Bureaucracies with their forms and seemingly endless procedural matters are a cause of delay, not just in foster care drift, but in every important step in the process. We need people who are on a mission to cut through the red tape.
Nowhere are the entangling complications of red tape more obstructive than with interstate adoptions, where the laws and regulations differ between states. Only 71 interstate adoptions among non-relatives were reported by AFCARS in 2003. “It is a national scandal that 25,000 children age out of foster care each year, while waiting adoptive parents are ignored because they are in the wrong state or even the wrong county. It shouldn’t be harder for a New Jersey family to adopt a child from Manhattan than from Moscow….The primary reason is that we do not have a national adoption system.” (Katz, 2009)
Learning to work together as partners is imperative. If the involved players don’t even talk to one another, nothing happens. Effective communication and cooperation are rare skills. Those who care for our most vulnerable citizens need to communicate with one another, to listen, and to be able to work out solutions within “child time.”
Perhaps the biggest problem is the unwillingness to share power. When a child is removed from the home for cause, the birth parents are often treated as the problem instead of the solution. The child is made a ward of the court and the caseworker becomes the responsible party. The foster parent may have 24/7 care of the child but has no legal standing. The caseworker, rather than working with either the biological or the foster parents, may be tempted to perceive herself as the sole decision-maker. Gathering input from all sides and cooperation in shaping and working out a plan is the smartest way to achieve the best permanent home available for the child.