School Issues for Children in Foster Care

0:01 Welcome back to Fostered Up Minnesota's Let's Talk, a podcast that brings you valuable resources for prospective and current adoptive and foster families as well as professionals. My name is Chris and I'm an education coordinator at Foster Minnesota. And I'm Bridget, the education director at FAM. Hey, Bridget. Thrilled once again to have Charlie Joyce and Rick Delaney back as our guests. And thank goodness because they're willing to address some tough topics. Yes, we've had conversations with them about anger and aggression directed at mother figures in foster care and about visitation in the foster care world. Today, we are going to focus on behavioral and emotional challenges youth in foster care and families experience within the school system. When we were putting this episode together, Charlie and Rick admitted that

0:47 the discussion around this topic is challenging since we can go many different routes and head too far into the weeds on all of the legalities of IEPs and such. Well, we're happy that they're here to take on some of these challenges related to behaviors and emotions. Should we share a little bit about our guests before they join us? All right, you got it. Dr. Rick Delaney is an internationally known speaker and a retired clinical psychologist. He's given several hundred presentations to child welfare staff, mental health professionals, foster kinship, and adoptive parents, just to name a few. Prior to Charlie Joyce's retirement, he worked as a social worker for 45 plus years, clinical director of a psychiatric facility, a supervisory outpatient therapist, foster care case worker, clinical director of foster care services, and owner of his private

1:33 practice. He has developed some online trainings for foster parentcol.com, an online resource for foster kinship and adoptive parents where Rick is a major contributor with foster parent college and they are both fathers and grandfathers. So welcome Charlie and Rick. Great to have you back. How are you today? Great. Good to be back Chris and Bridget. Thanks so much Charlie. Good to see you again. We're actually seeing each other on Zoom as we're speaking to you here. Isn't that high-tech? But so nice to be here and one of the things that I wanted to talk about I I I think it's a good place to start is uh just why school issues are so important and and that it's a two-way street. Foster parents need to know about

2:20 schools and schools need to know about foster care. And children spend a huge part of their lives in school which can either launch them forward in so many wonderful ways or can add misery to their already burdened and challenging lives. It's it's one more area of disadvantage and failure and sometimes trauma for them. So I I was looking at a statistic. People love statistics, but a thousand hours, a little over a thousand hours a year is what children spend each year in school. So, by the time they reach high school, between kindergarten and high school, they've spent 12,000 hours in school. So there's a lot of time there that can be used to benefit the child,

3:05 but it's also a time that could be very isolating, lonely, and uh instead of being a haven, it can be one more stressor for the child. So I thought we'd start with that is just by saying that school is a huge issue and uh school system needs to know it's its own universe but it needs to know about the universe and the system in which our foster parents live. So uh just thought I'd start with that. Charlie, any other thoughts about that before we get into uh anything else here? No, I think you summarized that really well. I think it is a and I know we'll get into this in more detail but I think the the role of foster parents can be so overwhelming with so many um challenges um that

3:52 school is one of the challenges that can present a real challenge and at times is unexpected. So, um, anyway, it's an important issue and I'm glad we're doing a podcast on it and I think you got some kind of evidence, Rick, as far as unfortunately how foster kids don't fare real well in school um, overall. Yeah. Well, well, thanks for teeing that up for me, Charlie. I appreciate that. It's Yes, there's uh some factoids here that I think are interesting. Fun fact, not really that fun. About half of children in foster care are behind already by the time they're in kindergarten. So pre-ereading skills are behind the the building blocks for learning how to read uh run spot run. And by the age of 17,

4:42 fast forwarding, children on average still lag way behind in reading and are reading only out of an average of the seventh grade reading level. Um, some other things too is about one out of every three kids in a foster family has either failed a grade or has been held back a grade. So, you know, it's like like I had mentioned earlier, uh, this can be another stressor for children. Not to mention something, Charlie, that I think you've kind of labeled for what it really is about learning disabilities and a thing that you've noticed over the years about kids. Yeah. I I think early in in my working with foster youth and foster families that uh and school

5:28 systems that it became very evident to me that many foster youth experience in school is very different than kids that are not in foster care. And I always think of it this way. What how do kids become successful in school? Well, school is learning in school is kind of like a building a brick wall. You lay one brick down that's gets firm. You set another brick on top of it and it's like building a very very firm foundation that then carries a kid through the educational system uh as they advance. I think of how my wife Gretchen and I used to encourage our kids in school. And I was thinking back how did we send them

