Would you consider this "neglect"?

[Mrs. T-i-double-g-er]

Okay, now that everyone has told you it is bad judgement, let's get beyond that. You made a mistake. You have erased the pictures. And I bet you will never use MYSPACE again. You have also educated me so that I can warn my children about this. You obviously care about your Foster children and wish you could take it back.

As an adoptive mother, I can't thank my son's foster family enough for giving him the chance to be loved before he came to me.

Call an adoption attorney. Get some advice. Good luck.

 

[shortbun]

While I don't consider it neglect, I will say that I have never posted my child's pic on any site. I don't see the need to put him 'out there.' I don't want some creep lusting over him. lol. Maybe I'm over cautious but I think it's warranted these days.

 

[Keli]

It does seem a very unwise move on your part but I don't think you intended any harm. I hope it all works out for you and your family.
Personally, we have a few family members that take in foster children. I take many, many pictures, especially at the holidays and often foster children are in them. I make sure I never inadvertantly post a picture that has a foster child in it until they have been legally adopted.

 

[azgal81]

There are some things that just shouldn't be posted online.

 

[Mike.Wazowski]

well I don't know where the HUG smiley went - but I wanted to put him right here...
you deserve a good hug.

You did not intentionally do anything neglectful.
I shutter to think that they would remove these kids from your care after 2 years over this... obviously the situation has been working for the kids and lord knows what the next home they end up in could be like.


of course I did not view your Myspace to know if there are serious problems with info posted.... but from wha tyou said it sounds like the typical parent thing.

I think it is so sad that our entire society has to live in such a paranoid manner

 

[VSL]

If this child was pulled from their home due to abuse and the parent is out there looking for them then it is absolutely neglect. One job of a foster parent is to protect the child from harm. Putting a picture out there for others to see and show whomever they please could be dangerous.

I agree with this.

 

[poohandwendy]

Tough lesson. Hopefully this will not cause the kids to be removed from your home.

It's a shame, but people simply cannot think of anywhere online as their own personal space that cannot be invaded by others. Maybe one day there will be a way to secure info, but I don't see that anywhere in the near future.

{{{HUGS}}}

 

[TallyLassie]

Your breached the confidentiality policy by even sharing the infromation with your friends. The children have an expecation of privacy. Their history is their personal information that should only be shared with those that have a bona fide reason for knowing or those they choose to share the information with.

They could be using "neglect" to reflect the possible emotional damage to the children.

 

[JunieJay]

You might want to be careful discussing this here. If your myspace account can be hacked into, surely someone can find you talking about the case here?

I know nothing about myspace, but I do think when you take in foster kids or work in the system, confidentiality should be your utmost concern. You sound well meaning, so I hope you are able to iron this out and it will not result in the loss of your license.

 

[barkley]

i don't think you intended to do anything wrong-but it did break confidentialy laws for kids in the social services system (as well as their parents) so that's why once discovered and reported it's being handled this way.

confidentiality laws are realy tight in social services-and esp. so in foster care cases. as an example-even though i supervised the unit that determined the eligibility of foster kids to services-and provided for their financial and medical needs-neither i nor my staff (who worked intimatly with the foster parents and in some cases the bio family of the foster kids) were allowed access or information as to the particular circumstances of that child's foster care placement. the case information was protected by confidentiality laws that only permitted certain court mandated individuals to have access/knowledge of the situation. we also could'nt share OUR information with some of the other staff that worked with these kids/families. even with a non foster care case, social services clients have to give permission and request certain information be released to them personaly to pass on to other parts of the 'system' (so if someone wanted to apply for a holiday program administered by our agency they had to request from thier worker and sign a release to get verification that they were in receipt of services/funds-then pass it on personaly to whomever it needed to be submitted to).

as for photos-don't know how it works everywhere, but in the county i worked for fc or kid's in the adoptions programs (pending adoption) could'nt have photos publicly displayed identifying them as fc or adoptive kids. when my former employer wanted to do a huge campaign stressing the need for foster and adoptive parents they could'nt use photos of the real kids-so to keep from having to spend money on 'child models' they solicited employees to let their kids be photographed for the print ads (got realy interesting for one of my co-workers when her dd appeared on several huge billboards in the area with the words 'x and other kids like her need good foster homes'-grandma's phone rang off the hook from well meaning friends and family thinking the child was in need of assistance).

