I hope that the person who sent me this email never reads my blog, because I understand the spirit in which it was written. But it encapsulates the whole problem with the adoption of older children.
This email came at the end of an interchange. For a couple of months I've been trying to find homestudies for someone who will take two girls, ages 10 and 13, and one of them is pretty challenging. They are African American, so that means an even greater challenge. I have exhausted my resources and I can't find anyone who is interested.
So after exchanging several emails with the worker I let her know that I didn't have any families that would be interested. She responded, 'That's OK. There is no rush."
And she is exactly right. We have lost the urgency in finding homes for kids. There is no rush. If we find a family this month great -- if we don't find one for six more months, oh well. If we get around to doing it, great. If not, that's OK too.
Certainly we don't often say that out loud, but we can become complacent.
Whenever I speak to social workers I tell them that I firmly believe that with every child there is a day when they give up on finding a family and from that point on their behavior becomes immediately worse. And from then on it is nearly impossible to find an interested family.
We're in a rush to get our fast food -- Mcdonalds better not take more then 3 minutes in the drive through. We want everything to happen NOW.... but when it comes to matching and placing kids, there's just to much else going on to get it done.
She was right. There is no rush. And therein lies the tragedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment