The Power of Information

Knowledge is power, as the saying goes. We are an information-based society. Having that information is the source of power, and controlling information properly is the way we wield that power.

Yes, I actually have a specific reason for bringing it up. My wife mentioned a councelor she met through the school. One of the things she learned is the sorts of information that children (and other family members) deal with most successfully when they hear from those who are in drug and legal trouble.

The problem is that parents that have been in and out of jail and rehab usually have a poor track record on meeting promises made to their kids. I'm sure you've heard several, if you're in the same situation we are. "I'm going to have the kids back by [insert holiday here]." "I'm never going to [insert illegal activity here] again!" "I have a great job lined up. I just need [insert unreasonable expectation here] before I can start."

The solution to the problem is to control the information flow to where they are encouraged to share the solid facts that cannot change, rather than the hopes and aspirations that have so often been dashed along with the emotional state of those who might still have believed them.

We've encouraged the parents of our kids-in-care that they should tell the kids what they have accomplished. What charges have been cleared up? Have they been working at a job? Have they kept a stable address for the past month? Did they pass their last drug test? Did they enjoy the last visit to see the kids? (Softball easy-answer items are great, and may occasionally be the only good news they have.)

The future can change rather ubruptly and not match plans, particularly in the world of warrants, jail, prison, custody cases and all that go with them. Any effort that can be spent concentrating on past successes can pay off with more effort in the future, which if all goes well will lead to more and bigger successes that can be described in past tense. That which has already succeeded cannot fail.

Some things just take time

I was looking back over previous posts today, and noticed the one about Drug Court. It turns out that there was this one little thing that had to be taken care of before my wife's sister could get into the program, so she made the necessary court appearance to handle an unpaid fine.

It turns out that the unpaid fine had a suspended sentence attached to it, and the judge decided to un-suspend a couple of months. The net result is that she'll be able to get back to what she was working on here in a couple weeks or so.

Lots of other things take time, too. For her and her husband, there's looking for jobs, paying rent, attending court, going to rehab, paying fines, getting bus passes, saving for a vehicle, and a whole raft of other things that all seem to be on the top of their list at the same time.

For us, we have work, school, grocery shopping, getting eyeglasses for several kids, marching band, a teenager with a summer job and no car, church, family members needing the van to move, planning and building a detached garage, vinyl fencing, yard care, and yet another raft of things to do.

The problem is that we often look at those things as in the way of what we want to do, instead of being what makes us who we are. It gets back to the whole idea of trying to enjoy (or at least learn from) the journey, rather than looking past it to the destination. The path is much harder if you can't glean any good from it along the way.

So if you're feeling overwhelmed with that day-to-day list, find one thing on that list that you can savor and enjoy. Even if it's just a few minutes of contemplation, meditation, or planning before sleep, or being grateful you can do the dishes instead of needing to unplug a toilet, take the time to feel positive about what you do.

Over time, you can progress to having a better attitude about one thing at a time by learning to enjoy the things you need to do each day, and by correcting and eliminating the problems. It can work wonders if you use your time rather than being abused by it.

Professional resources

I was recently introduced to a lady who works as a counselor through our school district to provide support to children whose parents are incarcerated or in and out of jail. My nephew's school teacher had learned about her and new of our situation. She talked to the Principal who contacted the counselor at the school district.

I met with this counselor about a week ago in the Principal's office. She talked with me about our situation and told me what they could offer by way of help for these kids in our care. Before our meeting was over I had found a valuable resource.

This lady had the experience of working with prisoners and the training to understand what is best for the kids. I found that she could truly understand what we are going through.

I was told that she would be there for me as well as for the kids. She added that they have an entire network of people who can work with these kids.

At the end of our interview I wanted to hug her for all its worth. It was as if a major burden had been lifted. I finally had someone to turn to who could answer questions that had yet to be answered. There was light at the end of the tunnel.

Differences of Opinion

It turns out that my sister-in-law is not quite out yet, but might be within a couple of days. She just has to clear up one last warrant based on an unpaid fine, and she'll be released to a drug rehab program. Her husband got out a few days ago, and is awaiting sentencing on a couple of things.