6:14 to school in the morning? We would wake him up and we we'd say, "Have a good day in school. Do you have your snack in your backpack? Listen to the teacher. Do well. We're proud of you. Out the door." And unfortunately, what foster youth taught me is for many of them that is not their experience. In fact, their experience with school, which I've called a learned learning disability, which is not a formalized diagnosis by any any means, is that they've had a number of frequent school changes. Um, and so their foundation is not well established um because many times they go to a school, the school doesn't know where they left off um with the previous school and um

7:01 so there's that interruption in learning. So those basic skills sometimes are never mastered. Unfortunately, some of the kids that I've certainly worked with have come from homes that were negligent regarding school attendance. Um that that wasn't consistent. And unfortunately, I think many of the birth parents I worked with didn't have a good school experience. So their value on school was diminished as far as encouragement. A really sad thing that that bothered me a lot was that that a lot of the kids always kind of felt like they were the new kid in school. Um that they didn't have an established peer group uh because they hadn't been there before. And that loneliness definitely affected

7:47 um their ability to feel connected to uh school and peers in that setting. And then another area that I think we overlook sometimes are difficult transitions from if kids are coming into foster care um from like a group care setting or residential setting. I was always felt pretty good about what kids were getting in residential programs. had the opportunity to work as a family therapist um for a large residential provider and school was kind of the highlight for a lot of those kids in that setting because it was very individualized. It was um very much a positive environment for them. um and and they did well, but then when they went into foster care, even though

8:33 they might be on the IEP, um they were in again a setting where they were the new kid where they felt overwhelmed just by the size of the school and um instead of feeling successful, uh they would again uh regress back into uh school is not a place where I've been able to be successful. And might add something to that too. That's that's just a perfect point I think as a place to be successful as you and you know I think some children can find this foreign foreign land somewhat traumatic somewhat isolating and insulating but others have found it even prior to foster care I think especially if you remember during COVID uh the pandemic years a lot of

9:19 kids were getting their only meal their only steady meal at school. Exactly. And even after that we notice that sometimes for children about seven and a half hours a day are the are the only hours in the day when things are stable and safe. And so you know this it's a double-edged sword here. Some kids they might experience as as a place the one haven oasis of normaly for them. For others again like you were saying Charlie especially multiply placed children that are foster care drifters. They're almost like the little army brat, you know, every year they're in a new in a new school learning new names, trying to be accepted by new groups of people, and past a certain point, I

10:05 think you kind of give up. That's right. Yeah. I would Yeah. I'm just thinking like myself too and maybe some of our listeners like just think of that anxiety of your first day of school and the unknown and just the thought of like I've never I never had to change schools until you know like high school but there's still that anxiety around it. I just couldn't imagine switching schools so often. Right. But and then and then you add on that that there's no guarantee that like somebody could pull the rug out, you know? So maybe I just start to get settled in after a few months or I found that one teacher that kind of gets me and I'm feeling a little connected or the one friend and you just have no idea if you're going to get home after school and be like well unfortunately you have to move. We need

10:50 we have to you have to go to a different Isn't that something Gretch Brid when you're saying something about the impermanence here and that the rug can be pulled out and there are rugs all over the place in these children's lives aren't there waiting for at a moment's notice when they least expected. One of the things that's additional anxiety is when kids go to school they takes their eyes off their parents. And with some kids, uh, I remember one situation seeing a child at the waiting for a bus to pick him up out front of his home and as I was walking by, I could hear this horrific screaming going on from inside the the home outside of what, you know, his family home and there was a domestic violence sort of situ situation going

11:37 on. Now this child, that's great sendoff, right? I mean now all day long this child is riddled with doubts and so on about should he have stayed home and protected his mother? Is she going to be okay? Sometimes they wonder if they'll return home and find that people have just disappeared. Uh and so on. So yeah, it's that that rug being pulled out, Bridget, that you were talking about there. I think that's those rugs are everywhere for our kids. I think one of the things that we as a profession we've gotten a lot better at is recognizing the impact that trauma has on kids and like Rick your your example that you just gave is an a great example of how can we expect a child

12:24 that's coming out of a traumatic uh situation at home to then go to school, pull out the books and focus on uh what is what is considered good learning. And if we look at trauma in and of itself, what do we know some of the characteristics are regarding mood? Well, we know many times it's it's accompanied by depressed mood, anxiousness, and those things do not lend themselves well to good learning. Um because the preoccupation many times is um how am I going to stay safe? What's going to happen when I leave? Um I feel uncomfortable here. And so there's all these preoccupation thoughts that can again distract from uh learning of which nobody at times other than the

