It's all i can do

I get into these situations and i don't know how to handle them. I don't know who to scream at. I don't know who to tell. So i write. Lovebug's mom picked her up about 3:30 and is planning on heading to grand junction for the summer. She promises to bring her back in august for school. I don't believe her. I am still angry with social services. I recentley received a survey from the colorado department of human services asking why we have decided not to be foster parents.(we are no longer foster parents, we have been switched to kinship care since we got the boys). I have filled out the form and i am attaching a letter. It's all i can do. As a foster parent we have no say, we have no rights and we deal with the after effects of a system that is broken and not working....anyway back to the letter. Here it is:


I am writing this as a former foster parent and a current kinship parent. We were foster parents for the county of Boulder. We have dealt with (caseworkers name), she was our foster daughter’s caseworker and her supervisor (supervisor's name). We had a little girl in our care for a year and 4 months when she went home to her bio mother in February of 2010. We were not comfortable with her going home but obviously we had no control. We met with the little girl and bio mother 2 months after she went home, at that time the bio mom thought she might decide to let the girl come back to live with us. She was given a month to decide and decided to keep her. The case was kept open. I am not exactly sure the reason they kept the case open. I do know that mom was expecting a baby in November. During this time, we had random visits with the little girl, about once a month. The visits started to increase in about September and October. We started getting the little girl every other weekend, then every weekend and then the visits would extend past the weekend and we would have her for a week. The visits were being set up through social services at first but they did not continue to stay involved in the arrangement of visits, but the case was still open. The visits were not consistent. The bio mother continued to extend the visits past the set amount of time. We continued to communicate with the caseworker and voiced our concerns with the visits, mom not willing to communicate with us and my ‘gut feeling’ that something was wrong. After the first of the year(2011), bio mom started to leave her with us for a week and then 2 weeks at a time. She then left her with us on March 4 and left her with us for over 3 months. She has called and communicated with us about every 2 weeks. She kept extending the amount of time she needed us to watch the little girl until it turned into a situation where she wanted to leave her with us.
Social services has been involved this whole time up until 2 weeks ago when they said they were going to close the case. This case has been open for 2 years and 10 months. Social services has decided to close this case now. RIGHT NOW! Not anytime during this last year when all seemed fine with mom and the kids but now when it all seems to be falling apart. Now, when bio mom needs the most help. She was diagnosed with post-partum depression and depression in March. Her boyfriend of several years, and father of her other two children, broke up with her. The boyfriend refuses to let her see her other two children and has told her he has moved to another state. She had to move out of her home she had with him for the last 2 years and is living with her mom’s old boyfriend. A home that she has been told she now has 4 days to move out of, forcing her to move to Grand Junction with the only family member she speaks to. This family member is her sister who’s 1 year old little girl just died in February and the girl’s father is facing criminal charges for her death. She has NO support! The only support she had is gone: her boyfriend, his family, social services, her kids. Oh wait, she does have support. Her 3 year old daughter. And she is taking off with her to Grand Junction to live with her sister.
This bio mom had decided to leave this little girl with us and was willing to sign some sort of papers to give us custody, guardianship…something. Shortly after deciding this social services decided they were done with this case. They decided it was time to close the case and leave us to figure out how to get papers signed. We were told we had to do this on our own and bio mom needed to figure it out with legal services.
I am very angry and upset with the way this case has been handled. I am so incredibly sad for this little girl who will not have anyone looking out for her safety. We were all she had and now she is moving 5 hours away, too far for mom to call and ask us to come pick up this little girl because she is overwhelmed. Something she is used to doing. I cannot believe that social services has decided to close this case when there is not stability. I cannot believe this case was even allowed to be closed with so many unanswered questions. Bio mom is mentally unstable, living with friends, has no car to get around and has no room, clothes, car seat or necessities for this little girl; yet social services decided to close this case and leave this little girl in limbo.
My husband and I wanted to do foster care once our adoption of our nephews was finalized. We have a lot more to give to children. We wanted to continue to make a difference in children’s lives. I don’t see us being able to continue with foster care at this point. We are disheartened. We are frustrated and cannot stand to see another child and their family so easily written off by a system that is supposed to be there to help these people in need. This bio mom and child both need support and social services made the decision to close the case. It is an uncaring, thoughtless and absolutely horrendous decision. I am appalled. I do not know the reasoning. We are only foster parents and we do not get that sort of information. We are not allowed answers and we are not given the respect of explanations.
These are the reasons we will not be returning to the foster care system as foster parents.