She knows what she needs the most right now. The judge presiding over her Drug Court also knows what she needs. I also know what she needs. Same thing for him. He has his ideas, the judges have their ideas, the family has their own ideas.

The problem is that none of them are exactly the same. Extended family and the judges tend to agree fairly well, but none are in perfect agreement. There's a bit of give and take, and there's a specific chain of authority and responsibility that must be recognized.

The judge has specific duties and goals. He's responsible for administering justice and following the programs and guidelines. At our home, we're responsible for raising the children. Their parents are responsible for meeting their own needs. The tricky parts are the overlaps. The parents want to visit the kids. The judge issues a no-contact order between the parents. We need to show up in court to find out anything useful on status. The parents don't like the programs, requirements, fines, and fees imposed on them, and want to do things differently.

Things can be difficult at times, but I'm willing to play my part and allow everyone else to play theirs, even if it's not exactly to my preferences. Sure, I'd like to be able to micromanage things sometimes, and at other times I'd like to wash my hands of the more difficult complexities, but that's just not the way the world works.

Synergy takes advantage of our own little differences and specialties, and allows us to accomplish things as a group that nobody could do individually. Let's just hope that all the jobs get covered, and everyone pays attention to those with the right to dictate the methods of their own portion.

Carrots Vs. Sticks

It looks like my sister-in-law gets out of jail next Monday. She has all the serious charges against her grouped together in an agreement that formally puts her into Drug Court. From here it will be a matter of whether she can stick with the rehab, testing, appearances and all that goes with it in order to get the carrot being offered to her.

The carrot is to have all those charges reduced or dropped if she graduates from the program. The associated stick is the potential sentencing on the guilty pleas she has made on those same charges.

The part that I'm worried about is the possibility of hovering half way between carrot and stick, or doing just enough to stay in the program, but lingering on forever without graduating or being booted. I would prefer the finality of either option to the vague limbo of the in between.

Of course my view is colored by the fact that I'm looking at it from her kid's viewpoint. Uncertainty is hard on us all, but as adults we tend to have more control over it. Kids don't have that same level of responsibility or the capabilities to change their environment, so they have to rely on what we as adults do for or to them. The hard part is that it's not something you can plan out and schedule. We don't know how things will stand next week, next month or next year.

Our job is to keep things stable at home, and to give kids a normal environment where they can play, learn and grow.

Stigma Vs. Appeal

We have in our state the Utah Methampheteamine Joint Task Force whose job is to reduce the use of meth across the state. They're using the Montana Meth Project as an example of a successful program that has done well with its own stated goals of:

1. Increase the perceived risks of meth use
2. Decrease the perceived benefits of meth
3. Increase parent-child discussions on meth
4. Increase the social disapproval of meth use

Now for the question of the day. How do we increase the social disapproval of drug abuse in order to reduce the number of new users, while still not stigmatizing existing users so they are more reluctant to come forward for treatment?

I think I've got a pretty good handle on the first three personally, but that fourth one can be tricky. Where's the balance? Can people be made to think it's a vile habit and exert peer pressure to avoid meth without making users more afraid to get the help they need? Do we just sacrifice a few current users in order to scare away those who haven't started yet? Quite a moral conundrum.

Free Lunch

Sometimes there is such a thing as a Free Lunch. Cathy Free writes for the Deseret News here in the Salt Lake City area. A couple of weeks back, she met with my wife for lunch (hence the Free Lunch name) to discuss our story and how we're learning about the resources available to those who care for the children of others.

I am normally wary of news reporters of all sorts because of how badly I've seen stories mangled for the sake of adding hype to draw readers, but both my wife and I have respect for Cathy based on reading her past articles. A short visit during lunch can hardly do to learn such a complicated story in depth, but the story as told is pretty close.

Kelly's goal from the meeting wasn't to show off or stand in the spotlight. She's not like that. The thought would horrify her. Our hope is that the article will raise awareness of the issues we're going through, and to help those who are lost in the sea of questions as they raise the children of relatives, or are forced to deal with the fallout of drug addiction.