13:12 child knows is going on with them. Excellent point. Sounds like we could we could almost talk about uh the the whole issue of how emotional and behavioral issues come together uh to impact the child's daily life at school. I wonder if that wouldn't be something that uh you know we we you talked about trauma and we know that as trauma accumulates in children's young lives it impacts so many areas of their life. One of which uh is how they understand and and go along with rules. Exactly. And uh Charlie, I know you've had lots of thoughts about kids and I think

13:57 anxieties behind what people might call a stubborn child or a child that's fighting you every step of the way at school, they get labeled, don't they? Yeah, they get labeled as defiance. And I I think one of the things in a book that Rick and I had the opportunity to write, Behavior with a Purpose, there's a chapter in there called um Wisdom of the Experts, where we were able to go back and look at at children that we'd served. And in in some cases, at least for me, I was able to adult uh interview kids as adult regarding what their behavior was about when they were in care and uh when they before they hit adulthood. And the theme that came out, two themes that came out was one that they were often scared

14:43 kids. And the way that they expressed that fear was to always be on the defensive. So what came across to people that were dealing with them, foster parents, teachers, people in the community, was that this child is a defiant kid. And and it looked that way. But underneath that was that they were one scared what was going to happen to him. And the way they coped with that scare was kind of through constant consistent worry about what what might be the next step, where I might where I might what where might I end up next? And so um the approaches are different. With defined kids, it's kind of about limit setting and things like that. But with anxious kids, what we want to do is identify sources of the anxiety and really offer a supportive approach in

15:31 how they can master that anxiety. So, it's a really good point that you brought up, Gre. Well, and I I think this the point you're making ties back into what Bridget had mentioned earlier about having someone at school that gets you, someone that connects with you in some way. Uh over the years, I've noticed that uh I I'll talk with kids and care and I'll say, "What what are your grades like?" Well, you know, they've got uh four A's and an F or they've got, you know, three C's, two B's and an F. And the F is not always in the subject area where the child has a learning disability, but that they're at loggerheads perhaps where due to personality mismatch or something with a teacher and that teachers can get beyond

16:16 that by establishing an improved relationship with some children. So it's the whole uh scene about children going to school and they've already got this load of trauma and it's in you know it brings with it a a boatload of anxiety concerns about how do you deal with authority figures who have been somewhat erratic in the past or maybe maybe there's been no one there to give a child any direction. So there's so many reasons behind what we're seeing. I think that's what that book was about too, Charlie, is that there's purposes and explanations and meaning for the behaviors. You know what I'm amazed at is that when I've talked to kids about school issues, um this things that once

17:02 they articulate it, once they can put words to it, um that really were were triggers for them um made so much sense. And here are some of the triggers the kids told me about in school. one elementary child uh would disregulate at about 11 o'clock every morning and um it the school had called me because I was involved with the teachers there. They did an excellent job with this young he'd been food deprived. So 11:00 what we finally figured out is when the cafeteria doors opened and he would get preoccupied with food, he was unable to study. Once we knew that, we were able to make some easy modifications so that the we adjusted what academic information came to them at that time and etc. worked out well. Communal

17:49 bathrooms, I've heard from kids, communal bathrooms in school are high-risisk places because of past experiences. Chaos in hallways um are uh high-risisk situations. kids that have had child protection interviews at school. I had one child tell me that whenever a new person would come to school, he was always worried that am I going to be moved somewhere? And those are things that within the normal realm of what goes into your daily thought in in school are completely different um for foster youth. So I think the point of that is always this. If you see an unexplained behavior, if your child comes home, how we found out about the communal bathroom thing was a child

18:35 would come home and at times would wet themselves on the school bus. We found out what the issue was. Um when one when child's school resistance was based on uh in the hallway before uh in previous schools, that's when I got pushed around and stuff. We were able to make a modification. So, it's really important to ask those questions and put things together which may seem unusual. What is the purpose of that child's behavior? How are they trying to protect themselves from previous traumatic experiences? Right. And with all of those rugs, I mean, how can they even think about graduation, college, you know, those next steps? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's it consumes you know like when your your thought process is overrun with the

19:22 thoughts and worries and your your worried brain a stressed out child is not a good student. No. And uh so I well one of one of the things I was thinking too is that in addition to some of the problems like school bus problems, classroom problems, hallway problems, problems in the cafeteria, problems with PE, you know, I mean there's potential for all these triggering and setting events, as a school called them, setting events that bring out behavior that's inappropriate or unwanted or a little left of center. And my thought is one of the most challenging is peer relationships that and and to be frank I

