Permanency Tip of the Week: Dealing with Ambiguous Loss in Foster Care
In life, we all experience grief and loss in response to death, ending of relationships, illness, employment, etc. When these sorts of events happen, we often turn to our own sources of Permanency (family and close friends) for support. Society also has commonly held beliefs that support the grieving process (funerals, bereavement leave, unemployment, etc.). What if the losses you experience are not acknowledged by society (ex. being placed in a loving foster-adoptive family, getting a new roommate or change in social worker)? Our inability to acknowledge that many aspects of the foster care experience generate chronic and potentially traumatic losses for our children can lead to unnecessary, painful and potentially devastating impacts. The next time a child you are working with experiences a change in their life (ex. change in school, roommate, social worker), try to look at this experience through the lens of grief and loss.
Permanency Story of the Week: Treehouse Communities – Permanency in Action
Judy Cockerton, founder of Treehouse Communities, shares her vision of changing the world for children in care. The Treehouse Community is a mission driven community offering vital living opportunities and community connections for all ages. Designed to support families who are fostering and adopting children from the public foster care system, Treehouse is a caring, inter-generational neighborhood.
Current Permanency related articles:
Oakland man honored at White House
As part of National Foster Care month, the event will honor Sokhom Mao and 11 other individuals from around the country for making a difference in their communities and also for furthering their education. The event will take place on May 19 in the nation’s capital and will feature remarks by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Deputy Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs, Justice & Opportunity Roy Austin Jr.
We Are Failing an Arena’s Worth of Kids, EVERY year!
Madeleine Melcher – How to Make a Difference Beyond National Foster Care Month – Preface: I was adopted after a brief time in care. Thousands of children do not find that same soft landing with a forever family. I was no more deserving of a family than any of them. EVERY child deserves a family. This month is National Foster Care Month — but this is not a subject we can just talk about one month out of the year.
Gift from USC alumna and former foster child will endow a new program at USC Telehealth
Lynne Okon Scholnick, MSW ’72 decided she wanted to do something to ensure other foster children receive more help than she did. That’s why she recently endowed a new program at USC Telehealth that will help build confidence and resilience in foster youth through caring therapeutic relationships.
Creating Access to Opportunities for Youth in Transition from Foster Care
A new brief from the American Youth Policy Forum, “Creating Access to Opportunities for Youth in Transition from Foster Care,” highlights best practices and makes recommendations to support youth in transition from foster care in three critical areas of need – sustainable social capital, permanency supports, and access to postsecondary opportunities. Sustainable social capital is defined as the skills to navigate resources effectively, create and maintain relationships, and become independent. Permanency supports include the critical resources necessary for stability including housing, transportation and healthcare.
Ambiguous Loss Haunts Foster and Adopted Children
Ambiguous loss—a feeling of grief or distress combined with confusion about the lost person or relationship—is a normal aspect of adoption. Parents who adopt children with special needs may feel ambiguous loss related to what the child could have been had he not been exposed to toxic chemicals in utero, or abused and neglected after birth. Birth parents experience loss when a child is removed from their home.
For children placed in foster care, this type of loss tends to happen over and over again, and is incredibly hard to process. To help children better manage these repeated traumas, foster and adoptive parents, as well as child welfare workers, must be sensitive to the role ambiguous loss plays in foster and adopted children’s behavior.
Adoption—the sentimental value of mementos and heirlooms
Have you ever assigned sentimental values to objects that commemorate and rekindle old memories? I had never seen a picture of myself as an infant and knew nothing about the first year of my life until I discovered the identity of my foster family. The box of mementos, photographs and relics they gave me thirty-two years later was priceless. Its contents stimulated memories I didn’t even know I had and helped explain the mysterious circumstances of my birth and adoption.