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Introduction Audio File
By
Joi Kohlhagen
Custody is a word that is most often thought of in terms of divorce where it is obviously a technically accurate and widely used and accepted description.
Yet it is in foster care where the literal meaning of the word is most manifest. It is in foster care where children experience the visceral and hauntingly intangible rollercoaster of feelings ranging from belonging to nothing to belonging in the form of custody of the state to an institutional group home or smaller foster home type setting.
Kids in foster care will sometimes describe how they often feel prisoner to circumstances they cannot control. It is a chilling analogy-- because like a prisoner, they are in the custody of the state, living somewhere not because they are loved, not because they are wanted, but because the state has an obligation and a duty to provide them with food, clothing and shelter and other basic necessities of life.
As Dr. Francine Cournos discusses as she reads from her book City of One, a book that describes her experiences in the foster care system,
Quote "At least this place provided structure and physical stability. If I couldn't love or be loved, what difference did it make where I was living?" End Quote
Like custody, visitation is also a term most often associated with circumstances of divorce and separation. And in such circumstances, the term is appropriate and even necessary. And while it is a regular component of foster care, the importance of the role of visitation in foster care is not always given the priority that many professionals that work in foster care, or kids in foster care themselves, believe it requires.
In many, if not most, cases contact and visitation with those from parents and family in a home where a child was removed and put in foster care is essential. Being placed in foster care is traumatic enough for a child and the need to at least have some level of contact and visitation with those from the home that either for now or for always is no longer theirs is crucial.
But, sometimes, visitation can actually or almost be harmful-- especially in cases where there should be some form of supervision, but there is none.
Other times, many professionals who work within foster care systems point out that sometimes visitation for kids in foster care can be arranged seemingly gratuitously, visitation for the sake of visitation, without a thorough balancing of benefits and detriments to the visitation. And perhaps without any formal or professional guidance to the adults who are visiting with these kids in care.
In her audio clip, which can accessed by clicking on or underneath her picture in the Perspectives On Youth.org Audio Section, Dr. Cournos describes it best in reading from her the book City of One:
Quote "We felt obligated to abide by the visiting schedule worked out by the JCCA. We would leave right on schedule and give thanks during the silent car ride with Uncle Hy that it would be three weeks before we had to carry out the perfunctory ritual yet again….Once in a while, I was invited to a gathering of my entire family where I went through the motions, polite and utterly detached.—End Quote
Often we can hear in voice what cannot be gleaned through words alone. On behalf of perspectivesonyouth.org, I thank Dr. Francine Cournos for gracefully agreeing to provide her voice, a number of meaningful perspectives on youth in foster care, through readings from the outstanding book City of One of her own experiences in foster care.
-- Joi Kohlhagen
January 2, 2006
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