Adoption Update & Self-Care Tips for Reading CPS Files

(apologies for the long title but I wanted it to be searchable for other families on a topic I couldn't find a blog post about in my own searches) 

This has been an amazing year so far. Life as a new mom has been terrific and my daughter is doing wonderful. After her adoption and with my home on "hold" with the agency, we've continued spending time bonding, growing and deepening our relationship as mother and daughter. She's also been growing in her relationships with her new grandparents (my folks) too. I'm already so proud of the young woman she's becoming and all the ways she's grown!

And now...there's another door opening. I decided not to close my home after the adoption because I knew there was a chance I might adopt again. I felt it would be easier to keep my certification up to date verses starting the whole certification process over again. In March, I re-opened my home! I knew the process of finding a match could take a while and that soon many children in foster care would be shifting homes again since often children are shuffled to different homes at the end of each school year. It seem this may be done in an attempt to encourage adoption either of the current foster families or to try to place children in a new home that may be more adoption motivated.

Shortly after being reopened I was on the phone with a caseworker to discuss how my certification was being switched over from foster-to-adopt to adopt-only again so that we could make certain I received broadcasts of children who are already legally free and open to finding an adoptive family. She also reminded me of how long a matched adoption could take. Fortunately, just a short time after our conversation ended she called again and said, "You aren't going to believe this but a broadcast just came in and I think she might be a great match!"

As soon as I read the broadcast, I thought, "uh yeah!" Honestly, this young lady seems an amazing match for us. :) My daughter is beyond excited that we were matched and selected as a family for this new young lady, Miss M.! And God has not only answered so many of my prayers but he has been building my faith and courage at every step. Honestly, I really have to cling to those answered prayers and faith-courage because, unlike with my daughter, I'll be committing to an adoption placement of Miss M. sight unseen. All I have is a few pictures of this beautify 15 yr old teen, the small bio she wrote for her broadcast and two huge, heartbreaking binders of her case from CPS. It's totally a leap of faith! I have to choose to be faithful and trust in God. 

So now to the second reason I felt compelled to blog this morning. Reading the CPS files is beyond HARD so I wanted to share some things that help me during this stage of the process:

1. Set aside some quite hours for reading them. Both times now, I've taken a half day off from work for reading CPS files. There are a ton of court documents, medical evaluations and case worker reports. Many of the documents will have redundant, dry paragraphs with maybe one sentence changed but I find that often that one changed sentence will have extremely valuable information! So you may have to skim pages just for your own sanity but I wouldn't skip anything completely. On average it takes me one hour per binder to read. 

2. Have a paper and pen with you. There can be a lot of acronyms that you may want the definitions to and you will come across some information that will bring up questions - write them down. Because the sections are barely tabbed, I tend to dog-ear pages so I can find important information quickly again in them. 

3. Prepare your support system. Let them know you are reading the CPS file and it'll be hard. Remind them you won't be sharing details but that you may need to talk some or even pray together to help process what you've read. Married couples may have each other to debrief with but they might need to talk things out with someone else too. As a single woman, I call my Mom, talk to my Papa some and to a best friend as a confidant to process my thoughts. 

4. Try to set up a lighthearted activity after reading the files. For me, there are always moments when I'm reading the files that I will cry as I read the tough things a child has gone through. My heart physically aches! So afterwards is a good time to practice some quality self-care. I don't recommend reading these files at night before bed. Instead give your mind some time to process before heading off to sleep. Some self-care could include: Praying, going for a walk, taking a relaxing hot shower, doing something active (basketball, bike riding etc..) watching a happy movie or if you have pets - play with them! :) 

5. Finally, although it's great to have more understanding of the history, I really try to focus on how the child is doing over the past year. Yes, there may have been behaviors when they first entered care that are concerning but you can't forget that they were under extreme stress and dealing with tremendous loss! Their history is a part of their story but it doesn't have to be what defines them. We all do things as kids/teens that are not great...so I try to remember sometimes behaviors may be trauma related but sometimes they are just kids being kids. If you have serious concerns, talk to your caseworker about them for insight. They work closely with kids from hard places and can help you to decide if a behavior is a deal-breaker or not. 

So what's next? 

I believe I will be heading towards Presentation Staffing. I will meet with all those involved in Miss M.'s life (caseworkers, fosters, maybe CASA, counselor, etc) and I will ask my questions. After that, I foresee the next step as giving my official "yes" for this adoption placement and getting time set up for meeting my next daughter! It's a scary time and an extremely exciting time...but most of all, I hope it's finally time for this young lady to get her forever family.

** Update - Regretfully, Miss M has decided to age out of foster care instead of being adopted. So with surrender and hope...we move on. <3