
The CAS currently has 87 homes providing out-of-care kinship, diverting 106 children who would have previously swelled foster care by 42 per cent, he said.
"So it's a huge, huge alternative option for care. It's becoming a very large area we are involved in."
Here's the downside.
"If circumstance have changed where (the parent is) able to have the children returned and there's no risk issue, then we have to place the children back with that parent," Baraniuk said.
To make a long story short, the girls' mother, after years away, was seeking custody. One day in June, she got it.
David said the family court judge made a ruling shortly after noon to have them with her by 5 p. m.
They say they had been co-operating fully in the process of reuniting parent and daughters -- the ideal outcome of any such case -- but had not expected the speed with which the girls' lives would again be up-ended.
"They came home to find all their stuff packed," Michelle said.
They had another week in school, and a party had been planned to see them off before their expected reunion with their mother in Sudbury.
"They were heartbroken, absolutely devastated. They didn't understand why they didn't get to say goodbye to their friends," David said.
Baraniuk agreed the timing of the separation was not ideal, but "really, ultimately, the parent is the legal guardian of those children," he said.
"Often we try to have as much lead time as possible for the people caring for the children. Unfortunately, sometimes we can't accommodate that," said Baraniuk, who said he had no independent knowledge of this case and would never discuss specific case files to adhere to privacy laws.
"If the child was a ward of the Society, we could dictate the timing more. But if it's kinship, it's much more of an engagement with the parents."
Whether or not the hands of the CAS were tied, Michelle and David say they have lost a foster family for life.
The CAS wrote to them in the last couple of weeks indicating its appreciation, "despite the conflict," and acknowledging they went above and beyond the call of duty, Michelle said -- too little, too late. They received "a couple" of requests to provide temporary foster care, both of which they turned down.
"We just don't want to deal with it," David said.
Baraniuk says that's unfortunate.
He agreed "sometimes it's very quick notice" but added that "it's more important for people putting their names forward to care for children to think of all the good they've done for the period they cared for the children. . . . I realize it's tough on caregivers and it's tough on children, but ultimately if you can think of the long-term goal, hopefully those children are reunited in a healthy way with their biological parents."
Valerie "My Wife NFS" totally in love with Mike
- 14 years, 9 months, 5 days ago
and 
April 9th,2011 from me and THE BIRTHDAY HERD! 
Hope you have a wonderful Day 