20:08 think that the the benefits of school are academic and social both that the child is behind usually of child children in foster homes are behind in both of those areas. Add to that the pandemic which we feel may have held children's development back not only academically but also because of the lack of social interaction with their peers to hone skills that are surround you know that involves social intelligence, empathy, getting along with others, sharing, understanding, mutual abilities to negotiate differences all that good stuff which is part of becoming a good citizen in life. a good coworker. And I think a lot of

20:55 our kids, I think, you know, they they are behind the the eightball in a sense because when they come in traumatized, it not only affects their understanding of rules, regulations, things like that, understands they it limits maybe uh their ability to focus on academic stuff, but it can skew how they view other situations and social situations. They come up to a group of peers on a playground, for example, and they're all engaged in a conversation. It's such an awkward moment for them. They when situations are sort of vague, they go to the the dark side, you might say, you know, that they accept that the kids don't like me, kids are going to reject me, they they mistake things, they

21:42 misconstrue things that are innocent. And so then, you know, I think it it sometimes sets them up for saying things that are br getting defensive and reactive, sometimes even physically uh aggressive towards others because they misread things. And I think that's due to exposure to trauma like domestic violence and seeing violence as the way to settle differences. So I think that's another area, the behaviors and the perception kids have about other uh fellow uh students. I I think one of you mentioned something a while back that that tweaked something in my mind that's experience-based and that was the importance to be able to identify with

22:27 um a a supportive peer or a supportive teacher. And I I made a note to try and remember to bring that up because one of the experiences I had is and Rick was familiar with this too. I I worked with what we called the deep end delinquent program uh where the kids that we served were deep into juvenile justice and then we we um as a step down service had them go into highly trained foster families. And I ran a group for those kids and school issues would come up and it was interesting that what the kids would talk about many times were the things we've already identified feeling like uh always a new school. I've never been successful. Uh why do I need this? What they identified as helpful was very hard to plan for but

23:16 was if I could connect with a peer that um I trusted. But the significance of teachers, if I had a teacher that I felt was nice to me and took an interest in me, that that made a total total their outlook really really did mediate as far as their attitude towards school. And so I think in as we look at this problem, we have to remember that that's if we can help kids make connections with people that are supportive of them, that that's an important step in really being able to counter some of the negative experiences I've had with schools and school systems are doing some flexes on this, too. if I I don't know if this

24:02 fits within the context, so I'll defer to the people on this uh podcast, but I have a former colleague that's now a social worker in a trauma-informed school. Would would you like to hear a little bit about what they're doing? That's really Absolutely. Okay. So, this person You always have good You always have good case examples for us, Charlie. Well, thank you. Um, this this person is a person that I used to supervise, a really skilled social social worker, and she's working in an alternative school. And I'll try and keep this real quick, but they consider themselves a trauma-informed school. It's an alternative to public education that's part of the public education system. And they make sure that all of their staff are trauma-informed trained. And when

24:49 they do any trauma-informed training, they invite foster parents in for that. Um, they invite in if the child is still connected with their birth family. And some of these kids um that aren't in foster care remain with their birth families. They include like if your girlfriend wants to come in for older kids and all the administrative staff receive that training and trauma-informed care. The things that they've done systemically that are really interested is they've adopted what they call a positive attendance model, which is the only time that they record you being in school if you're a student in that class is when you are actually in class. So, if you don't show up till 10:00 in the morning because

25:35 you've had a job that you have to do, work the early shift at a fast food place or let's say that you are struggling emotionally and you get there at 10:00, that's when your school day starts. Uh so the whole issue of tardiness and such is uh removed and they do flex scheduling which is once again very similar to the positive attendance model which is that you are not assigned to a class. your class is what you are studying at that time when you get there. So, they've made some minor adjustments, not too big within what the school day is, so the staff can be there. Um, but once again, it removes all the punitive or seemingly punitive things about you. If you're late, uh, that's a bad thing. If you don't start

26:21 studying right away, that's a bad thing. and it's an open door policy with the uh social worker there um as far as that person has complete access to that social worker at any time they need to. Um the other thing is that's significant is that that social worker is um um same race as a number of the kids there and representation does does matter. It really does. So that's just a quick lesson on on something the school systems are doing that I think is incredibly creative and they're being successful. They've got over a thousand since inception. They've got over a thousand alumni that uh now have their high school diplomas. So anyway, on that note, it's wonderful. Yeah. Well, I think it's

27:06 just so helpful for us to just take this time to try to better understand what's going on and what what we've been talking about so far. I I just have this visual that I want to share that Heather Forbes gave us about a year ago when she talked to us about the language of trauma. And she put on these ginormous sunglasses, like those kind of like clownsized huge sunglasses, and it said F A R that these kids walk around with these with this fear. Yeah. Going over their view through every single moment of their day. And I just love that she gave us that little tool. So, I think even just to think about it that way that that's going to be kind of the overriding thing, whether it's walking up to peers that you're not sure about, whether it's walking into class late and

