Fostering Rainbows: When Your World is in CYA Mode

It is inevitable that you will find yourself surrounded by professionals in CYA mode as a foster parent. You will want to have a plan for dealing with this situation and that is what we’ll discuss here.

As a foster parent you operate in a world of multiple agencies, institutions and professionals for each of your kids. If you have multiple placements you could be dealing with 10 or more providers. The elephant in the room is that they all have agendas and it may not be the best interest of the child.

 Foster parents, especially LGBT foster parents, need to know the landscape of the professional world you are operating in. You may think you have an LGBT friendly, supportive environment, but is it really? While working with a generally LGBT supportive agency several years ago, my partner and I received a new placement. The child came with a new case worker, we hadn’t met before. We got off to a rocky start when at an early home visit she asked which of us was the mom. This and other similar incidents led to a challenging relationship for the entire multi-year placement.

You need to understand the environment you as an LGBT foster parent are in so you can prepare for any situation, including when everyone around you is in CYA mode.

The Plan

1. Always come from the child’s best interest. It is all about creating a family where the child can thrive not just survive. Most youth in foster care operate in survival mode, either because of the trauma that brought them into care or the trauma inflicted by the system. Unless your safety is threatened it is not about you, it’s about what is best for the kiddo.

2. Be prepared to be unpopular. Most, if not all, pre-service training for foster parents includes that you are an advocate for the children in your care. The agendas mentioned earlier get in the way of this in reality. You will find individual professionals or agencies that prefer you just keep quiet and do as you’re told. If you are looking for awards or appreciation you may be disappointed.

3. Find an alley or allies, you’ll need them. You will be more effective as a foster parent with professional allies. This is especially true as an LGBT foster parent since you also have the challenge of navigating the gay issues in addition to the child issues. Your child’s guardian ad litum, youth attorney, therapist or a social worker can be excellent allies. Who makes a good ally often depends on the issue you are addressing. Your allies will change given the situation.

4. Call them out, respectfully. You will need to point out the elephant in the room. In order to get everyone back on to what is in the best interest of your child you have to call out that they, and possible you, are in CYA mode. Remind everyone that what’s important is the child’s best interest and ask everyone to agree to let go of any other agenda they have.

5. Think outside the box, that’s where solutions are. One of my favorite lines is bureaucrats and judges shouldn’t raise kids. The biggest reason is they operate from standard operating procedures (SOP). There is no such thing as a standard kid, each child is unique so SOP often doesn’t work. You will often have to guide the professionals to a discussion of more creative solutions to a situation than the ones they have always used. This is another thing that effects #2 above. If the SOP hasn’t worked, why keep doing it? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Unfortunately, the foster care system has a lot of insanity.

6. Advocate. Once you have a solution you will need to be a fierce advocate for your child’s best interest and the solution that supports it. Youth in foster care are sometimes not directly involved in discussions that effect their lives so your advocacy is imperative to their thriving futures.

When your world goes into CYA mode, and it will, you now have a plan. If you see something you are not comfortable doing, you have identified a continuing education opportunity.