"Fostering the future"

I will leave these old posts for those who like to read old stuff.  Welcome to our Presidents page. We will add thoughts here from time to time. Feel free to comment. New stuff is on top.

10-15-09 Much has happened in FPAWS since my last post. We had the Statewide 1624 meeting where we are building a strong working relationship with Children's Administration. I will post the minutes when they are ready. FPAWS has contracted for an Executive Assistant to help meet the evr growing needs of our association. We are building the foundation to manage a centralized complaint system which will compile all foster, adoptive and kinship parent issues. It is our intention to to find problems and work with Children's Administration to problem solve. There will always be issues, that is the nature of being human. It is our belief that we all need to be part of the solution.

On the front page you can see that several of our board members participated with Suzannah Frame's KING5  story on disrespect and retaliation. The stories told that night where incredibaly heart breaking. They are not unlike many we have heard on our FPAWS phone line. Hopefully we can get involved earlier in the future. We may not be able to reverse all the decisions foster parents disagree with, but we want the process to be respectful every step of the way. To that end I am attaching a couple CA policies every foster parent should be aware of.  Click here: for the policies.  

9-21-09 Can I add another wow? We just returned from a weekend in Spokane were the Region 1 Mini-Conference was successfully wrapped up. With 150 said to be the capacity of the building, there were some folks turned away. The foster parents of Region 1 deserve a standing ovation. Well done! I will add more soon.

9-11-09 You can now get to this site from Facebook. Join us on Facebook and invite your friends to support FPAWS. Not everyone can be a foster parent, but everyone can join FPAWS!

9-9-09 Wow! This has been a long couple weeks for Beth and I. Five days at the Kitsap County Fair, a couple days off and then three more days at the Blackberry Festival in Bremerton promoting and then having a Walk Me Home event. We are fortunate to have a wonderful women, Marcella, working with us. Without her dedication and motivation the walk would have been very difficult. She contacted news papers and radio shows to set up interviews and get the word out. We all owe Marcella a ton of thanks. We were incredibly fortunate to find Dick, Heather and Dave from Coca Cola at a Blackberry Festival meeting. Dick has adopted a daughter and felt our cause was where he would like to focus his company's charitable attention. Dick's team raised over $1500 for FPAWS, and our partners NFPA and the Kitsap Foster Care Association. Kohl's  Department Store also gave generously and provided 10 volunteers to help with the Walk. Family and Friends Teams like Team Neato, Maya Team, the Cando Kids and the Converse Family were terrific in their efforts. Many others joined the fun and they all know we thank them. We also want to thank the ULHRA (Unlimited Light Hydroplane Racing Association) for bringing the UL-72 Foster Care/ Vitamin Water Hydroplane to our Walk. Champion driver Kayleigh Perkins was there to sign autographs and take pictures with the walkers. I can't say enough about all the people that stepped up for our Walk Me Home event. I hope I get to be part of many events around the State over the next year.

We will be in Spokane on the 18th for a Board meeting and the 19th for the Region 1 Mini-Conference, hope to see you there or in Evertt the following weekend for the Region 3 Mini-Conference. Oh! Don't forget, for $75 you can join your Local, State, and National Associations. These are great times for us all to raise these three boats!

8-25-09 Another month has gone by and we join foster parents around the state in saying, "are we there yet?" It has been a busy summer and school is upon us. It has been challenging to meet the needs of our foster children and the needs of the association, but we are hanging in there with the support of some terrific FPAWS members.

Mary M. has been busy all summer answering calls from foster parents needing the support of FPAWS. Mary is amazing and we can all be proud to have her on the phone. Mary and Tracy have been actively working to pull the Region 3 Mini-conference together. You will find their advertisement on the front page when it is finalized.

Dru and Linda in Region 1 have completed their organizing efforts for their Mini-Conference and you have likely seen the annoucement. They have done a great job pulling together a list of speakers with up to the minute reports on foster care in our State. I really look forward to the conversation.

Lila and her people in Region 2 are also putting a Mini-Conference togther for October! There will be no rest for our Board as we move to keep foster, kinship and adoptive  parents informed and motivated.