27:53 being worried that you're going to get in trouble or Yeah. having to enter a a a lunchroom, you know, starting on a spelling test that is not going to go well. Yeah. All the things. It's the fear factor. Yes. It's the fear factor. It's the fear factor all the I think as Charlie said before, sometimes we're unaware of what the children are experiencing. I think Charlie said something about something only the child is privy to. And so a lot of times we have to do a little bit of mentalization, mind readading is a better word, and sort of try to get beyond what we're seeing on the surface to what the child could be thinking, feeling, attending. But you know, I wanted to add to that. I it's not only

28:40 the kids who have anxiety that floats and attaches all over the place, but after living with a child as a foster parent, you absorb that. Foster parents are pin cushions, I think, for the anxiety that the child that spiky anxiety that that they uh have themselves. They've even shown different studies that you know this uh cortisol level which is thought to be not good if it's you know there's too much cortisol it it implies the child is is you know hyperaroused and having meltdowns and has got the fear glasses on and the whole thing all day long 247 and uh but parents absorb that after

29:26 just a few weeks and months they've got the fear factor two and pretty soon they're running interference for their child and looking at the world like uh almost like a a a parent of an infant or toddler childproofs the world. You know, we look for the outlets that could shock them. We look for the fall they could take. We look for traffic at at the street corner. We, you know, we become the eyes and ears and now we are also in a high state of hypervigilance. uh foster parents who wonder why they're so tired. There's your answer right there, right? But but you know, you're thinking and and feeling fear for for the child as well. And we I think good, caring, sensitive foster parents absorb

30:12 a lot of that. I agree, Rick. And I think the um what what foster parents have taught me is that they feel pressure um to make sure that the child does as well as they can in school. and and that that can fall ac along lines that can be kind of rig aimented lines like getting the school the child to school on time. Um and and things like that. I've got I've got kind of a funny case history that ended up being really successful on that issue of mornings were a mess because there was a lot of school resistance. Um, and that fell to the foster mother because the foster dad went to work early and the foster mom um, was the one

30:58 kind of in charge of getting the kids ready. And I had seen them therapeutically excellent foster parents. And the backstory on this humorous part, and then we'll get into how we worked on this, but was that the foster child had a kind of a goofy nickname that rhymed with camera. And so the foster parents came in for a session and the foster mother said this sentence to me. She said, "Sometimes I just want to tape a camera to the wall so that you can see how crazy things are." And be being the astute and ethical therapist I am, I said, "Uh, you're not allowed to tape kids to walls." And which he said, "What are you talking about?" out and the foster dad, who is really kind of a jokester, said, "I I

31:45 like that idea." Um, but anyway, so after we figured out how I had screwed that up and my active listening was on autopilot uh that day, we got down to the issue. Their mornings were a mess. Um, and we I think all of us can relate to this. Go into the child's room, time for school, flip on the light, sheets come over the child's head, time to get out of bed. child doesn't get out of bed, anxiety goes up as Rick was talking about in the foster parent, they absorb this voices raised. You got to get out of bed. Get out of bed. I'm going to be late for work. Blah blah blah blah blah. Just a mess. Just a mess. And again, the dynamic was too also the foster mom had to get to work. So what we did in that

32:32 situation actually worked pretty pretty well. We talked about what does a child feel comforting. child would come to the foster parents, the foster mom specifically, every night with a bottle of lotion, a fragrance that she liked, and she'd ask her to rub her shoulders with that lotion. And then one of the things that after they would get the child up, before the child would get dressed for school, she'd have to play with the dog. She'd have to connect with the dog, which really made the foster mom crazy. Like, you're up. Get your clothes on. I got to play with Phto, you know, blah blah blah. So, what we did is that we decided, well, this isn't working. And we changed the lighting in the bedroom for a soft light um you know, that was by the kids um bed rather

33:19 than throwing the lights on. The foster mom would go in in the morning, take this lotion, just do a small massage on the child, talk comforting about her. You know, we got to get up now. I'm going to turn on the light. You know, vital's in the bathroom, so why don't you come in there? I've got your clothes in there and I'll put on my makeup and you can play with vital and get those things accomplished. She didn't use the word accomplished and then we'll go to school. And she they canned the whole idea of a breakfast and they came up excuse me with a healthy sack lunch that could be eaten in the car and that was kind of a struggle because we all know that we need to have that hearty breakfast in the morning but we just threw that idea along. In about two weeks they followed up and the improvement they rated at 85%. Wow.