When they hear of us raising the nieces and nephew, lots of people say "I could never do that." Given the choice of seeing children tossed into a life of poverty and drug abuse, or taking them in and raising them as your own, it's a choice I think many people could make. It's a choice many do make. For some, there's no option but to do it. Give yourself some credit for what you would do when there doesn't seem to be a good alternative.

Edit: A recovered addict (Thanks for the email, J.D.) was concerned about what looked like a really harsh attitude toward drug addicts in the intro to the article, and that it wasn't a productive way of portraying the issue. Kelly and I agree completely, and it was simply a case of the conversation not being transcribed as accurately as it could have been. Reading the rest of the entries we've posted here should give a much more clear view of our attitudes and efforts.

Drug Court

The mother of our kids-in-care is getting ready for Drug Court. That's a program that lasts a year or more with intensive drug testing, rehabilitation, and training. It's a program where they plead guilty to one or more charges, and the judge puts off enforcement of sentencing and releases them into a treatment program for drug rehabilitation. If they graduate from the program, the charges are all dropped.

This is a positive step, although she'll be facing some difficult issues. It's easy to think clearly and plan while in the forced detox of jail. The hard part is actually following through after release when the temptations are always at hand. Then there are the issues of needing a place to stay, and a job.

Explaining all of this to children is tough. How do you tell kids ranging from 5 to 10 years old that their mother is in a program that will last at least a year before she can get out from under a list of felony charges? The timeframe is mindboggling to kids that age, and I don't have any idea how to meaningfully describe the charges in anything better than vague terms.

The kids deserve to know how things are going, but it's a delicate balance to describe things in a way that will mean something to each child. I can't tell them they'll be staying with their parents eventually, because I have no idea if that's true. I can't say they'll overcome their addictions. What I can say is that their parents love them very much, that they want to overcome their problems, and that it's good to write encouragements to them.

Results of a different approach

I told recently about how I was stumped on what to write to my sister in law and her husband while they await court dates in jail. We got a letter back from her over the weekend saying how she really appreciated the letter, and that she felt it was the first letter that didn't seem to her to be lecturing and judgemental.

As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of things I could have written. Some things would have been just to make myself feel better. Some would be just a rant. Luckily I took the time to come up with what I thought would be the most useful.

Perhaps I've discovered an effective way to communicate with her by approaching the situation from a teacher-student relationship rather than the saint-sinner mode that is so easy to fall into by default. In most cases, education seems to work better than rebuke.

Everybody knows things that they should be doing, but that they don't quite get around to doing. With some people it's more serious and important things that don't get done. The trick is to translate "know" into "do." Like Yoda said, "Do, or do not. There is no try." Having an excuse for failure still means you failed and someone has to take up the slack.

So how do we get from knowing something to doing something? It works forward through the concept that I sent in that letter a week and a half ago, where what we do is based on what we think. I believe we need to have both a reason that we care about, and a plan to get us there.

I'll be concentrating on providing those reasons and plans as I work on writing the next letter.

Six Ways to Spin Bad News

It can be tough to tell children that one or both parents are in jail. It can generate a lot of hard feelings. We got asked a lot of "whys" last week. My wife had to explain to our nine year old nephew that the police are still the good guys, even though they arrested both his mom and dad and sent them to jail. Here are some ways to ease the hurt when you need to break the news.

