CHAPTER 3
The Challenges and Opportunities of Difference
Purpose: Learn about the “culture of foster care” and explore your perspectives on how people who are different interact.
Table of Contents
UNIT 1: Experiencing the System 3
UNIT 2: Cultural Competence 7
UNIT 3: Different People, Different Backgrounds 9
UNIT 4: Personality, Culture & Experience 16
Objectives
By the end of this chapter, I will be able to…
ü Begin to understand how a child experiences the child welfare system
ü Understand that difference is valuable, but often challenging
ü Begin to distinguish between facts, beliefs, and assumptions
ü Discern whether the difference is based on personality, culture, or one’s position in society
ü Develop an action plan to understand that you don’t always understand
UNIT 1: Experiencing the System
Activity 3A: Reflection
Stop and think about your own childhood for a moment, perhaps when you were 9 years old. Did your parents raise you, or was it someone else? What school where you attending in the third grade? Did you have a bicycle? Did you have enough to eat? What happened when you misbehaved? Was childhood fun? Was it difficult? Was it painful?
Now, imagine a stranger coming to your school and taking you away from your home, perhaps leaving you in an office for hours, quizzing you about how your mother treats you, and then saying you can’t go home. You soon find yourself in a strange home where everything is different – the food is different, the house smells different, and the bed is not your own. You only have the clothes on your back, and nothing else is familiar.
You’re meeting many new people for the first time: two or more different social workers, an attorney, a judge, two foster parents and their other children. You don’t know why, but everyone is acting oddly sweet and kind, except for the other children. You ask, but no one will tell you what is going to happen.
Discuss how you might feel with the group.
The Experience of Foster Care
Entering Foster Care
Generally, everyone can agree that having a child removed from home is a very big deal to family, and especially the child. The experience of being taken away from one’s family will surely be remembered for the rest of the child’s life. It is for this reason that professionals work so diligently to ensure that removing the child is a last resort – in fact, before a judge allows the child to be detained, he or she must find that reasonable efforts were made to prevent the need for removal.
As a CASA volunteer, you will certainly be appointed after a child has been declared a dependent of the court, and almost always after a child has been removed from the home. Therefore, you will not be dealing with the child during the removal process – however, your appointment could be very close in time. Therefore, keep in mind that the child may be going through some very stressful times.
How Children Cope with Stress
Clearly, being removed from one’s family is a huge stressor, even if it results in increased safety. This stress, combined with the perpetrated abuse or neglect is often overwhelming for a child. Further, children often blame themselves for coming into the system, and they lose any support network that might have been in place. In all likelihood, entering the child welfare system is an earth shattering experience for the child.
Children understand things differently, and their comprehension depends on factors like their age, emotional and intellectual development, and how they were previously supported. They have so many thoughts and questions, and yet have limited experiences and tools with which to cope. It is essential to understand the value that you have to be a support to that child – but more importantly, the priceless opportunity you have to engage the youth, gain understanding, and advocate in a way that has everyone contributing to the needs of the child.
What Can I Do?
As a CASA volunteer, you are in a prime position to help a child in need. You will be able to listen, investigate, talk directly to the child and confirm their feelings and needs – and then follow up with a targeted advocacy that can bring results.
Living in Long-Term Foster Care
Once a child is in foster care, then different stressors can overwhelm them. This is especially true when the youth has been permanently planned into long-term foster care. There are so many things that a foster child has to deal with, like:
- Do they really want me here?
- Why didn’t my parent work harder to get me back
- Will I ever get to go home? (or, what if they make me go home…)
- Why doesn’t my family want me
- It’s my fault
- I don’t fit in here
- No one really cares about me
- The only people who spend time with me are those who are paid to do so
- I don’t have the clothes and resources necessary to fit in
- No one cares what I do
These feelings, and thousands of others, all come together and sit on top of the normal childhood issues and feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. If a child or youth in a “normal” family has a difficult time adjusting, then imagine how difficult it can be to also be living in foster care.
Culture of Foster Care
When foster youth have been in foster care for a while, they become used to it, and used to the feelings associated with it. Therefore, there can be what one might describe as the “culture” of foster care. While each child may describe it differently, the culture of foster care centers on some basic, common threads.
First, it is not unusual for a foster child to feel as though no one really cares about them. One reason, from a foster child’s perspective, is that all the people who choose to be involved in their lives are “paid to.” If you think about it, they have a point. Teachers, therapists, social workers, doctors, attorneys, judges, foster parents, coaches, pastors, you name it – are “paid” to work with the youth. But not the CASA, you are a volunteer – here only because you choose to be.
Second, life as a foster child never feels “normal,” and can begin to take on a bureaucratic quality. Do you want to go on a trip? Then, you need the social worker’s okay. Do you want to see you mother? Well, then you have to wait until the scheduled visitation. Would you like to play a sport? Well, let’s see if we can apply for some funds to get you the needed equipment. As a CASA you can help cut through the red tape.
Third, living is fraught with instability and uncertainty. While it’s possible to be in long-term foster care and be with a loving family that will have you until you are 18 years old, the vast majority of youth in long-term foster care move placements often. Also, if you are an older youth, you are likely living in a group home. In group homes children come and go all the time, and if you misbehave, there is always the threat that you will get a “7-day notice,” with means that the Agency will have 7 days to find you a new home. As a CASA, you can help stabilize the situation, be a friend and you can work to find them a permanent connection.