As foster, kinship and adoptive  parents, we must stay on top of the changes that impact our lives and the lives of all those that will follow. We can not leave our future to the well intended. Becoming a member of FPAWS is a statement every parent out there can make about our personal responsibility. I would like to encourage us all to join our local, state and national associations. For me that is about $75 a year. Please take the time and money to support the foster, kinship and adoptive work these organizations are doing for the children. Mike

7-21-09 The world keeps turning and the need for trained foster, adoptive and kinship parents continues. To that end there are two Mini-conferences in September. We start in Spokane where FPAWS and FPAS (Foster Parent Association of Spokane) are teaming to bring you a full day of training on Saturday the 19th. Our Board will meet on the Friday the 18th. Everyone is welcome to attend both days. We are then off to Burlington for the Region 3 Mini-Conference for Foster Parents,Caregivers, and Agency Staff. A lot of work is going into these events by some very dedicated folks. We hope to see you there. See attachments for the Region 3 Flyer. We will post the schedules for both events when they are finalized.

Don't forget to join FPAWS on Facebook! Oh, try to get involved with our Bremerton Walk Me Home Event!

6-30-09 The end of June marks the beginning of Child Welfare Transformation Design Committee. They met in Olympia for the first time today. The legislative leaders choose a foster parent licensened with Mockingbird since 2005 rather than a 26 year veteren from FPAWS. Rep. Kagi phoned us this morning and said there is a chance that another foster parent position could be added next legislative session. This is what we have to work with and we will do everything possible to support our representative on the commission. We have some questions for the committee that Beth presented to the them today.  Plans for the Mini Conferences are steaming ahead for Region 1, 2 and 3 .

6-18-09 It is hard to believe that it has been almost one month since I have added to this note. That is actually a testament to how busy we have been at FPAWS and of course fostering 6 teenage boys. Beth has been incredibly busy supporting foster parents as several feel they are being retaliated against. She is also attending the Braam Panel meetings http://www.braampanel.org/ and the Washington State Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care. Here is a link to follow the commission. http://www.courts.wa.gov/committee/?fa=committee.home&committee_ID=50 

The adoption support side of FPAWS has been heating up as well. Many find that the state adoption social workers will try to under support their adoptions and offer much less financial support then the foster care rate. For some this is a non-issue because they became foster parents to adopt, they find their child and move on. For others the State places medically or behaviorally challenged children and then moves to have the foster parents adopt.  It feels as though some offices see this as a cost saving issue and have policies to low ball the foster parents. This practice will be a major focus at upcoming 1624 consultation meetings. These meetings have been extremely motivating. You can go to this link for minutes. http://www.dshs.wa.gov/ca/fosterparents/meetMin.asp 

 Our Board is very busy setting up mini-conferences in Regions 1,2, and 3 for September and October. In the absence of a statewide conference, we are coordinating with local support groups to bring training and collaboration to an area near you. With strong Regional Reps like Dru Powers, Lila Rose, and Mary McGauhey in these Regions, we will have some of our largest mini-conference to date. Region 2 Rep. Mary-Jeanne Smith did an absolutely job pulling together and submitting the Lerner Grant to help support this effort. If you would like to attend one of these conferences, revisit this web site for dates and times. You do not need to live in these regions to attend. I hope you get a chance to hang out with theses and other wonderful foster, adoption and kinship parents.

5-21-09 - It has been a busy 10 days since our last addition. We have been working on several issues. One concern was around the State's Training Unit's inclusion of the 'Scream Box' and 'Throwing Rocks at Trees' as part of the PAY Training, (Physically Aggressive Youth). That group fisrt agreed to remove the rock throwing but choose to keep the scream box. After continued questioning of the use of the scream box Carolyn Jones contacted trhe University of Maine where Washington bought the curriculum. The University said we could remove the scream box if we wanted, and it has been removed. We have contacted the Uof M to continue the discussion so that they might address their thinking about using aggressive behavior as a tool to reduce aggressive behavior. We now need to address the fact that many foster, adoptive, and kinship parents have been taught this inapporopriate intervention. There will be more to come on this one.

Our Board met on 5-18-09. In addition to the training unit's issues we discussed S.410 the "Resource Family Recruitment and Retention Act of 2009" It is a bill before the United States Senate which clearly denotes the responsiblilities of a State or County that receives federal money for foster care or adoption assistance under part E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 670 et seq.) Go to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-410 to track the progress of this bill. We are exciterd about this bill.

Our Board has set September for elections of the Executive Board. We are looking to have a Mini-Conference in Spokane which would include a general membership meeting. We have decided not to have Mini-Conferences over the summer, so they will stack up in the fall. We will organize a Region 2 mini-conference in October. Then we will look to Region 3.