1. It's the best place for them to take care of their legal problems. They won't miss any court appearances because they will have someone in charge of making sure they show up. They can't forget, they don't need to find transportation, and they will be getting constant encouragement to resolve things, even if they're spread across multiple jurisdictions.
2. It's a good place to get into rehab. Availability of rehab programs has been improving as the scope of the drug problem has become more public. If nothing else, it's an enforced detox. They've got a better shot at getting into rehab if it's part of the reason they're in jail. Some people when out on their own just don't quite seem to find the time, or don't like a particular program, or want to find something that's just right. In jail, they have much less flexibility, but much more schedule and direction.
3. We know where they are. It's possible to write letters and send pictures and know they'll get delivered.
4. Arrests can greatly speed up the resolution of cases. They'll be out on their own without being a fugitive when they're done. Justice is a good thing. When we do what we should, it protects us. When we don't do what we should, it protects others from us, and helps us to change. It's not just about punishment.
5. They won't be out breaking the law and creating more legal cases. The worst they can do in jail is manufacture contraband from the minimal supplies they have on hand. Sure, one could get into a lot of trouble while in jail, but it's a whole lot easier outside than inside.
6. Birthday and Christmas shopping are greatly simplified. This may sound flippant, but it actually came up with us. The kids pooled some allowance money, and their dad later told them what he had bought as their Christmas presents to him. All you need to do is put some money on their commisary account, and they can buy their own things from the allowed list. No need to wonder what it is they need the most, since that choice is taken away from you for the most part. One exception that is allowed locally is that a publisher can send books directly to an inmate. Once they're done reading it, the book goes into a library for other inmates to use.

Some of these items will be more comforting than others. Some might not apply in your case, but for us it helps to have a list when talking with the kids. It helps them feel informed. They deserve to know how things are going, and how they can be involved whether through calls, letters, or visits. Also remember that one size does not fit all. Each child will react differently. Our five year old niece for instance was overheard just over a year ago talking to one of her friends at church in a cheerful tone of complete innocence, "No, really! My daddy is in jail."

A Captive Audience

What do you tell someone when you absolutely know the message will arrive? Last week both parents of our kids-in-care were taken into custody on different charges after a court appearance. Now I know where they are, and can easily get a letter to each of them. But what do I write? I spent three days dwelling on that.

How about giving them advice? I couldn't think of a single thing I hadn't already said. They know all the advice, they've heard it, and quite often agree with it. Giving advice would be reduntant.

How about a good chewing out? I could write something that could peel the paint of even a jail's industrial cinderblock walls without even resorting to profanity. I could tell them all sorts of things about how I feel about their choices, lifestyle, friends, actions, and attitudes. Would it do them or me any good? Nope.

I was stumped. Then I read a report on a religious leadership conference that was held on February 10, 2007 in Salt Lake City. Two of the messages from that conference were about teaching. Finally, I had a theme that struck a chord with me. So what could I teach?

I'm not sure what the final step in the inspiration was, but I remembered the concept that thoughts lead to actions, actions lead to habits, habits lead to character, and character leads to destiny. Given that idea, what does everything hinge on? I decided to work backwards. If you know what you would like as a destiny, the rest can be determined from there until it all relies on thoughts.

With the letters I wrote, I already knew one of their biggest desires, to be a part of the lives of their children. From there, it all worked back to a matter of controlling their thoughts in order to get that result that they wanted. Controlling your thoughts is no easy task, but it's certainly easier than trying to address character, habits, and actions as well.

I have no idea how long they will each be in custody. It could range from days to months. It depends entirely on the court system, whatever plea deals they can work out, and availability of drug treatment programs. I've heard that being in jail can give you lots of time to sit and think. Hopefully I've given them each something to think about that will be more useful than dwelling on the effects of their enforced detox.

Who cares?

I mentioned previously how my wife's sister had run off to hide in a fit of anger or dispair, or whatever the excuse of the day was. Well, we found out this morning that she had come back, and was with her husband again at whatever friend's house they're visiting at the moment.

Her husband had called around looking for her last week, and to see if anyone had heard from her. At least he called to tell us he had no idea where she was and that she was missing. Neither of them ever tells us where they've run off to, so I don't know why he would expect us to know anything. We worried, but figured she would eventually show up again like she has previously. We also figured neither would bother to call us when she came back if past behavior held true.

Sure enough, we found out this morning that she's been back with her husband at least since yesterday. She called my wife to ask about visiting her children before going into a rehab program that they're trying to get into. That was our first indication that she was accounted for. My wife explained to her that when one of them runs off, please let everyone know when the runaway returns, so we can know to stop worrying.

Getting into an inpatient rehab may be able to keep court cases from turning back into warrants, which might explain their rush to try to get into a place tonight. Especially considering she slept in and missed her court date today. For those that don't know, excessive sleep is one of the signs of crashing after a meth high that can include several days straight with no sleep at all.