34:05 So, the point is is that resistance was because of a forceful way to try and get the child to comply with school. And if we incorporated what the child falling calming and things that in her mind she needed to do before she went to school, um it improved dramatically. So that's just kind of a fun case example of a big stressor for foster parents which is how there's a beautiful analogy or not analogy but story about pointing out a lot of different issues and one of them is that pressure that parents feel to have their child do well and and it's it's a good pressure to have that we want children to catch up but the the foster parent has to be empathic and

34:51 sympathetic to themselves and the child in terms of how fast we're going to try to catch up and how diligent we're going to be working at. I talk to a different foster parents and I say, "Well, how do you spend your evenings once a child gets home?" Well, we have him change clothes and then we, you know, I help him with his homework. I don't do it, but I help him with it. And sometimes parents are helping children with their homework for three and four hours after school every night. I said, "I'm not sure that's a good idea." I would talk to the therapist and caseworker about and the school about having the school do more tutoring at school so that when the children are at home, they get a chance for a reprieve, a break from feeling

35:39 like a failure for seven and a half hours and can learn about being part of a family. This is what you do. You're not professional tutors. So I think just a a sort of a quick note uh and suggestion to consider for foster parents. Don't put yourself under so much pressure and the child that it's spoiling the importance of the relationship, the connection, the attachments and all that. Yeah. Three to four hours of of homework. That's I mean just think about us going home from work too. I mean, you don't want to keep working for three to four more hours and you need your brain to refresh and be unplugged and just walk away from it, especially after a bad day. I know. I

36:24 know. you know, and um yeah, my my thought is that one of the things that when Charlie was telling the story about camera, which sounded like something else, I guess, and um uh was the child's name Polaroid, but anyway, um it was a nickname. Okay. So, one of the things that I think foster parents might have to contend with from time to time is the discrepancy between what they're saying happens at home and what's happening at happening at school. Sometimes the school will say, "I don't know, no problem here." And the the foster parent is saying, "My gosh, you had to have a video camera on the wall to see what's

37:10 going on here." Can hardly get him out the door. You know, he's throwing fits in the car. I have to make sure he doesn't jump from a moving vehicle and then when he gets to school suddenly the school reports no problem here. So the tendency of people seeing different kind of reports is to think there must be something wrong with the foster family when actually there's different issues at play in a home setting often times than at school. school is in its own way. It's a it's an institution. It's not a family. It's a community, but it's not a family. And some of the things that come out that are reminders of trauma, relational trauma, abuse, child abuse, neglect, all

37:57 that stuff, the need for a mother, the need for a father to be close, but to be safe from them at the same time, those kind of things don't come out. um sometimes they don't come out in residential treatment centers which are kind of scripted programs. They don't come out in school which are so structured. So I think foster parents sometimes are kind of get a a bad rap like people look at them a little scance because they think what are you doing at home or not doing right? So, have we talked about school avoidance and what what it's about and what parents need to consider? Well, we refuse to talk about school,

38:43 but I don't know. I'm feeling oppositional defiant right now. How about you, Charlie? I'm right there with you. He must have had a candy bar for breakfast, huh? Charlie had the sheets ripped off of him. Yeah. I no I think you know school refusal you could almost do we could almost do a whole podcast on that issue but uh getting kids out the door. It might just be foot dragging. It might just be my child is so distracted I have to go into the bedroom three or four times to say you still don't have your socks on. um or take your socks off your ears and put them on your feet or you know whatever it is. And so that's

39:30 one type of issue. But the kids who actually refuse to go to school and as Charlie has pointed out a couple times and I think we all are hip to here, it's the idea that there's meaning in this behavior and a lot of times it's trauma related. Correct. So school refusal might have to do sometimes we we go to the easy explanation he must be bullied at school and that can be some children are ostracized and pushed around and even hurt and threatened. So, that's one thing, but there's other things, too. I think uh Charlie, I'm not sure, you know, with that program you worked with, they were a little bit older kids. I don't know if they had school phobia,

40:16 which a lot of times is with the younger group, maybe a little bit more tending towards the truency, but um just some thoughts about one foster child that did not want to go out the door in the morning, had come from a background in which his father had been murdered. his uh and it was known throughout the community. Um his he then lived with other family members in kinship care and uh to keep them keep him together with at least some relatives to support him. But the kin were so wounded and traumatized by the death of uh their family member that they weren't able to get out of the home much