You can find FPAWS on Facebook. We encourage everyone to add us to your cause list. We also want to endorse a book co-authored by NFPA (National Foster Parents Association) and Rachel Greene Baldino, MSW, LCSW titled 'Sucess as a Foster Parent' It is an easy read packed with everything you need to know about foster care.

5-11-09

May 11, 2009 - Beth and I have just returned from the National Foster Parent Conference held this year in Reno. Collaborating with other States is always informative and invigorating. The biggest reminder we take away is that as an Association we must remember our purpose. We keep doing what we can to support a better system for foster, kinship and adoptive parents. They will take care of the kids. The work being done on a national level is very impressive. We can look forward to some very supportive legislation. NFPA needs our support. I encourage everyone reading this to take a few moments and join our National Association. www.nfpaonline.org

We have recently been in contact with the foster parent training unit to inform them that the training video currently required for foster parents to view is flawed. It suggests that foster parents create a scream box for their angry foster children to scream into when angry. Another suggestion was to have foster youth throw rocks at trees when angry. Carolyn Jones convened a work group after Beth contacted them with our concerns. At this writing they have removed the throwing rocks portion.  They decided to keep the scream box in the curriculum. I have written and asked that they reconsider their position. At this time we highly recommend that no parent create a scream box. That form of anger reduction is short lived and trains the youth to scream when angry. We have better training that teaches self-control even when we are angry.

The news does not shine a positive light on DCFS. The Langley case sounds all too familiar. http://www.king5.com/sharedcontent/membership/signin.jsp?redir=1  In a time when forces are strong to tear DCFS apart at the seams; we need to see leadership from State Administrators. We have some terrific social workers and foster parents out there. In order to recruit and maintain a foster parent system; foster parents need to know they can make some mistakes and still be okay. The only mistake this family made was that they did not follow the State's rules for placing their child with a friend. I am not sure that they even come under the State's jurisdiction related to this child, if the youth was an adopted son. Can't regular families send a child to a friend's farm? More to come on this one.

We had a productive Statewide Consultation meeting on 4-8-09 in Tacoma (HB1624). Ginger Schutt, foster parent from Spokane, took some great notes, though as she points out they are 'not official', but they work for my purposes. I was disappointed that the State seemed unable to budge on the medication log requirements, but we did get some work done on other important issues. You can read Gingers notes at the link below.

Statewide Children 4-8-09 Ginger.doc

Our Mini-Conference in Centralia on April 4th was terrific. Marci Miese and The Lewis County Foster Parents Association in cooperation with many others put on a great show. Six hours of training included up to the minute issues from the legislature and other connections to the foster parent world of Region 6. More to come from these well organized foster parents. We met as a Board during part of the day and officially confirmed new Board Member Dianne Dorey. Tracey Squires also applied to the Board.

We are planning a Board Meeting for May18th in Yakima. It is a Monday, so thanks to you all for being flexible. We will be welcoming a couple new Board Members Fay Cadwallader and Kathy Bernier from the Spokane area.

These are exciting and scary times. It is sad to think that as we use HB 1624 to work more closely with the Children's Administration, that along comes HB5943 that may eliminate the workers we are building a better relationship with. As an association though, no matter what happens, we will stand together to uphold our values and mission. At this post we are getting ready for our mini-conference and Board Meeting on April 4th in Region 6.

Beth has been successfully working the chain of command to bring justice to a couple foster families that we feel have been experiencing some retaliation from CA. It seems at times that this chain fails to take the time to understand the impact their decisions make on the families and youth in their care. The ripple effect of their decisions can cause unforeseen damage to the system they are hired to perfect. We know there are other families hurting out there. We will work to see that the work being done on these recent cases lead to better treatment of care givers.

We are also working on trying to get Walks established around the state. If you have the desire, time and energy; now is the time to step up. We will help!

We have Regional and Statewide1624 (April 8th) meetings coming up. Beth is bringing forth the need to have foster parent input regarding allegations be part of the report read by those that determine the outcome of an allegation. As it stands now, those powerful individuals only read what their employees write. This seems incredibly bias and short sighted. So often the allegations can be read in a way that even the foster parent being investigated would want to have their license revoked. 

Please add comments or email me at

Mkbeth@comcast.net,

Mike

 fpaws@fpaws.org