May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. It is typically a time when we social workers bring awareness to the needs of children in foster care. We honor, too, the families who selflessly step in to care for them.
This year, I am wrestling with the fact that we all know and recognize the trauma children experience when they are separated from their families; yet we have not collectively addressed the fact that this trauma isn’t magically healed when they return home.
Even in the best-case scenario, when providers work closely with parents and their children are safely returned into their care, there are often long-term effects — residue, if you will, of the trauma of the initial removal.
One mother I know, who successfully reunited with her kids after an entry into the foster care system, says she and they still struggle with the effect of the experience.
Her kids still have a startle reaction every time the doorbell rings. They have a natural mistrust of doctors, because it was a doctor who reported them and caused the original separation. They have a keen awareness of the curious stranger who may be innocently watching them play or interact with their mom.Iin their minds, these strangers might all be investigators or reporters.
And the mom feels like she can never mess up. Every action or inaction is under a microscope, being documented, evaluated or judged. She feels like everyone is watching her, all the time.
This kind of impact exists even in the best-case scenario — namely, a safely reunited family — for parents and children who’ve been through foster care.
Of course, the foster care system exists for a reason. And in a perfect world, it does very, very important work: It helps keep children safe, helps their families heal, and helps empower parents to lead strong, resilient families.
But we cannot keep setting aside the long-term effect of foster care entry and family separation. Even the best, most loving foster families can’t replace a child’s home environment and family culture.
Children who are kept in the same state might still feel worlds away. They’re suddenly in a new school, a new house, a new room, a new bed. Their friends are gone. Their parents are no longer close to them. The food is different. This separation can easily become traumatic, no matter how carefully and selflessly their foster parents seek to care for them in their new home.
“Children are resilient,” we often hear and share. The beauty of this resiliency is they are often able to adapt to changes in their environment — situations that were once strange and uncomfortable become the new normal. Often, after spending time in a foster care setting, returning to their home community is an adjustment, layered with its own traumas.
Research into resilience shows again and again that just one strong, stable, loving relationship can help bring a child through even the greatest adversity, even if it’s encountered at a very young age.
And many times, foster parents form strong, healthy attachments to the children placed in their care. But they cannot be solely responsible for mitigating the traumatic impact of family separation. They need our help.
In fact, here in Georgia, that’s especially true: Our foster parents are part of a critically overwhelmed system, in dire need of support and encouragement.
Our work must continue along two distinct fronts: To reduce the number of family separations by coming alongside vulnerable families early, and to help reduce the traumatic impact of the separations that must happen by providing support to foster families.
When it comes to vulnerable families who are at risk of system involvement, if you see something, don’t just say something, do something.
As an individual or through your church, you can partner with organizations like CarePortal to be notified of needs of families in your area. Examples of needs include financial support to pay utility bills or rent to prevent evictions, meals, winter clothing, furniture and household goods, infant products like diapers and wipes, gas cards, and bus cards.
When it comes to vulnerable youth or children in the foster care system, the same rule applies — even if the way we support them looks different. I often tell parents and mentors to “be the adult that you needed as a child.”
Spend time with them. Listen to them. Go out of your way to show up consistently for them. Help build a space and relationship where they know they will be and feel heard, seen and accepted, no matter what.
We must stop resigning the work of trauma mitigation to other people. Our task, individually and collectively, is to relentlessly seek out the needs of the vulnerable and rise just as steadfastly to meet them.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Dr. Kimberly Offutt serves as executive branch director for Bethany Christian Services of Georgia and Alabama.
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