Dear Adoptive Family: Davion Will Need Your Unconditional Everything

After reading the story of Davion Only, a child who has been in foster care for 15 years who recently pleaded with his entire church congregation to find a family to adopt him, I felt compelled to write a letter to his potential adoptive family. Here is the link to the story: 

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/amid-churchgoers-orphan-pleads-for-a-family/2145907 .

I am sure he will have more than a few families who come forward since this story has gone viral. But only a few will have what it takes to parent a child like Davion- a child who has been completely and utterly let down by the child welfare system.

I presume that if Davion is 15 he was born in 1998.  This is a year after the Adoptions and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) was put into place.  This precious piece of legislation is a wonderful example of bipartisan cooperation.  It was sponsored by Republican Dave Camp of Michigan and championed by Hillary Clinton.  It passed almost unanimously.  ASFA basically creates permanency timelines for states to follow so that children like Davion do not grow up in the child welfare system.  That was the intention and it has worked in many millions of cases. Children have benefitted from ASFA by being placed in permanent homes within 2 years, give or take, of coming into foster care.  But there are still children who languish in the system for multiple reasons. Like any piece of legislation, it is not perfect.

No one goes into child welfare work to break up families.  If anything, child welfare workers are adamant supporters of keeping children connected to their families.  How Davion has remained in the system is most likely not the failure of an individual worker or workers but in the true dysfunction of a system.

Davion’s life may have played out like this:  he came into the system at birth, maybe even with siblings.  His mother may have done some of what she was supposed to do to get him back such as attending a drug treatment program, having a psychological exam, or leaving an abusive relationship. At some point, there may have been hope that she would ‘get it together’ and he could go home. 

But she didn’t do it all, or do enough, and she fell back into a life of drugs and crime. It may have taken a while for Davion’s goal to change to a goal of adoption. Child welfare workers likely looked at other family members who could take him. They have may tried very, very hard to make a kinship placement work out for him but for whatever reason, it didn’t.  Fast forward to what Davion may have been like at 3 or 4.  He hasn’t had a secure attachment to anyone and is showing increasing acting out behaviors. He begins his shuffle from home to home as he wears out caregivers and frustrates his child welfare workers. He ends up institutionalized and his chances of finding a permanent home diminish with each day.

Davion has likely has had many, many child welfare workers. As workers burn out, take other positions, and caseloads get shuffled, he has likely had hundreds of professionals involved in his life. Davion has likely had many, many caregivers and a long list of placements.  He has probably been separated from siblings and isn’t connected to other family members.  Davion has likely had workers who have tried to get him connected and tried hard to find him a home but for some reason, it hasn’t worked out.

Davion, if he gets adopted and I truly hope he does, will need love and support from his new family as well as patience, understanding and lots and lots of hope and positive thinking.  Davion’s needs are likely vast and my years of working in child welfare and my last few years of working with post adoption families have given me a lot of insight into what Davion will really need as he begins to grieve his losses and settle into family life. Here is my advice for his new family:

Davion will need love but maybe at a distance.  In child welfare work, I have heard the phrase “it takes more than love to take in a child,” and while that is true, love and attachment are necessary for a child to remain in a home permanently. What it may take is a particular kind of love- love at a distance or love in the way Davion can accept it. He may not be used to people caring for him on a consistent basis and it may take a while, it may take years for him to get used to that.

A child is not his file. Davion likely has some scary things in his file. It be hard to read as it details abuse he has experienced and behaviors he may have engaged in.  This information may be helpful to you so that you know what he has gone through but he is a real person and no file can give a complete picture of a person.  He may have a really good social history that a social worker or a social work intern spent a whole lot of time perfecting but it still is impossible to know him fully by just reading his file.

Honor his mother. If Davion wants to display her picture in your home, do it. Understand that she loved Davion and no mother wants to loose their child.  Know that Davion loved her as well. She was imperfect and you may not agree with the things she did or the choices she made, but she was his birth mother and always will be. And she is a part of him. 

Keep him connected. I bet Davion has siblings. He probably also has aunts, uncles and cousins and maybe even grandparents. Find them and make sure he knows them and stays in touch with them. Some of them may be addicted- it tends to run in families. Find the stable family members- you may have to go out into his family tree but it will be worth it. He needs to know his kin, it will help him know who he is and where he came from.  This is key to helping him develop his self concept and self-esteem. 

You will not launch him at 18 or even at 28.  Davion does not need a place to crash until he goes off to college or finds a job. He needs parents who will care for him for their rest of their lives. Parenting doesn’t end at 18, or 28 or even 58.  Parenting relationships may change but he will always need the secure base a parent provides. 

He says he wants to be adopted but he may get cold feet.  Davion only knows what it feels like to be in foster care. He does not know life outside a system. Leaving a system, even leaving a confining residential facility, will be very hard for him. He will likely be terrified. He may get cold feet, reject you or say he has changed his mind.  Stay the course. If he continues to say this and is adamant, offer to provide a permanent home for him anyway, maybe without an adoption. 

Take care of you and surround yourself with support.  Adopting Davion is likely the hardest thing you will ever do.  It will push you to the limits of your emotional strength. But it will have rewards. It will be much easier if you surround yourself with support, hopefully with at least a few other experienced, adoptive families and remember to take care of you.  See your own therapist if you need to. You can’t parent him if you are worn out and exhausted.  He needs a strong, healthy and emotionally ready parent.  You can’t be that without support and a generous amount of self-care.

There is a family out there for Davion. One who can care for him and provide him the home he needs and deserves. I did not know how incredibly strong human beings could really be until I began working in child welfare. Working with adoptive and kinship families who take in a broken, abused and neglected child and offer them their unconditional everything has been the most rewarding aspect of my career.  These families often do not think they are special or unique or amazing but they are. They truly are.

Karen Chaudhry is psychotherapist who specializes in adoptive and kinship family relationships. She also blogs at www.kinshipcaregiving.blogspot.com. Visit her website at www.thriveandchange.com.http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/amid-churchgoers-orphan-pleads-for-a-family/2145907%20.