Lived Experiences: Youth and Family Perspectives
Youth Perspective
Family Perspective
In 2018, members of Youth Fostering Change (YFC)—an advocacy group program of Juvenile Law Center made up of youth with experience in foster care—issued a report and recommendations related to older youth permanency, Tools for Success: A Toolkit for Child Welfare Professionals to Achieve Permanency and Stability for Youth in Foster Care . In the report, YFC addressed the significant struggles they collectively experienced in care and the need to increase connections with kin and relatives, including the rigorous enforcement of family finding, as one of their priority recommendations. Many of YFC’s members left foster care without permanency and believed that it did not have to be that way. Most significantly, kin and family were not located and pursued during their time in care, and many found these supports after they aged out of the foster care system, which should have happened earlier. The deep sense of loss is acutely felt. Youth reported that, “family separation causes trauma and grief and maintaining family connections is important for emotional health and well- being.” Many members also indicated that, “during time in care, the caseworkers didn’t acknowledge our existing family.” Youth felt that if identified kin could not provide certain things—like placement—they did not get support to build or maintain those connections. In the report, young people describe the following experiences related to connections with kin: • Losing connections with siblings with no support to maintain those relationships. • No assistance for maintaining relationships with relatives who could not provide placement. • No support for maintaining relationships with relatives important to them, because the agency deemed those kin as bad influences. • Constantly moving placements caused them to lose contact or limited their ability to build lasting relationships. • Running away to be able to see biological parents or family members. • Losing relationships with siblings upon being adopted or the adoption of their siblings. • Experiencing anger, grief and loss from family separation, and struggling greatly to adjust, even in supportive placements.
More often than not, kin are at a financial and legal disadvantage because rarely do they plan to become a kinship caregiver, unlike
the planned nature of foster parenting. Kin also are connected to the family system, which is what makes them so valuable. At the same time, they also can be affected by the hurt, disappointment, anger, grief and loss that so often accompanies the issues that led to the need for the child to be placed with kin. They also must navigate the changing family dynamics as they take on a new role in their family system and can be viewed as being less available to other family members or blamed for “taking” the children from the parents. As kin are thrown into a role they did not anticipate, they become overwhelmed by their new responsibilities and all the challenges they face as non-parent caregivers. When navigating the child welfare system, in formal placements they are suddenly accountable to a court and caseworkers and can feel judged for how they choose to run their families. This can include forms of discipline, who they allow into the home when the children are there, how many other family members can live in the home, and many other examples. And, as informal caregivers, they are overwhelmed with financial planning and ensuring the child in their care is enrolled in school, has dental, medical and mental health care and that other needs can be met, often with limited support networks and resources available to them. Unfortunately, some kin never get the chance to experience the role of caregiver they presented themselves for because they are denied the ability by the child welfare system. This results in a far different set of stressors associated with loss and grief because they have no role in the future of their kin – the denial of kinship not only impacts the ability for the child and kin to live together, but also can result in lack of visitation and formal contact.
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Kinship Care in Pennsylvania: Creating an Equitable System for Families – January 2021
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