Building and maintaining constructive, positive relationships with your foster child’s biological family requires hard work, patience, grace, and understanding. But the long-term results will be worth it.
Your head tells you that cultivating these connections is the right thing to do. You understand that in most cases, reunification is the ultimate goal and that you can play a key role in this process.
You also realize that the bio family’s existence and importance will always be there, touching your days and influencing your foster child. You can’t—and shouldn’t—erase them away. Nor should you step into foster care if you’re not ready to engage with them.
Your heart, however, tells you something quite different. You’re being asked to form a relationship with the very people who were unable to provide appropriate care for the child entrusted to you. And you’re dealing with the child’s present-day ramifications of their past actions like medical issues due to drug or alcohol use or trauma due to maltreatment. Things can get particularly dicey when you observe that bio parents’ past actions (like untreated substance abuse or mental health issues) are still in play.
As you come to terms with these powerful head and heart issues…
- Remember that no parent wants to put their child in a situation where they need to be removed from their care for safety reasons.
- Understand that a biological parent’s inability to care for a child might be a result of their own complicated trauma history.
- Realize that in many situations, your foster child’s biological parents lack the skills and support systems to parent successfully. This is often compounded by undetected and untreated childhood traumas and the stark absence of good parenting role models.
Your foster child has come into your home with a web of relational ties, memories, traditions, and connections. Navigating a range of powerful emotions, the child needs a safe place to express them. Feelings are never wrong, but some children need help expressing them in healthy ways. Be alert and ready to listen, and don’t hesitate to access support from school counselors and professional therapists.
As you help your foster child sort through these emotions, developing rapport with his biological parents is often foundational. Don’t underestimate its importance.
Working diligently to build solid, supportive relationships with your foster child’s biological families (in consultation with your caseworker), consider:
- Letting the birth parents know that your goal is to help them get their child back home with them
- Including birth parents in decisions that affect their child whenever possible