Fourth, foster youth often feel as though they are completely alone. When children undergo such immeasurable pain, they can begin to feel incredibly isolated. It is as if no one understands them unless they have been in a similar situation. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” and “you don’t know me.” As a CASA, you can listen.
The Challenges of Leading a Normal Life
As alluded to earlier, foster youth face many challenges and it can be difficult to be “normal.” This also extends to the one thing that is most important to adolescent youth: their social life. Of course, having a “social life,” sounds minor when referred to as such. However, think about the value that these social interactions can have for foster youth.
The ability to have friends – and therefore identify people who care about you; the ability to play a musical instrument – and therefore grow one’s soul and mind; the ability to go to a school dance – and just feel normal. What these youth want is a chance to have a childhood, and it is every professional’s responsibility to ensure that the youth can.
- A child was not allowed to attend a Thanksgiving dinner with her father because the other diners had not been fingerprinted.
- A child whose “only joy,” was playing the Saxophone, missed his second concert because transportation could not be arranged – the Agency had several week’s notice.
- Group home staff told the 16-year-old youth that his friend could not come over to play video games because he did not have a criminal records check.
- A 17-year-old client missed her junior prom because her social worker said that her escort had to show proof of auto insurance. She was too embarrassed to ask him and therefore did not make the prom.
- A 16-year-old client was told she could not attend a high-school level “Battle of the Bands” event at her church because adults would be present who had not been subjected to a criminal records check. The youth’s attorney had to take the matter to court, here the judge gave approval.
- The foster family agency originally denied a 17-year-old girl permission to attend a school-sponsored trip to Disneyland. Her attorney took the matter to the judge, who of course, gave permission.
- Unlike the biological children of the foster parent, this child was not allowed to go outside to play, participate in sports, or go over to friends’ houses. Apparently, the private foster family agency had enacted rules preventing foster children from going anywhere on their own, “for fear of liability.” The court remedied this as soon as it was brought to its attention.
- A 10-year-old boy was living in a foster family agency-licensed foster home. The foster mother wanted to place him in softball and karate classes during the summer. The foster family agency refused permission citing a “blanket policy” against foster children participating in martial arts. By the time the issue was brought up in court, signups were closed and the child could not participate in either activity.
UNIT 2: Cultural Competence
In the context of the CASA volunteer role, cultural competence is the ability to work effectively with people from different backgrounds. It entails being aware and respectful of the cultural norms, values, traditions, and parenting styles of those with whom you work. Striving to be culturally competent means cultivating an open mind and new skills and meeting people where they are, rather than making them conform to your standards. Developing cultural competence is a lifelong process through which you’ll make some mistakes, get to know some wonderful people in deeper ways, and become a more effective CASA volunteer.
There are two primary means for acquiring cultural competence:
· Sources External to the Community (Internet, movies, books, classes)
· Community Engagement, Immersion & Assimilation
There are benefits and risks associated with both. To ask people to teach you their culture when you are not willing to use external sources is often perceived as selfish and rude. To think that one can learn about a people solely through external sources is often perceived to be arrogant and can lead one to ignore that culture is always tied to living people who cannot be fully captured through studies, movies, stories, and reports.
What Is Cultural Competency?
Cultural competency is the ability to work with people from a culture or community that differs from your own. It requires a commitment to engage, study, and practice. While there are often quick tips that can be provided to avoid the worst gaffs, there is no shortcut to spending the time required to increase one’s skills and knowledge. Remember that members of the culture may not have a clear sense of what skills and knowledge are required. Much of it may seem simply normal or natural. Think about the challenge involved in writing a complete handbook on how to navigate one of your cultures or communities? We all carry an enormous amount of knowledge, so integrated into our daily lives that we barely know it is there.
Areas of cultural competency include:
· Language, Dialect & Slang
· Institutions & Social Structures
· Demographics & Subcultures
· Leaders, Heroes & Icons
· Cultural and Political History & Expression
· Observances & Celebrations
· Value, Belief & Etiquette Systems
Culturally Competent Child Advocacy
Read “Ten Benefits of Practicing Culturally Competent Child Advocacy.” Consider which reason you view as most critical in the work of a CASA volunteer.
Ten Benefits of Practicing Culturally Aware Child Advocacy1. Ensures that case issues are viewed from the cultural perspective of the child and/or family:
2. Takes into account norms, practices, traditions, intrafamilial relationships, roles, kinship ties, and other culturally appropriate values within that family.
3. Advocates for demonstrated sensitivity to this cultural perspective on the part of caseworkers, service providers, caregivers, or others involved with the child and family.
4. Ensures that the child’s long-term needs are viewed from an appropriate perspective:
5. Takes into account the child’s need to develop and maintain a positive self-image and allow for them to stay connected to their family practices and traditions.
6. Takes into account the child’s need to positively identify and interact with others from his/her family and/or cultural background.
7. Prevents cultural practices that do no harm from being mistaken for child maltreatment or family dysfunction.
8. Assists with identifying when parents are willfully refusing to comply with a court order versus when the order is culturally inappropriate.
9. Contributes to more accurate assessment of child’s welfare, family system, available support systems, placement needs, services needed, and delivery.
10. Decreases cross-cultural communication clashes and opportunities for misunderstandings.
11. Allows the family to utilize culturally appropriate solutions in problem solving.
12. Encourages participation of family members in seeking assistance or support.
13. Recognizes, appreciates, and incorporates family cultural practices in ways that promote cooperation.
14. Allows all participants to be heard objectively.
Adapted from a document created by the CASA Program of Portland, OR.