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give foster parents an equal voice in the future of foster children
BY EM ILY GREEN
STAFF W R IT E R ;
aleb was only an infant when he was
sent to live with Emily and Greg Sisk
in 2009. He had seven broken bones
and shaken baby syndrome - injuries
sustained from abuse during his first three
months of life.
He wasn’t a typical baby boy, explains
Emily Sisk. “He could never have shoes on;
he didn’t like to be held or touched or
looked at. We didn’t know if that was due to
neglect or abuse or something else.”
He was the fifth child the Sisks had cared
for as foster parents in Washington County.
The high school sweethearts married at 18
and knew early on in their relationship they
wanted to dedicate their lives to fostering
children. At age 20 they attended foster
parenting classes even though they were too
young to be certified.
“We wanted to help, and we knew there
was a big need,” says Emily Sisk, now in her
early 30s. To date, she and her husband
have fostered more than 30 kids. While most
are returned to their biological families, the
Sisks continued to raise those who are riot,
adopting three and becoming the permanent
guardians of two others.
When Caleb was about 1 year old, the
state asked the Sisks if they were interested
in adopting him. They said yes. During the
following year, the parental rights of Caleb’s
biological mother were terminated as she
faced incarceration, and a DHS adoption
committee gave the Sisks a green light.
The couple was overjoyed with the
H
prospect of making the little boy a
permanent member of their household. Now
a toddler who’d spent all but his first three
months in their home, Caleb had become
emotionally attached to the Sisks, and they
to him.
They had come to understand the
antisocial behaviors he exhibited when he
came into their care as an infant were likely
related to autism spectrum disorder. They
took special care to nurture Caleb and
provide the structured routine and-
predictability that children with his needs
require to feel safe. Caleb adjusted, and was
thriving in the couple’s home.
The situation seemed ideal for Caleb in a
family sense, but not according to the
government.
mily Sisk says when she and her
husband were approached for
adoption, Oregon’s Department of Human
Resources (DHS) had excluded all but one
of Caleb’s biological relatives: an aunt living
overseas on a military base with her
husband. While she had declined to take
Caleb multiple times in the past, DHS told
the couple she had to be asked one last
time.
This time, she said yes.
Her answer devastated the Sisks. She had
moved back to the U.S., and her husband
wanted another son. They were going to
take Caleb. He was just shy of 3 years old.
“It was like, why now? Over two years
E
later? After no contact, no interest in his life
whatsoever, and then all of a sudden she
wanted him as a part of her family. It was
really hard for us to swallow,” says Erhily
Sisk. “We’re the only family he’s ever
knbwfi;;
“I don’t want to discredit the importance
of family for these kids” she says, noting
that she encourages relationships between
children she’s adopted and their biological
families. “It’s extremely important, but
there’s a reasonable amount of time to limit
the amount of damage that’s done from a
removal from us.”
The Sisks were concerned the upheaval
from their home and placement with a
military family he’d never met would
traumatize Caleb and be detrimental to his
need for stability and routine.
But as foster parents, they had no say in
the matter: Caleb was a ward of the state,
and it would be entirely up to DHS.
Under rules governing DHS’s adoption
practices, relatives almost always trump
foster parents - regardless of how distant
the relation or whether or not they have
ever met the child, and no matter how long
the child’s been in a foster family’s care.
DHS embraced this policy in 2010. The
rule was the agency’s interpretation of
Oregon legislation passed in 2007 and the
federal Fostering Connection Act passed in
2008. Both required that DHS place more
emphasis on finding and considering
relatives for a child’s placement.
Before the 2Q10 rule change, there were
cases where foster parents were trumping
out-of-state relatives who’d been interested
in adoption since the first day a child was
placed in foster care. The legislation in 2007
was the result of advocacy efforts by
individuals who had tried to adopt from
within their extended family, but lost out S
foster parents, explains Kathy Prouty,
permanency director at DHS.
“In the late 2000s, most of the stories we
heard were of relatives being trumped by
foster parents in placement decisions,” she
says.
Prouty explains that if there aren’t any
relatives within Oregon who are willing to
take a child after removal from a parent, the
child is placed with local foster parents in
order to be in close proximity to the
biological parents while the department
attempts to reunify the family, which is
usually the ultimate goal. When a
termination of parental rights does take
place, it can take years, and during that
time, she says, “A, child may bond with a
foster parent, even though an out-of-state
relative wants to adopt.”
This, she says, “leads to a difficult
decision around the long-term best interests
of the child.”
But foster parents, foster child advocates
and some legislators say DHS’s rule change
was an overreaction to legislation that never
intended for foster parents to be left out of
the selection process entirely.
A bill moving through Oregon Legislature
airps to bring balance back to DHS adoption
placement policies. Senate Bill 741 would
direct DHS to adopt rules giving equal
parents in adoption placement hearings.,
The bill passed its initial senate committee
and is awaiting a hearing in the Joint
Committee on Ways and Means.
Rep. Duane Stark (R-Central Point) has
signed on as one of the bill’s sponsors. A
foster parent himself, he’s seen thé
pendulum swing from one extreme to the
other, and hopes the bill will bring balance
to the decision-making process.
Before the rule change in 2010, Stark
remembers how quickly his family adopted a
baby girl in their care after her parents’
rights were terminated.
“We were able to go to adoption
committee at 5.5 months without any of the
relatives even being considered,” says Stark.
Later, when his family sought out a
relationship with the child’s biological
mother, he says he was shocked to discover
how many family members the child had
locally. “It was just amazing, and I still
scratch my head going, ‘Did all of them say
no, or were they not asked?”’
After the rule change, his family
experienced the other extreme. Stark says
in his case, the biological mother of two
boys in his care asked him and his wife if
th e /d be willing to adopt her children. “We
said, ‘well absolutely.’ When we commit to
children it’s for four hours or forever *
that’s our little saying - but DHS is required
to do an extended family search, and they
located an uncle in one of the southern
states,” he says. The uncle was in his late
50s and had been out of contact with the
boys’ family for more than a decade, but
agreed to take the boys.
Stark and his wife had fostered the boys
for the majority of the youngsters’ lives. He
See FAMILIES, page 5