And then there were 20. We lost two members of our group last night. Each of the single people (male in his late 30s, female in her 60s) quit the class. The guy actually contacted the instructors and said this was not the right time for him to be pursuing foster care and/or adoption. The lady? No one knows what happened to her. Maybe she was sick, maybe she decided this wasn’t for her.
Last night was our night to become grief and loss experts. We discussed maturational losses vs. situational losses. We learned about loss and grieving in foster care and adoption and the predictable reactions(1):
Shock/Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Despair/Depression
Acceptance/Understanding
We also talked about the four psychologocal tasks of grieving(2):
Understanding
Grieving
Commemorating
Going On
We broke up into small groups and worked on case studies of actual foster children. We had to determine where each child was in the grieving process based on the information given, what losses they were experiencing, what behaviors we could expect to see, and even how we could help the child express and release their feelings.
Once again, we were sent home with a lot of homework. We have a 3-page worksheet to complete about our strengths and needs regarding loss in foster care and adoption. We have several pages to read about “Bonding and Attachment“, “Helping Children Grieve“, and “Lifelong Issues in Adoption.”
On the homestudy front, we were told to bring our planners next week and be ready to schedule our first home visit with our caseworker. From the sounds of it, we’re looking to have our first home visit closer to Thanksgiving.
One of the class members is discussing creating a Facebook page for all of us in the class to join so we can keep in touch and get to know each other better. I’m looking forward to that, as its hard to get to know people other than the ones you sit right next to.
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(1) Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, On Death and Dying (McMillan Publishing Co., Inc. 1969). Concept of final stage of understanding from Craig-Oldsen, H.L. Sharing in Permanence (Atlanta, GA: Child Welfare Institute, 1995).
(2) Sandra Sutherland-Fox. Helping Child Deal With Death Teaches Valuable Skills. The Psychiatric Times/Medicine and Behavior.
