So, the children seem to have a good understanding of what foster care is. What happens if that plan changes to adoption? What happens and how do we explain to the children that they won’t be returning to live with their parents?

First, it needs to be explained to the foster child. In an ideal world, it would be the birth parents who explain this to their child. In a “less than ideal, but still somewhat okay” world, it would be the child’s therapist with whom the foster child has an established relationship. Even further down the chain of “best case situation”, the child’s case manager would explain the situation to the child. More often than not, I’ve found that none of those situations were the case. Instead, it was left to the foster parents to explain the situation and to be there as the support. In these situations, that truly leaves the foster parents to take all of the blame, as it were, for any anger, confusion or frustration that the child may feel.

I don’t know that my way is “the right way”, but if at all possible, I “blame the judge”. It is true that the judge makes that final decision. So, I explain it that way to the child. I tell them what we know so far. Then I let them know that the judge has made a decision. “The judge decided that you won’t live with your parents anymore because ________”. Again, as I discussed in the previous blog on explaining foster care to your child, it’s important to explain using facts and not using judgment. The child feels part of their parents in such a connected way that any judgment of the parents is also felt as a judgment of them. We know it is not their fault; the child doesn’t. I also make very clear to the child that I will let them know if/when I find out any information and that I will tell him the truth, as always.

Let the foster child know that he has a right to have questions and feelings. Let him know that it’s okay to come to you with those. Treat those seriously and with respect. If possible, direct those questions to a “responsible party” to get answers (for example, some questions might be best answered by caseworker – or by birth parent, if the caseworker might be able to contact, etc.)

Explain the situation first to the foster child rather than to the entire family at one time. It’s the foster child’s “story” and they have a right to process that knowledge a little bit before everyone else does. We then present the change of plan to everyone else in a family meeting (usually including other topics, so that the whole focus isn’t on the case plan change which might overwhelm the foster child). We are certain to tell the child everything that we know, sometimes tell what we think might happen (being sure to tell them that we *think* this, but do not know it), and assure them that we will tell them the truth about any information that we hear.