another issue that may be going on in your case may have to do with how much confidential information you've been made privey to-and weather it was legal for the social worker to even fill you in on it. in allot of cases not even the foster parents who will be dealing with the ramifications of what their foster kids have endured are allowed to be informed of all of the particulars of a case. i'm not saying that it does'nt happen, and not for a 'good' reason on the social worker's part-but depending on the case info. you posted it could be that information you legaly should not have known was disclosed, and now someone's looking into weather the agency you work with is upholding their end of the confidentialy laws.

as for 'neglect'-that term is probably being used in your situation because foster care kids are wards of the court, and as such they can be subject to greater 'protections' than non fc kids. so posting a photo or disclosing information that identifies them (even if not by name-just by association with your family) might be interpreted as being neglectful of their rights/safety (and there are some psycho bio families that will take any scrap of info. to figure out where their kids have been removed to and placed in order to try and contact/retrieve them, and it can cause danger/havoc to the fostering family-while it was'nt the norm, we did have a considerable number of fc parents who had restraining orders on the bio families of kids they fostered-even years after that kid left their homes. some families carry a misplaced 'grudge' against fc parents thinking that they are part of the reason the child has been removed from their custody).

i'de suggest getting out any paperwork you got when you became a lic. foster parent-most of it is very specific on what your agency and state allow.

 

[ZPT1022]

Your breached the confidentiality policy by even sharing the infromation with your friends. The children have an expecation of privacy. Their history is their personal information that should only be shared with those that have a bona fide reason for knowing or those they choose to share the information with.

They could be using "neglect" to reflect the possible emotional damage to the children.

I didn't necessarily take it that she was sharing history, just more general stuff like "and we have a court appointment next Tuesday, wish us luck" which I just see as the kind of updating family gives each other. If she were in fact posting the whole sordid history, that would be bad. It's hard because you want to keep family up to date and with people so spread out it's very hard to do. You assume that it seems secure but in reality it's not. Very hard position to be in.

OP- I'm sure you've already taken it down. I don't see it as neglect. bad judgement maybe, especially since someone obviously got in that you didn't mean to, but I really don't see neglect. I wish you nothing but the best and hope that this all gets resolved soon.

 

[TallyLassie]

I didn't necessarily take it that she was sharing history, just more general stuff like "and we have a court appointment next Tuesday, wish us luck" which I just see as the kind of updating family gives each other. If she were in fact posting the whole sordid history, that would be bad. It's hard because you want to keep family up to date and with people so spread out it's very hard to do. You assume that it seems secure but in reality it's not. Very hard position to be in.

.

That was not the way I read it.

And yes, some of it was very detailed about the case, but then again, it is just my personal journal. They don't call it "myspace" for nothing. After they left, I tried to get into my blog without logging in to myspace and it said just what I thought it would. Something to the effect of "you cannot view the content of this page without the permission of this person".

***

If the area that she is living in is anythign like Florida, I doubt she will lose her license. There was a court case here because of the shortage of foster parents, some kids were spending the night at child protective services office.

 

[ZPT1022]

That was not the way I read it.
.

Ultimately, without knowing exactly what it was that was written, it's hard to say what happened or what it means.

 

[ZipaDeeDooDah]

I am so sorry you are going through this. I can only imagine how upsetting this must be for you.

Having said that, I don't believe anything on the internet is private, EVER. I may be jaded - but there is always a way to hack into anything, anywhere. Everything is cached, no information is truly private or safe, and no user is anonymous.

Good luck OP!

 

[Liberty Belle]

No, I do not think that is neglect.

I'm wondering about putting the details of the case - I know nothing about foster care laws, but is this legal?

 

[MELSMICE]

You breached a confidentiality agreement.
I do not consider "My Space" private, it is hacked site.

This is correct.

2 of my DD's "private" MySpace accounts were hacked into about 2 weeks. They changed their passwords when they found out, but there were some pretty nasty, rude & disgusting "bulletins" sent out from their pages without their knowledge. Luckily my sister called to inform us of this.

Take the advice given & get a lawyer. Good luck.

BTW - I'd don't think it's neglect, just a case of poor judgment.