A Short-term Sister

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Tonight, I thought that I'd keep it short with a story of a short-term placement that we had when I was a little girl.

When I was pretty young, maybe four or five years old, we took in a little girl. I couldn't tell you much about her, aside from the fact that we shared the same name. It was quite funny to live in the a house where your parents had to specify which Taylor they were calling to, but it didn't last very long. I mentioned this particular foster sister once before, but I never elaborated on her time with us, and for some reason she popped into my head tonight.

A few of our placements over the years, this other Taylor included, were short-term placements. This meant that they lasted anywhere from a long weekend (as was the case in my sophomore year of college) to maybe a few months at most, rather than the year-long average placement. If I remember correctly, this particular little sister stayed with us for the summer.

When a child is removed from his or her home and placed with a foster family, C.P.S. immediately starts looking for family members who might be willing to take the child before the placement officially gets handed over to D.S.S. There is always a ruling by a judge to determine whether or not a child should officially be placed into foster care, This means that there is at least a day during which the child is with a foster family, but technically isn't a foster child yet. So while this process is moving forward, case workers make a bunch of calls to see if there is a grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc. who would want to take the child. Sometimes, if a family member is willing to take the child, the foster family will have to care for the child for a while until the family member has been cleared to take custody. That's what happened with this particular foster sister.

Just because someone is a family member, doesn't mean they are cleared to take custody of a child immediately. C.P.S. still has to look into that family member (and anyone who lives with them) to make sure that they'll be a good guardian, the same way that foster families have to be cleared to take in children. With this foster sister, there was a grandmother who wanted to take in the little girl. However, not only did she need to be cleared by C.P.S., but she lived in another state, so the whole process took longer. C.P.S. in our county had to work with C.P.S. from the grandmother's county, and it ended up taking about two months to go through before the grandmother could take custody of my foster sister.

Though she wasn't with us for an extremely long time, it was fun having a little sister with the same name as me. It made everything a little more complicated and a little more crazy, but it was pretty funny as well. Now, whenever I start rattling off a list of all of my foster siblings, people give me funny looks because they don't know why I'm saying my own name. Even my siblings think it's crazy. But that just goes to show you that you can never know what to expect when you're part of a foster family.

Thank you so much for your continued support! I look forward to sharing more stories about my experience with foster care, and hopefully hearing from readers who have questions or similar stories to share. I'm always willing to answer questions and hear about other experiences! Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!

I’d greatly appreciate it if you would share this blog with friends and family through your favorite social media sites. If you’re sharing on Twitter, don’t forget to tag me (@TayTayK02) and use the hashtag #TaylorTalks.

Thanks!
Taylor

Previous Post

Next Post