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Let's talk about the growing trend of being an "Instagram foster parent." Outside the child welfare world, the narrative surrounding foster care today has become overrun by the experiences of foster parents. So, let's dive in to the implications of what this looks like. A thread:
Sure, there's needed conversations happening amongst child welfare professionals about policing of families and family separation. But this is what foster care means to much of the public now. We have foster parents lauded as heroes for disrupting, prayers for parents to fail...
And the list goes on. Packing up your belongings only to be dropped off with complete strangers again is commonly traumatic and confusing. Citing this as heroic is a dangerous narrative that erases the experiences of thousands of foster children and puts foster parent feelings
and egos at the forefront of how we think about trauma experienced in the foster care system. Not to mention, promotes a culture that promotes acceptability of placement instability, which research has and continues to show leaves lasting trauma on foster kids.
Let’s move on to the blatant acceptance and even praise of fighting reunification. And while this thread is primarily focused on foster parents, we need to consider these same biases held by the child welfare system in general and upheld by the professionals within it.
What we're doing isn’t working. We can see FP desires are often convoluted into the desire & "best interest" of the child on social media. Yet, desperation means nearly anyone who can pass a background check can end up with a license + policy is allowing FPs to be designated kin.
Throw away the voice for the "voiceless" saviorism and CALL IT OUT. It's long overdue for #FosterYouthVoices & #adopteevoice to be at the forefront of child welfare and public education on foster care.