So the answer to the question in the title is that we care. The problem is that there's usually not much we can do except to track events and watch their lives progress like a slow-motion train wreck. Stephen R. Covey wrote in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that we should align our sphere of influence with our sphere of concern. That means simply that you should worry about what you can change, and not worry about the things you can't change. I sure hope we can do something that helps them change. I'm not ready to stop caring yet, and neither are their kids.

Weak spots in the criminal justice system

Here I am, looking at a list of ten felony charges against the parents of the kids we are raising, spread over four different cases. And that's only counting the ones filed with the district attorney. There are other open cases with several local justice courts. How do things get crazy like this?

We place a lot of trust in our courts that they will be able to effectively dispense justice. Normally everything works well. For the most part, the guilty are punished according to the legal guidelines, and the innocent are protected. The right to a speedy trial is met.

The troublesome part is when the assumptions made by the legal system are not met. For instance, there's an assumption that people place a high value on having a valid driver's license. For some people, the thought of losing their license is incentive enough to stay away from situations where they may lose that license. Unfortunately, there are others who don't really care. They'll drive whether they have a license or not. Who cares if the car is insured? Certainly not the one who drives without a license.

How about having a stable physical address? Most people have an apartment or home. The probation and warrant systems become very ineffective if someone happens to be homeless, or bounces from hotel to hotel at night.

Phone numbers are the same way. I've had the same phone number for over ten years, and that includes moving once. In our case with the parents of the children we are raising, I've seen about a dozen phone numbers over just one year while trying to keep a path of communication open. The phones always seem to get broken, stolen, lost, turned off for lack of payment, or the number gets to be known by the wrong people and abandoned.

Then there are court-imposed fines and fees. To someone living on the fringe with no home, no job, an occasional phone, and the lifestyle that goes with those limitations, fines and fees just don't mean anything. Sure, they're waiting, building up, and may get sent to collections or turn back into warrants in the future, but it's hard to remember them, let alone care about them. The only real attention-getter is actual jail time, and non-violent offenders are regularly released due to overcrowding. That means the best wake-up call available can't be used most of the time for those who fit the profile I've described.

In most cases, the system is designed around the idea that people are generally under control and occasionally make mistakes. Most people are easy to get in touch with. Most people have jobs, places to live, and a telephone. When none of those apply, it's easy to see holes in the system that cause amazing delays, and court cases can stall for months at a time. If the wayward soul continues to rack up new cases while the old ones are delayed, it can turn into a nightmare just to track them all, let alone attend and resolve things.

Now, life can be pretty unpleasant for those who are hard to track. It's not the kind of lifestyle that most would choose. It's almost always the last remaining choice when nothing else works.

Most of the time, things seem to get back in sync fairly well when the person who has been flying under the radar is arrested. Some jurisdictions are able to pick up on that and get their court dates and prosecutions back on track. Unfortunately, not all of them are tied in to each other that well, and they may not even know the person they want is already in someone else's jail.

I'm sure things are leaps and bounds better than they used to be due to increased use of technology. Online databases of court dates, jail rosters, and all those things are a powerful resource. It's just discouraging that things could be so much more uniform and fair if it were not for budget constraints and variability in rules and procedures from one jurisdiction to another.

My biggest advice would be to work to get issues resolved while everyone involved is still stable enough to be employed, and can keep both the rent and phone bill paid. If things are already worse than that, the best you can do is to make sure the various jurisdictions know when an arrest happens so they can get cases all back on track. The right to a speedy trial should apply to more than just the accused. No matter the resolution of those cases, having them closed will be a benefit to everyone involved, particularly the innocent children.

What's left to live for?

Have you ever heard that statement from someone who's trashed their own life through bad choices? What's left to live for? Why bother? What difference does it make? Does anybody even care?

My sister-in-law has run off again in a fit of anger and depression. She's done that a few times now. She usually goes to a friend's place and blows her cash and her mind through drugs to numb the uncomfortable feelings of guilt, shame and regret that are trying to steer her toward recovery. This time is a little bit different. You see, she has two important court dates next week.

