MotherlyBlessingsInMyLife: A Letter Of Concern For My Daughter

Electrical outlet with no
faceplate

The hardest thing I have ever done is to have to place my youngest daughter back into foster care. I had a sick uneasy feeling in my stomach. I did not feel good about her first foster home. I felt like no progress was being made and that even thought her goal was to come back home nothing was being done to insure that she was working towards her goals. I felt like no one was listening to me. I was frustrated and angry so I wrote the following letter.

I am writing this letter due to several concerns I have regarding the Professional Parent home that my daughter YaYa is in. In reading YaYa’s treatment and service plan, it states “YaYa is in need of a stable, supportive and structured family placement that provides a safe environment.” Number one under discharge planning in her service plan states “YaYa requires the intensive support of the Professional Parent Family in order to meet her needs for structure, stability, consistency and nurturance. I have given all of this great thought after we spoke on the phone on 2/17/11. It is obvious to me that the Professional Parent home that YaYa is in does not seem to be providing these things. I am listing below my concerns regarding YaYa’s Professional Parent home.

No light in my daughter's
room

1) I have called and left messages on several occasions and I never get a return phone call from YaYa’s Professional Parents.

2) I have e-mailed YaYa’s Professional Parents on several occasions and I do not get a response either by phone or e-mail.

3) On multiple visits I have had with YaYa she has had dirty, greasy unkept hair. Since YaYa has been in State custody, I have paid for four haircuts for her. I have been advised that I do not need to provide haircuts for YaYa, but as her Mom I cannot ignore when she needs a haircut. I recently waited an extra three weeks before taking her for a haircut to see if her Professional Parents would get her hair cut. I finally broke down last week and took YaYa to get her hair cut. Are the Professional Parents making sure that YaYa takes a shower everyday? Shouldn’t the Professional Parents be insuring that YaYa gets her basic hygiene needs met? The Professional Parent’s failure to provide basic hair care and to supervise daily hygiene demonstrates a lack of concern, supervision, nurturance, structure and support.

4) I called Eusinia this morning to speak with her about several concerns I had after not getting a response to an e-mail I sent on 2/15/11. I spoke to her about YaYa’s homework from last Tuesday and that YaYa had left her homework sheets in her advisor’s car. Eusinia had not followed up on YaYa’s homework and even stated that she would have to check with the school. I thought the Professional Parents are suppose to make sure that YaYa is doing her homework. How could Eusinia not know if YaYa was missing homework? Is she not suppose to be insuring that YaYa does her homework? Here it is two days later and Eusinia was clueless and had not followed through on making sure that YaYa was not missing homework. The Professional Parent’s are failing YaYa and this incident demonstrates a lack of concern, support, structure, consistency and follow through.

5) While speaking with Eusinia this morning I asked if there was a reason why YaYa was not using her back pack. I explained that I spoke to YaYa on day about using her backpack to help her keep all of her school supplies and papers together in one place and that using her backpack would help her not loose papers. Eusinia agreed that using the backpack was a good idea. Eusinia stated “that she did not know where YaYa’s backpack was and that she would check with the school to see if the backpack was there.” I told Eusinia that I saw YaYa’s backpack in her room on Tuesday when I dropped her off. It is very concerning that Eusinia did not know where YaYa’s backpack was. How could Eusinia not know where YaYa’s backpack was? Is Eusinia not observing what YaYa is taking to school and what she is bringing home from school? This is another example of how the Professional Parent’s are failing YaYa and this issue demonstrates the lack of supervision, structure, support and consistency that YaYa needs to help her be successful with school.

6) I spoke to Eusinia about the bedwetting that was mentioned in YaYa’s behavioral plan and your notes from the January 27th meeting that I received yesterday. Eusinia confirmed that there have been three bedwetting issues at her home. Eusinia stated “there were 2 bedwetting episodes last year and 1 bedwetting episode in January.” Eusinia said she asked YaYa about why she wet the bed and YaYa stated that “she doesn’t remember.” I explained that YaYa has seizures and has had a history of nocturnal seizures. Eusinia never informed me that YaYa has had any bedwetting episodes in her home. This is a safety issue and the fact that YaYa doesn’t remember is a red flag that she could be having seizures in her sleep, loosing bladder control and then doesn’t remember in the morning as she is post-ictal. The Professional Parents’s lack of communication with me regarding YaYa’s bed wetting is a huge safety concern and demonstrates a lack of nurturance, support and concern about YaYa’s well being..

7) YaYa had a DSI handheld video game I purchased for her with money that her grandmother sent her last August. YaYa told me on our last visit that the DSI was missing and she had no idea where it was. I spoke to Eusinia about the DSI this morning and she confirmed that YaYa’s DSI has been missing or lost since November. I asked Eusinia if the DSI had been listed on the property inventory that she keeps for YaYa. Eusinia said she did not put the DSI on YaYa’s property inventory list. Again, Eusinia did not communicate with me that the DSI was missing. It seems as though YaYa’s property is not a concern for Eusinia . The Professional Parent’s failure to communicate with me regarding YaYa’s missing DSI demonstrates a lack of care, concern, follow through, support, nurturance and respect for YaYa’s personal belongings.