41:01 anymore. They were shutins. They became agorophobic. They wouldn't go out. Uh and their house became a sort of a mausoleum of remembrance for the death of the one that the father that had died. So this this child is now living in a a home just surrounded by depressing images and loss issues. And Charlie, you you know what grief and loss does to kids. I mean, you can I bet you could comment on that, but he didn't want to leave because he was so worried, I think, about I don't know, something bad happening to him or he was so worried about his relatives who were so depressed. Yeah, I think those external

41:48 factors can really have an influence on school refusal. I think the place in my head um the place to start with school re refusal is something that sounds simple but difficult is is what what is the purpose of the behavior and I've kind of hypothesized that there's three purposes many times one um they just don't want to go back to a situation that they found is that they failed in uh or that they fear um two is that as Rick pointed out, they've got things that are more important for them to do. Like in Rick's example, it's more important to stay home and protect everybody um and know what's going on there. And three is that they just don't

42:35 feel like they'll be a success at all. They have no hope of success. Now, I don't know any human being, myself included, that wants to go to some place five days a week for six to seven hours a day where I have no hope that I'll be successful there. Yeah. And so it's really important to try and figure out kids are resistant to giving that information at times and at times they don't understand what's going on. But if you can pinpoint those things and many times it's a combination of stuff uh fear disinterest um or what's the purpose um then we can start to do some things that are helpful and schools struggle with that too um as far as trying to identify those reasons. So, it's really important, I think, for foster parents and schools to work

43:21 together on that with the child. I'm a firm believer that IEEPs can be very helpful uh because they can hit that um issue of connecting them with somebody that might be uh uh more supportive than a general classroom situation. I like that piece of IEPs. If they have very legitimate learning disabilities, um if kids start to be successful, success breeds success, that can happen on IEPs. I think the other thing that's understated on IEPs at times is that taking kids out of what might might be perceived as a threatening um overwhelming environment and having them at least for some classes be in a more uh supportive individualized setting is um helpful to them. I've seen some

44:06 really creative stuff on IEPs. I remember one of the delinquent youth that we serve that Rick is a familiar again with that program. None of his family members, none, Zippo had ever graduated from high school. Had no interest in that. Tough kid, but he had an interest in cooking. And we worked with a school where that child through an IEP was able to get school credit for cooking. And where we had him placed doing cooking was an environment where he felt comfortable, which was a local group home for younger kids. they got school credit for that. So, I think not stopping at the point of being overwhelmed, but starting to figure out

44:53 is he scared? Is there no purpose? He or she scared? Is there no purpose uh to school in their mind? And do they have a history of failure? I think that's where we can possibly start to make adjustments for kids. And I like IEPs um in situations where they're warranted. I really do. I think they can be very helpful. I'd have to say u I I've attended so many of them because I was a school-based mental health counselor in Hawaii for a year at a high school and so I was right across from the IEP room and uh it was my second office. So uh they can be wonderful things and one of the things that I wanted to two things one is that um foster parents need to be included in those and sometimes should

45:38 have the presence of somebody else supporting them like the case worker if they can and their input should be valued. We the school should be listening just as much to the foster parent about issues and suggestions about how to deal it with uh uh as the foster parent should be listening to the school. The other thing is that it's daunting as a foster parent to enter a room with 15 professionals and that uh you have to uh feel the steel, feel some strength to be able to go in there and sometimes it's good to have a buddy system there too like a CASA volunteer or I think in some states maybe Minnesota has this too where we can have an assigned advocate for uh a

46:24 child as they the uh as the foster parent is attending IEPs. I think a lot of parents might replay that clip right there that you just said, Rick. Well, and I was going to say, Charlie, just one other thing real quickly. Sure. Um, IEPs can give good suggestions about home sometimes. Um, a little story here about uh you'd mentioned the the child who wanted a candy bar for breakfast. Chris, you pointed that out. I think we had talked about that one other time that uh the problem of getting out the door in the morning to school was the mother said we have to go back and forth about I want her to eat something before she goes off to school and it just takes

47:10 so much time to debate this day after day. And I said what's the debate about? Well, she wants a candy bar for breakfast. And I said, well, how old is she? She's 12. And um I've got other kids. I said, I tell her, if if you want a candy bar, they'll all want a candy bar. Candy bar is not good for you. You have some folks think you have ADHD and you're on rolin or silt for that. This is going to wipe out any effect. Having that much sugar and hypoglycemia by about 11 is going to wipe out the effects is what the foster mother told her. Um, and there she had some other things about the dentist and it wasn't good for her teeth and yada yada. None of that made any sense to the child who wants a candy bar for breakfast. I said,