We've been compiling a list of her legal problems, and it's over two pages long now of unresolved cases, and resolved cases with outstanding fines. She's been collecting new charges regularly, and not resolving old ones very quickly. So, what indeed is there left to live for?

Shall we start with the simple things? She has four children who love her very much no matter what she does. Trust may be conditional, but a child's love usually isn't. She has a husband that at times would do anything at all for her (and has the jail record to prove it). How about a family that has bent over backwards for her more times than I can count, done what they think is best for her, and offered her a safe place to live if she can only keep a few rules? Note: What she wants and what is best are not always the same thing.

Let's move on to the next rank of things that are a bit less obvious. Some people (like me) have great faith in God. Are faith, repentance, redemption and salvation worth living for? I think so. What would you give up in exchange for eternal salvation? Would it be a lot of work? Yes, but it sounds like a pretty good trade to me.

Now for something obscure. How about trials? Are they worth living for? The answer is a lot more clear if you think about what life would be like without any trials or challenges. No growth. No experience. No sense of satisfaction for a difficult job well done. Some kids like to play video games with all the cheats turned on because it makes them feel tough to be invincible. Eventually most kids mature enough to realize that overcoming a real challenge with a chance of failure is much more rewarding, both in games and in real life. Life with too many challenges can be a disaster, but life with none would be an absolute and changeless hell.

Getting back to the problem at hand, is her massively screwed up life worth living? All she has to do to answer "yes" is to look at what she really has instead of dwelling on what she doesn't have. If she makes her court dates, she'll take some steps in the right direction. There are a lot of steps she can take in the right direction, not all of them terribly difficult once she overcomes one or two major challenges. If she misses her court dates, she'll freefall for a bit longer, have more warrants out, and possibly end up in jail or prison for a while before getting back to making progress.

Whichever way she goes, we'll be here living our normal day-to-day life, raising her children with ours, showing them the joys a good life can provide, challenges and all.

Your Honor is not just a judge’s name

What about honor? Mine and yours specifically. What’s it good for? Is honor just a quaint, old fashioned notion that grandparents talk about the current generation not having?

There are lots of quotes about it. First, the proverb, “There’s no honor among thieves.” Also, “Nobody can acquire honor by doing what is wrong.” And the grand-daddy of them all, “Honor thy father and mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

In each quote, it’s referred to as something that is given or received. Nobody can wake up one morning and decide to have honor all on their own. Some people seek honor with a lot of energy (which often makes it harder to obtain), but it's still up to others to give it.

There are also lots of references to being honor-bound. I don't usually like being bound. What's up with that? What good does it do to have honor given to you if it is so restrictive? For those without any, it probably looks a lot like something to be hung over the heads of others. "If you scoundrels were only as honorable as me...."

It turns out that knowing what honor is good for comes right along with having it. The honorable also become a lot of other things at the same time. They're trustable. They're stable. They're predictable in the way they make many kinds of choices. Every one of these things come from the way we each choose to live. Being honor bound is a privilege people accept, not an obligation that controls us. We can choose to do honorable things and to live our lives within honorable limits. As we do so, others will see our example, and some may follow it.

I've noticed in a lot more detail lately that I could improve my own choices and actions. I could talk about others only when I have something constructive to say, and a good way to say it. I could listen to others better. More importantly, I could show a lot more honor toward others, since there are a lot of people out there who deserve it.

What about those who don't seem to care? Assume they might start caring. On one hand, explain why you think certain actions are a mistake. On the other, be sure to recognize all good choices. Honor and respect are powerful teaching tools. Anyone trying to change for the better is going to have a better time if the are honored for their successes, reinforcing their abilities and desires. I prefer to be offered carrots to being threatened with sticks, and I bet most people are the same way.

So how is your honor doing today?

Getting Financial Help

At the time we were awarded custody (guardianship) of the other children in our home we felt that we would be able to provide for them with the financial means that we have. We also felt that if we went to the State for financial assistance (which is available in some states) that the State would go to the parents for child support. We felt that this would be much like bleeding a turnip. We just didn’t feel it was in the best interest of the parents to pursue it.

