Spleen Vent

If you need a happy post, you better read yesterday's.

Here I sit in the waiting room. Waiting for Brad’s second shoulder surgery to be completed. What do you do for two hours as you wait? You bring something to occupy your time. In my case, I brought my paperwork to renew our foster care/adoption license. And this, in turn, reminded my how much I hate CPS and this whole foster care system, a system that professes to love and protect children at risk.
Last Wednesday, Brad attended Baby A’s first court hearing. He has been in care nine and a half months, and this is the first court appearance. By law, the case should have been heard in court before the six-month marker, but because of some faulty filing and declaring by CPS, it was delayed until last week. Mistake number 1.
I have little respect for Baby A’s case manager anyway. But when I heard that she was unable to make the court hearing for maternity leave, I held out even less hope that all the paperwork would be filed correctly or that someone would appear in her stead that had any clue what was going on with the case. Unfortunately, I was right. The court report hadn’t even been completed, forcing the CPS manager (R.) to scramble to find answers to all the questions. Mistake number 2.
Brad has had more courtroom exposure than most laymen, so I trust his opinion on this: he said he’s never seen a more circus-like atmosphere in a courtroom in his life. The tribal attorney representing S., Baby A’s mom, was disrespectful, sarcastic, and rude. The judge ended up chewing her up pretty handily. But the main problem was CPS. No one in the courtroom for CPS knew ANYTHING about this case. It was an example of CYA at its worst. Apparently, CPS neglected to investigate everyone on the list of potential family members, neglected to file important papers, neglected to inform the tribe on certain issues, basically neglected the law. CPS had even lied to me about resolved issues and efforts. The tribe even moved to have S’s random drug testing changed to scheduled drug testing because it’s just "too hard for her to get there." Really? She tested positive for meth in February and hasn’t taken a single UA since. Now the court is going to trust her with scheduled testing? Shockingly, the court agreed. Mistakes number 3, 4, and 5. At this point, my licensing worker (the person in the system that represents me and my family) turned to Brad and said, "We’re screwed."
Since I was in SLC for the day, I was unable to attend, much to my dismay. But Brad came away from the hearing disenchanted with the system and its ability to serve the needs of any child, mainly based on this observation: not one word was uttered by any party in the courtroom in regards to the best interests of the four kids involved. The tribe only wants what’s best to preserve the culture and identity of the tribe, no matter what methods they have to revert to. The guardian ad litem (court-appointed representation for the kids in the case) currently has 340 cases on his caseload (due to all the budget cuts), and he was bouncing from one courtroom to the other during the proceedings because he had two hearings scheduled for the same time. CPS doesn’t want to deal with tribal law, so they’ve been in a state of inaction for the past 9 months, hoping that the case will just disappear, maybe? Not one person, including the judge, asked for the findings of either Foster Care Review Board hearing (both of which found that concurrent case plans of severance and adoption should be implemented for the two youngest kids), asked whether the kids were in appropriate placements, asked if the kids were happy, well-cared-for, or loved. Mistake number 6.
What this all boils down to is this: Because Baby A is Native American, no one in the system cares if he’s happy, safe, and loved. CPS wants him off their roster, and the tribe wants him back on the reservation NO MATTER WHAT. It looks like he will be leaving us, and probably before the end of the summer.
I knew in my mind that this day could eventually come. And I think that I would feel better about it if I knew he were going to a home where he’d be loved and taken care of. Unfortunately, it looks like he’ll be heading off to some single 27-year-old uncle’s, who has no idea how to take care of two little kids. Yes, two. Baby A has a baby sister, Baby D, who was taken straight from the hospital and placed with a loving foster family at three days of age. Born exposed to marijuana and meth. And they’re sending these kids back into the lion’s den, with the state mostly powerless to intervene.
I’m sick about it. Part of me wants to hold onto him with both hands and run to Bolivia. Part of me says, "Fine. If he’s going to leave, take him now, because I can’t bear it lasting any longer." And part of me says, "God knows what’s best. Trust Him." Any of those three ways is hard (not like we’d really run to Bolivia. . . ). And the not knowing is hard. But the worst is knowing that his fate has been left up to bureaucrats and lawyers who care NOTHING for him as a little boy. He’s just a case number to them.
But not to me. Because I’m his mom.