A Family Team Meeting (or FTM, as they are referred to by most people involved in the process), is a meeting that is facilitated by an outside organization and it's designed to give everyone involved with a case the opportunity to check in and update everyone on the standings of the case. It's where problems are dealt with, and it's a chance for parents to ask for clarification or help, and ultimately create an action plan for the next month or two as the family works toward reunification. All the team players are there- parents, DHS, lawyers (for parents and kids), service providers (the visit supervisor, counselors, mentors, etc.) and anyone else that the family invites to attend.
That bolded part means that foster parents only attend these meetings if they are invited by the parents. I was pleased to have been invited to the meeting, and had hopes of getting some questions answered and some clarification about our case, as well as some permission for things Lovebug needed. While I was aware it was not a meeting for me, I figured things would be discussed that would give us a better idea of where people were at in the process.
So at this meeting they start with discussing the ground rules, the goals of the meeting (and the case), and an update of where things stand. The meetings are 'success focused', so they ask that everything brought up be in terms of the family's success (so, for example, 'visits are going really well, the way that you do XYZ with Son #1 and still manage to do XYZ with your two daughters shows that you're really mastering giving them all equal attention, But we don't feel like we can justify moving your visits to overnight right now because of XYZ'). Pretty typical stuff if you're in the human services field.
After updates are out of the way, they get to the meat of the case: what's been done, when, by whom, and what still needs to be accomplished. Who's going to take care of those tasks, by when, and what do they need to make it happen? They do this for the parents as well as each child. They end when there's a set plan for the next few weeks, and they determine when the next meeting would be appropriate to have (usually about a month or two away).
Overall, it was a hard meeting to sit through. It was hard to hear things the parents wanted, it was hard to hear them talk about things they had done, to justify decisions that had been made in the past...but mostly it was hard because I left feeling run over. I left feeling like there was no one in my corner, no one to stand up and say 'That's not the foster parent's job'. I ended up volunteering for something because I felt I had no other choice, and left feeling like my life was being taken over and ruled by the bio-parents. And I heard from the other foster parent in attendance that he felt the same way.
I was able to fix things after the meeting, and managed to deal with my emotions and move on. But I have a few nuggets of advice if you're attending an FTM:
- Go in knowing what you want, what you're willing to do and with questions you may have.
- Don't hesitate to say 'I'm going to need some time to think about that one.'
- It's OK to talk to your Iowa KidsNet support worker about the FTM, what you can expect, etc.
- Ultimately, you are your own advocate, in this meeting and in this process as a whole.
- You have a right to privacy, and if you feel uncomfortable with the level that's being disclosed, you have the right to say so.
- Finally, as with every other step of this process, remember why you are doing this. Go home, take a deep breath, and give the kiddo a hug. My guess is that anything you're dealing with is a small matter compared to what the kid has had to endure.
Have a good week!
-Jenn