Two years later the parents hadn’t progressed, in fact, their situation looked bleaker than before. My husband felt that in considering the best interest of the parents he was overlooking another side of this—the children. We also realized, as we talked this over, that the parents still had an obligation to support their children. It was at this point that my husband sought help from the State of Utah.

He learned that there was a financial program for people just like us. It is called Specified Relative Assistance. We also learned that this program would indeed go after the parents for child support to recoup some of the expense of the assistance.

This program gave us a monthly payment for caring for these children plus free school lunch and additional (secondary) insurance for them. It is actually cheaper for the state to assist in this manner than for those same kids to be cared for in the foster care program.

As for the parents participation in the child support; they have yet to pay a dime. But the state continues to provide assistance. The obligation the parents have to provide for their children remains in effect as the child support bill continues to rise.

Each state has its own regulations. Some may have a similar program to that of the State of Utah. Others may not have anything at all. It doesn’t hurt to find out what is available. Contact your state.

Does drug rehab work?

Don't you just love loaded questions? Depending on who you ask, you'll get radically different answers about the success rates of rehabilitation. Even about particular rehab programs, you will get huge swings of opinion. Take twelve step programs for instance. My sister-in-law believes they don't work. The funny part is that as long as she believes that, it's true for her.

I've read through the entire workbook for a twelve step program produced by my church. They worked with Alcoholics Anonymous to develop an adapted faith-based program. I was impressed with the program. It's designed for addicts of all sorts. Emotional addicts, chemical dependency, and a whole raft of other problems can all be addressed through the program with minor adjustments. I decided that reading it wasn't enough for me to really understand it, so I've actually gone through the first third (so far) of the material meeting all the requirements and answering all the questions on my own as a self-help guide.

So far, I don't see what there is to the program that wouldn't work. The twelve steps are represented by honesty, hope, trust in God, truth, confession, change of heart, humility, seeking forgiveness, restitution and reconciliation, daily accountability, personal revelation, and service. There's nothing shocking or contrary to be found in the whole list.

I can see how several of those steps can be terrifying to someone into a problem way over their head. It can be intimidating for me, when my goal with the personal review of the program is to change some fairly minor aspects of my life.

I can also see that such a program, when applied properly, can transform a person. It can help them to purge the part of their life that is destroying them, and replace it with peace, joy and success. Successful rehabilitation programs can give back things that seem impossible to achieve when viewed from the depths of addiction.

The answer is "YES," these programs can work. They do work, but not for everyone, and not with great predictability. No program will succeed if the addict is unwilling to change absolutely everything that needs to change. No fair holding onto that one questionable friendship. Keeping a stash hidden away for emergencies is admitting defeat. Thinking you know better than the ones running the program is a major sign of pending failure. Deciding you can skip a step because it sounds too hard or pointless will likely doom the effort.

The net result is that success requires several things, many of which are really hard to give. These things include submission, humility, and a desire to do whatever it is required to succeed. Success is also a bit different than some might expect. It may not mean getting back to the way things were. For some, that restoration is just impossible. Everyone else's lives keep moving forward, and if an addict checks out for a few years, the world just isn't the same when they come back. The children we care for have grown over the past two and a half years. Their parents just can't get that time back. But the parents can change, move forward, and be a part of the lives of their children in the future with planning and hard work.

Sorry for not having an easy solution that will work for everyone in minimum time, but that's the way things work. Free will plays a huge part, and if will is opposed to recovery, then recovery fails. If free will is applied entirely to recovering no matter what is required, then success is simply waiting in the wings for the work to be done.

If you are the one wanting to recover, make the sacrifice to start now with your entire heart. If you're concerned about a loved one, support the good decisions they make, and let them know that you approve of their good efforts. It could be all that's needed to nudge them from failure to success.

Searching for Answers

From the day I took four youngsters into my home I have been on a quest for answers. Since we did not go through a state agency we have been left to find these answers ourselves. What do you say to them when they want to know why they can’t live with mommy and daddy? What do you do when the parents tell the kids that they are going to be back together by Christmas…and have made little or no progress toward improving their situation? How do you know if they are making progress? What criteria do you give the parents in order to make that a reality? How do you deal with emotional issues with the children? If there are criminal charges, how do you know what is going on with those? How do you track that? The questions are numerous and varied.

