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sunshineriver's comments:
on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
The recommendation is to only take children younger than your own, and though out of kindness you may want to accept the first call you get, but for the safety of your family it is good to stick to the child younger than your own, and know well the circumstances they are coming from. And I don't want to paint too negative a picture, because many of these kids are very good kids just in a tough spot, while some are severely damaged, mental illness, drug affect, PTSD, RAD, and the list goes on. Don't do it for an income. I don't know the subsidy now, sounds like it is significantly more than when we were doing foster care, but we paid out of our own pocket to put them in a child development program.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
I don't think one is necessarily off their rocker to have compassion and care for these children, but do agree it is less than an ideal situation. Don't have all the answers, but possibly if these people are truly altruistic, they would volunteer in state run orphanages???
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
I would like to add, that some of these children diagnosed or not, have what would be called Reactive attachment disorder. Yet they tell us as foster parents we should not become attached to these children with high needs that we care for sometimes for years on end.
Let me suggest, the harm is done by those unable or unwilling to attach. these children have noone in there lives that will put it all on the line for their saftey and welfare.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
I would like to propose to keep these kids out of care, to offer a living situation that can assure safety and accountability. I would propose to offer a living situation that self contains the services these families get drug rehab, counseling, mentoring, well child check ups, school support, anger mgt. So offer the parents a choice, "you can come live in this housing facility where you will be monitored, or you can have your children removed. My guess is this would be a much cheaper and effective solution.
Regarding current discussion, when you raise and infant for 2+ years it is more than heart wrenching to have these children returned especially to a woman who was certain to allow them to visit a man with founded allegations of sexual abuse.
You are told your job is to keep them safe, you raise them, then watch the very agency that told you to keep them safe return them to anything but, is beyond heart wrenching.
as for support, you are also told and correctly so that your family may not be as keen on this as you and by caring for these children you may be alienated by your own family if they don't understand. Also in many of these communities the psychiatric care is not available and in places where there is they don't take OHP.
please contine to raise this subject. How many children have been in care over the yrs? is it going up or down and why?
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
I agree and i think it is this nepotism that quite possible was the result of returning two children to a dangerous situation. a caseworker with no experience making recommendation that were detrimental.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sealing the Cracks in Foster Care
What happened to this child is unforgivable!
The error also happen when returning children to their bio-families too soon or when they shouldn't.
The problem is not with the relationship with case workers. If the case worker is good, they should still beable to notice if harm is happening. Yes you can make a good foster home better with that relationship, and good foster parents need that support!!! The responsibility should ALWAYS be the protection of the child.
Please keep talking about this subject. These kids are invisible and need all the help they can get. And in this economic climate I hate to bring it up, but at the time we were foster parents to put a child in certified day care cost $650 a month, foster parents at the base rate when we were doing it was $350 a month. We need good foster parents, but even the best of people can't or won't always loose money to help these sometimes difficult children. Also there are people who seem to be warehouseing children that should not be allowed. before 1 family is allowed to have over 5 kids, I wonder if they would not be better served in an orphanage type setting run by a non-profit thathave trained and certified care givers!!!
Also another topic to be considered is the time of children in care. If you have an infant for 2.5 yrs, and then send a child back to unsafe situation against the reccomendation of the CRB that should be reexamined.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on One Year Later: Aaron Campbell
Totally agree with you. Believe strongly that mental illness is on the rise and law enforcement is just that law enforcement. And what our community needs is more mental health care providers and crisis intervention for many situations. There should be a mental health professional/LE for each 10 officers.
Do also find myself occationally questioning the officers mind frame as well as the "subject." A guy with a gun on a power trip combined with a bi-polar or otherwise mentally ill person with no perspective is a really bad combo!
posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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on Family Finances
A very difficult thing about money is when your partner sees no value in saving, and if they have it they spend it. very frustrating to disagree over how to save and spend money.
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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on July Show Ideas
woops i mean the ferel cat coalition.
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on As We Are: People Over 90
My grandmother is 94 and I am trying to gleen everything i can from her. She is a practical joker, she is very hospitable, and what amazes me is how much these people have lost over the years, siblings, parents, friends and even children, and some how whithout being totally detached heartless people they mourn and then get up and go on. I don't know that I know how to do that.
She will be visiting me in Sept and I look forward to her cooking me all my new mexico favorites,
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on July Show Ideas
The other intrest i have is that of search dogs and what use are they to the people who are lost etc, what are their requirements for going on a search, and how successful are they when sent out,
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on July Show Ideas
Just came across a flyer of the "friends of felines" and would love to know what kind of impact they are having on the amount of ferral cats in oregon, on this same line how can we reduce the # of dogs in shelters, will the new bill in the legislature regarding the amount of dogs one can have, have any effect? and i missed the show on wild horses, but why exactly can they simply not do a mass sterilization?
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on July Show Ideas
we occasionally buy our meat and eggs from a farm in Dallas, and sounds like they got some training from this place of Omnivore's Dilemma. I would love to hear a show on this book/idea's and the connections/ impact to the Willamette valley.
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on Fear of Foreclosure
It seems the responsibility or the risk is with the organization who supplies the loan. People who lie give false information should be prosecuted, but there is nothing wrong with applying for a loan you may not qualify for, it is the lender who should say, sorry you do not qualify based on our standards! The lender should not be able to raise the rate more than a given amount so as to raise the monthly payment over a given amount i a given amount of time. Yes it would be nice if borrowers were honest about what they can afford, and if they understood the consequences of the 50 pieces of paper they sign when they buy a house, but it should be spelled out and demanded by the purchaser that my payment will not exceed a given amount and spelled out over the term of the loan. Why can people not pay a lesser amount and say rent their home, put their loan on pause until it can be renegotiated, thus extending the loan seems like a win win. lender gets more $ over the life of the loan and the "owner" gets to remain in home???
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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