8) On Tuesday, February 15^th, YaYa wanted me to come and see her room. YaYa’s closet in her room did not have doors and I noticed that none of her clothes were hanging in her closet except for one pair of pants and the Halloween outfit I bought her in October. I looked up and there were her clothes all thrown on the shelf in her closet. The clothes were not folded, they were just thrown up there in disarray. I then noticed that there was a small vanity for her lamp and it had a three small drawers but one of the drawers did not even have a handle. When YaYa first went into her Professional Parent home I purchased $440.89 in clothes for her as she needed school clothes and had outgrown most of her school clothes. Another issue is that YaYa has been wearing the same pair of jeans that now have huge holes in both knees. After seeing her closet it made more sense to me that it would be difficult for YaYa to find another pair of pants in the pile of clothes in her closet. Even when YaYa was at the Utah Youth Village last May, she was required to keep her clothes either folded neatly in a dresser drawer or hanging in her closet. If YaYa’s Professional Parents don’t require her to take care of her personal clothing, then how is that providing the structure she needs? The Professional Parent’s lack of supervision in requiring YaYa to take care of her personal clothing demonstrates a lack of structure, support, consistency and supervision.

9) On Saturday, February 19^th, I helped YaYa into her room after our visit. YaYa went into her dark bedroom and I flipped the light switch on the wall to turn on her bedroom light. YaYa said “Mom that light doesn’t work.” YaYa then asked me to turn on the hall light so that she could see to plug in her lamp. Once YaYa got her lamp turned on, I saw that there were wires and a light socket hanging from the ceiling but no light bulb in the light socket. There was no light fixture over the wires in the ceiling. Then I noticed that the outlet that YaYa plugged her lamp into did not have a face plate on it and it was not secure in the wall. At one point the plug fell out of the outlet and YaYa told me that the top outlet doesn’t work and that plug falls out a lot. This seems like a BIG safety issue to me. If YaYa were to put a pen or scissors in the outlet socket, she cod get shocked. Is it acceptable to have these type of electrical issues in a foster child’s room. The Professional Parents failure to provide safe lighting and electricity in YaYa’s room demonstrates that they have NOT provided a safe, supportive and nurturing room for YaYa.

10) Again on Saturday, February 19^th, when I helped YaYa into her room I noticed that her clothes were still thrown on the top of her closet and on her closet floor. (see attached pictures) I purchased 30 white plastic hangers for YaYa as her closet did not have enough hangers for her to be able to hang up her clothes. Do you know if YaYa’s clothes were hanging in her closet at one time? Is there some reason that there were not enough hangers for her clothes? YaYa and I spent about 30 minutes getting all of her clothes hung up and organized. Since YaYa does not have a dresser in her room, we folded her shorts and T-shirts and had to place them on the shelf in her closet. (see attached pictures) Do you know why YaYa does not have a dresser? Do the Professional Parents not have to provide a dresser for YaYa? The Professional Parents failure to provide a dresser and hangers for YaYa so that she can organize her personal clothing shows a lack of concern, support, respect and nurturance.

11) Finally, on Saturday, February 19^th, I arrived at the Professional Parent’s home at 6:50pm as I was suppose to have YaYa there by 7:00pm. There was no one home when we got there but the front door was unlocked. YaYa and I started working on her closet and Eusinia arrived at the house around 7:20pm. This is not the first time that I have dropped YaYa off to find that the Professional Parents are not there. The Professional Parents not being at home when YaYa is there shows that there is a lack of proper supervision. The Professional Parents failure to supervise YaYa apropriately demonstrates that they are not providing a stable, supportive, structured and safe environment for YaYa.

When I spoke to you on 2/17/11, you stated that the Professional Parents culture was laid back and that there was a cultural difference in expectations. YaYa has not been raised in their culture. Could such a difference in cultures be even more confusing to YaYa? All of the above issues show that YaYa’s needs are being neglected. YaYa has not made progess in her current Professioal Parent home and it seems her behavior has reverted. Why are the Professional Parents not held accountable? You stated that you felt the Professional Parent’s were picking their battles. What battles are they picking? After what I have seen and now know, I feel like my daughter is falling through the cracks. This is not acceptable and I am requesting a different Professional Parent home for YaYa. It would be an egregious error and neglectful of YaYa’s needs, well being and growth to not have her in a Professional Parent home that did not fulfill their job as Professional Parents. YaYa’s best interest, well being and future are at stake if she in not placed in a home that meets her needs for physical and emotional support, structure, stability, consistency and nurturance.

In reading this letter again, I still feel the anger, pain and sadness that all of this had happened. I never got an answer to my letter and in fact DCFS was angry that I had written the letter. I was at a loss. I did not know what to do and felt that if I shared my concerns then maybe someone would listen. The plan was reunification and for my daughter to come back home. How was my daughter to come back home if the goals in her care plan were not being followed? This only added to my frustration and seemed to be hindering any progress my daughter could make to come back home. I did not know then, but 14 months later I would dissolve my daughter's adoption to stop the trauma and the abuse I was feeling from trying to work with a child welfare system that hostile and adversarial.....