Take away the celebrity and it seems based in the media reports this is a pretty common DCFS case. Divorced parents, both with addiction and domestic violence histories, a concerned relative caregiver who has other siblings of the kids in care living in their home.
Seems Mom is having issues getting clean. System isn't allowing the foster caregiver to get the supports she needed she gives notice.
Could you imagine if you were the foster parent who got the call to take Charlie Sheen's kids?
What strikes me as most interesting is the commentary from the public. The outrage. The total misunderstanding about the timelines. The complete bafflement that an ex-wife would take in her daughter's half brothers. The disbelief about a phoney hotline call against the foster parent. A birth parent not taking active interest in their case plan? Doing just enough to get visits but not enough to get custody. The automatic outcry for termination of parental rights.
People! This is a front row seat for how foster care can suck at times. How frustrating and messy it looks from the seat of a foster parent. Trust me, the vast majority of people would take in loosely related children needed you to. And they would do so until it became too hard to keep the other kids in their home safe.
How about you take the energy flaming the Sheen family and spread the outrage to your local DCFS office, legislation, and create change. The status quo can only stay in place until enough people decide its no longer acceptable. And we need you to get involved. Us foster parents would love to do more of that, but we are too busy caring for children and dealing with the system....
Next post on Media: the recent attention called to the increase in DCFS involved child deaths in Illinois.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I don't watch much celebrity gossip type TV so I wasn't aware of this basics of this story, but it sounds very familiar.
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