Foster Children and Families

Foster care is a direct collision with state power, displacement, and institutional machinery that disrupts human attachment. When attachment is unsafe or otherwise disrupted children begin to display Dissociative Disorders. I am bringing this up because so much of what is seen as lack of attention and regulation, retreating or lashing out, or an elevated or deflated affect is a child asserting control and predictability over a world that is subjugating the child using an internal operational schism. Not every kid is going to be having a rough go of it. Just, holy shit, I think a lot do. A child that becomes a ward of the state is not undergoing the typical. The state steps in to help children for the same reason it regulates my license. I can appreciate that a person who does not have a say, who has not been informed, and who has been pulled from an environment with a caregiver who met at least some of the child's needs. You aren't taking a child from that caregiver without a shit ton of effort. It isn't sad, it's thier life. They don't have another life to weigh it against. If I have to say what our work is, that is how I would describe it. I will openly claim my social worker title and profess my job is to navigate incredibly messy lines and work towards safety and development. I know my title is a big scary except, it isn't. My title gives me authority. But so I can control people. So I can advocate for care. 

Children have legal stakes and deserve an uncompromising advocate who understands educational systems and court dockets, rather than being treated as passive case files.