47:57 "One question for you." I asked the mother, and I knew this uh uh somewhat before the the IEP. I said, "How long has this been going on now?" Well, been going on for a year and a half. The full time that the child had been in foster care, and she's 12. So, for a year and a half, there's been a daily battle over breakfast. So when the child goes out, both mother and child are exhausted and they leave with sort of a foul taste in their mouth. The mother feeling like a failure as a foster parent and the child feeling miffed about how come you can't find any better foster mothers around here. And so, you know, the the IEP said, "We need to try something different after a year and a half. Let's let's see if we can do something else like um have her deal with the issue at

48:45 school." We'll have her get to school and then we can try to take care of her breakfast needs there. So, you can in some way just sidestep the power truck. Pick your battles. Mhm. The the comment I was going to make on um the IEP, circling back to that is um I think and it doesn't take long if if foster parents can go into an IEP meeting knowing what an IEP is about, what's going to be accomplished and then understanding also that they don't have the legal authority to authorize the IEP. That that is a role of whoever is a legal custodian because I've seen foster parents getting confused over that. That's important as well. But yeah, I think the last scenario that Rick talked about is that it school puts

49:32 a foster parent into a position where I have pressure to have the child there. And whenever we're pressured to do something, I think our our thinking gets restrictive and it's really important to kind of re recognize that's how we operate and then try to identify uh the problems. A couple of things that I saw work with kids that were having problems with school refusal that was connected with their trauma backgrounds is that one child um that that it was a child I referenced regarding the um school lunch that would get this regulated. he had to have we came up with a um plan of him having a traveling sense of security and I believe Rick's done this too where part of the child's backpack that was

50:18 approved by the school is he always had some food with him in school and that seems so simple and kind of in a way odd but it helped diminish his his preoccupation with is there going to be food uh to feed me because he had really really been food neglected. There was um with a young lady that had a lot of separation anxiety eventually adopted by the family that were their foster parents. What we did in that situation was there was the school was very good about working with that too. But the foster parents in every one of her little notebooks put a picture of them as a family. They were in the post uh pre-adopt process and that they would encourage her when you start to get sad because you're not with us just open up your notebook and there we are. And then

51:04 the foster parents would alternate every night. It was a two two parent family writing her a little note that she took the next day to school about how much they loved her and how every day you know that you get home from school. I can't remember if it was a bus or if they picked her up or what, but every day we come, you get to come home from school and we look forward to it and you look forward to it and they would make that little B note and put it in a new one every day, which only took them probably two minutes to write that. Oh, I love that. What a beautiful story to end on. I love these little things that we could do that will have such, you know, that doesn't cost anything besides I think 2 minutes is high. That maybe took 30 seconds. Exactly. And what a

51:50 difference, what an impact that can make that child and then they would stick with them the rest of their lives. Right. Beautiful. And they would review that every night with her at bedtime is remember tomorrow's school and you've always got that picture of us and you know we write those little notes to you so that she went to bed feeling like that. It it helped. Gosh, I think this could be maybe a year-long podcast we could do because I feel like we didn't cover half the things we set out to. But um in closing, are there any resources or things that you wanted to say that we didn't cover that you just have to get off your chest for this episode? Well, I I I would just say one thing that

52:37 uh we don't want to underestimate the importance of the huge time amount of time and effort that teachers put into the lives of our foster children. That I'm a big fan of teachers. I used to be a teacher uh early in my career and it's um um you know it's a thankless job in a way and it's underfunded and overstressed work and and so on. So my heart goes out to the teachers and I I think they can be such an asset to the help of our foster children. I agree completely and the thing I would add to that um is for foster parents and is if you have a child that's struggling

53:24 in school first of all kind of in your mind normalize it. I hope one thing you take from this podcast is that their preparation in how to go to school and how to succeed from school is many times very different from the child that's sitting next to them. So remember that and try and learn what that school will do as far as respond to the needs that the child is having that is causing them to be resistant in school or failing to school. Learn about IEPs if you can talk to your caseworker on um things that they know about uh the school and what foster parent can do to help a child be successful in that setting. Um, I just think it's really important that foster

54:10 parents understand also how they can be helpful in the process other than to just be frustrated over what can be really frustrating situations. Beautiful. Thank you. This was such good information. And again, I think um our our audience has told us like it just it's nice to just have some of this stuff normalized and be talked about um because it can feel so isolating and you can feel so alone when you're dealing with some of these situations um that that can't really you can't really learn in a training um you just are kind of living it in the moment and doing your best every day. So, thank you so much, Charlie and Rick, for another great episode. And who better to have

54:56 Rick and Charlie talking all of this, talking about all of this with us. Great. A pleasure to be here again. A lot of fun. Thank you so much for joining us today for Let's Talk. Please subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen to our podcast.