After months of trying to process those 14 months and the grief that accompanied the whole experience I have decided to write about all of it. I will not give out specific names of any of the people involved.
Also, I am choosing to focus very little on the biological family in order to respect their privacy. Instead I am processing how a system that is supposed to be about "child welfare" handled her case so poorly. I will be writing this in parts, so this is Part 1.
In order to maintain confidentiality, I will refer to Miss B as "Butterfly"
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Sunday, April 7, 2013 we got a call from DHS needing someone to pick up a 4-day old girl from the hospital. The worker on call had known our family from a few years previously, and thought we would be a good home for a newborn. Looking back, the events of that morning were so precise. Had we returned the call just minutes later, that baby girl would have gone to a different home.
A newborn baby was not on my radar, and a baby girl was definitely not. I had told our DHS worker that I was interested in boys, since I still had boy clothes and boy toys, and I was especially interested in toddler boys. After praying about it we said yes, and that afternoon we brought home a teeny tiny infant girl.
I had never seen such a tiny baby in my life--barely 5 lbs--and had never cared for such a little person. I had been around babies alot and raised Daniel since 2.5 months old, but little Butterfly was the smallest baby I had ever seen!
We settled into routine, waking up nightly every 2 hours to feed her. She slept alot during the day and loved to be held. She was just a doll and we adored her. Within the next few weeks we were finally given info about the family and the case, and her worker came out for a visit, as well as the tribal worker. Had I known about the complexities of the case I might have said no, but when we said yes we knew nothing except that there was a baby that needed a home.
Although we were told about the dysfunction surrounding the case, and the hostility being displayed by the father towards the foster families of the other siblings, for those first few months it never touched us. Butterfly had no family contact and our life was pretty normal. In fact we were told that the father was denying paternity and said even if she was his that he wanted to give her up. A paternity test revealed that he was the father and later he decided he wanted her.
In late June 2013, DHS organized a "Family Group Conference" to discuss the case. I stayed home with the children but my mom attended. A tentative plan was laid out and the worker told the parents what to expect and when the next court date would be. It was also decided that Butterfly would start visits with the parents and siblings at DHS, but the plan was to also begin "therapeutic visits" between the children and parents individually, and then eventually siblings and parents together.
Around this time Butterfly was also assigned her third DHS worker. So in the space of three months she had three different workers. The third worker ironically had been Daniel's permanency worker. That was a little concerning since we had a history with that worker, but we decided to be optimistic and hope for a good working relationship.
The first few visits at DHS were stressful for Butterfly. There were some concerns on our part about her behavior during and/or following the visits. My mom asked to be able to overlap in the visit since the family were strangers to Butterfly now that she was almost 3 months old. The tribal worker was agreeable to that, but the DHS worker initially was adamant that my mom be out of the visit, until one time Butterfly was inconsolable and she finally called my mom back into the visit.
By the end of August 2013, the therapeutic visits had been set up and Butterfly was to go for the intake. We were familiar with the agency from workshops they had hosted for foster families. I was excited to work with them because in the past we always had a good relationship, and I had thought they seemed like they had a heart for fostering and understood the needs of foster children and families.
However, within the first few weeks I wrote in emails that I was concerned with the therapist-candidate (meaning she was not yet licensed) who had been assigned. She lacked experience and credentials in infant mental health, which is a unique field. I also did not think that she was interested in seeing the "big picture," instead focusing solely on what went on in the room for that 1/2 hour visit.
We had experience with therapeutic visits with other qualified individuals, and the current experience with the candidate was nowhere near what previous therapists had provided.
My mom asked the candidate if she could be in the visit initially since that was what was working best at DHS. Then they could slowly work her out of the visit. The candidate said no, so for weeks Butterfly cried throughout the visits with each parent. Or she would cry during the first 1/2 hour and sleep during the second 1/2 hour. The candidate frequently had an excuse for why Butterfly was crying, even though she barely knew Butterfly. And she would make assumptions that she was tired or hungry, even though we made sure we brought her well rested and fed.
By this time, Fall 2013, Butterfly had two visits per week with her parents. One was at the therapeutic agency, and the second was with all the siblings at the DHS building.
September 2013, Butterfly stopped sleeping through the night after a particular visit at the agency. We were documenting everything and doing daily logs. It was recorded in the August court report that Butterfly was sleeping through the night regularly. But after visits increased and then after one particular visit, I sent out an email stating that she had awakened 8 times that night and I was baffled at this sudden change. From that time on her sleep declined.
The DHS worker came for her monthly visit and we told her of our concerns with the therapeutic visits as well as the sudden change in sleep patterns. We had also done research to find some very qualified infant mental health therapists in town who came highly recommended, and asked the worker if we could take Butterfly to see one of them. She said SHE would arrange it and make some calls. She never did and we never heard anything more about it.
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