A friend of mine took Daffy for the weekend…. it was quite a nice and unexpected break! Overall, Daffy has been in relatively good spirits since Daisy and April left in December, but she is still struggling with things as they pertain to her to birth mom and Donald.

Last night I asked Daffy if she wanted to call Donald and she replied that she really didn’t want to, but that since it had been a few days since she talked to him, she would. He got on the phone and she asked if he was “on level” to which he replied no and she promptly rolled her eyes at me. She tried to get out of him what happened but as usual, he was tight lipped and dismissive, acting as if it were no big deal. She then said “Is there anything else you want to talk about?” He replied “Nope!”, so she said good night and hung up without even waiting for his response. She is really disgusted with him and his lack of improvements in the past year… and she doesn’t even know the half of it!

Daffy and I had chat time last night before bed and she asked when she would be seeing her birth mom again. I knew this question would eventually come. She hasn’t been talking about her birth mom since the “Christmas visit” earlier this month, but I knew it had to be weighing on her mind. Honesty is always my policy, so I told her that I really didn’t know as we don’t have a specific date set and that I thought it would probably be sometime this summer. I braced myself for an upset, but it didn’t happen. She seemed quite content with that answer, as if simply knowing when was enough.

I have yet to receive any communication with her birth mom since that visit, which seems odd. Not only has she not contacted me, but hasn’t reached out to Daffy via email either. I have replied back to a couple different team emails (she is now included on them), but still nothing. I guess it will be a wait and see game.

This morning I received an email from Donald’s clinician. She was reporting two critical incidents that occurred over the weekend following Donald’s visit with his birth mom. Both involved calling a supervisor in because of his level of agression and violence. My response to the team email is as follows:

CLINICIAN and all,
This sounds a lot like the DONALD that we lived with last year, except that
we didn’t have a supervisor to “change face” or a seclusion room for safety (for him or
for us). I still feel physically sick to my stomach when I think about it.

In my experience, I would caution to slow the transition for everyone’s
safety, as these are the signs that were ignored last year when he
transitioned here that ultimately placed him in the hospital, GROUP HOME
and eventually RTC. These are the same types of behaviors that he
also showed with the FORMER FOSTER family 3 years earlier.

If there is something I can do to help stop this cycle from repeating for
DONALD, please let me know.

Thanks,
MINNIE

I was the only one to respond and of course the team has remained silent. I know they don’t want to see the reality that he is not ready to live in a family (and especially that of his birth mom), but that is the truth. He is dangerous. He WILL hurt someone. I can’t be silent. He only started with the TF-CBT specialist in September. Why are they expecting miracles? Even the top trauma expert in the state said that things may never change for him. I know they don’t want to give up hope on this 12 year child (and neither do I!), but they need to be HONEST and accept his current limitations before someone gets seriously hurt.

His next team meeting is still more than a month away. It will be interesting to see what happens between now and then. I am also curious to know what they were able to determine about the message written on the back of his door. My guess? They swept it under the rug because it doesn’t align with the plan of reunifying him with his birth mom. *sigh*

In other foster related news in my world:

• I am trying to set up a coffee date with the respite teen to check in on her and the baby. We text a few times a week and she reports that things are going well.
• I have not heard from Alice’s family since a brief email in December saying things weren’t going well.
• The new sw for April and Daisy picked up the last of their belongings last night. She reported that things are going very well in their new placement and that she is hopeful for their adoption. I was surprised at the ease in which she lied to my face, since I had spoken to April’s former respite care giver/current day care worker just 2 days before with a totally different update. The day care worker reported about a nasty scene a couple nights prior where April refused to leave with her new family and had to be carried out (reminded me LOTS of our super fun ER trip #sarcasm). She said that the foster mom was disgusted with April’s behavior. She also said that on Friday, April told her that she could no longer “act up” or the foster family would sever ties with the day care worker. I was APPALLED, as the team had stated several times how important this connection is to April.
• Still not a peep from the resource worker to reschedule the meeting she cancelled a week ago today.

Honestly, there are days when the whole system just disgusts me. From the way kids are treated to the way foster families are treated, it’s really a broken system that often does more harm than good. I am SO relieved that we were able to adopt Daffy rom the clutch of this miserable system.