I have spent hours and hours doing research to educate myself with all of these issues and more. I have learned a lot about the parents’ drug of choice. I have learned more about the judicial system and the ins and outs of that than I ever cared to know. There have also been hours looking for information on guardianship and custody issues. I am still looking.

Knowledge is power. It gives you the ability to make the best decisions. It allows you to understand the issues and the problems. When drug addicted parents try to tell you lies you will be better prepared to discern the truth.

There will be times, however, when the truth is just not available. Take heart. Time will tell. Be patient and all things will work out in the end.

Phone Time

We have an interesting contrast at our home. We have to restrict phone time. Not in the way you might expect, based on previous blog entries, though. You see, we have teenagers. They'd be glad to camp on the phone constantly, so we have made a rule of ten minutes off for every twenty minutes on, to show some mercy toward those who are trying to call our house.

Now contrast this with the phone calls to and from the non-custodial parents of our four kids-in-care. Over the past year they've averaged a phone call every week or two, with more than that toward the end of the year during the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The kids will occasionally get onto a kick of calling them, but it can be discouraging to them when they always get the voice mail, and don't always get a return call.

It's also difficult when the parents have been through no less than six different phone numbers over the past half year or so. They will usually tell us something about losing the phone, having it stolen, or something else about how the phone was not working. It really makes little difference why the phone situation is so unstable, whether due to finances, theft, damage or plain old bad reception. The kids know the numbers keep changing, but don't know why. They just know it won't be the same for long, so there's not a lot of point to memorizing the phone number.

It's important that the kids know that we don't discourage the contact. It's important for them to talk to their parents. These kids will always love their parents unconditionally, as they should. It's important that contact is available, even if it's not used regularly, sort of like knowing the fire department is there for emergencies, should one come up.

We can't dictate the stability of their phones, but we can control the stability of our own (and control usage as necessary from our end as I mentioned earlier). We don't have any formal visitation arrangements, and haven't had any reason to set up anything formally at this point. Things are much easier for us in many ways than they are for divorced parents. We don't have any of those ex-spouse-visiting issues or discomfort. Our only real issues with visits are that they give us enough warning to make sure we're available, and so long as the parents are drug addicts, we supervise contact with their children. The purpose of guardians is to guard, after all.

Planning for the Future

About a year ago I told my sister-in-law and her husband that I'd talk to them about how they were doing at the end of the year. These are the parents of the four children of which we have legal custody. That means it's about meeting time. My goal in doing that was to add a little bit of evaluating and reporting to their lives outside of court. Maybe they would change their behavior knowing that they would be responsible to talk about it later. They had asked at Christmas time if we could delay for a month and talk things over at the end of January, so I agreed to their request.

The reason for the review is that we'd seen them struggle over the previous 18 months or so that we'd had their children living with us. They'd split up, gotten back together, been deep into the drug scene, been homeless, wrecked the vehicle they'd neglected to insure, and who knows what else. I wasn't documenting things as well back then.

I'd hoped to give them another reason to do better, but the truth is that nothing significant seems to have changed this past year. Maybe they're keeping some big success story back so they can spring it on me and say "See? I won the lottery," or something like that, but I doubt it. The mom has shown some effort starting rehab again this month, but she's done that before too.

So how do you go about planning for the future when you have no idea what's coming down the road next? The only way we've found that works is to assume that the parents will take care of themselves for good or ill, and plan as if we will have custody of the children until they are adults.

Given this viewpoint, what happens if we're wrong and the parents straighten out, solving all their legal, moral and financial issues, and become paragons of virtue and pillars of society? Everyone is happy, we have a big family reunion, fill out any necessary paperwork, and Bam. Happy families for everyone.

So, what happens if we're right and progress is insufficient? The parents keep on doing whatever it is that they do, and we keep on planning for school activities, summer vacations, piano lessons, church, and all the other things that make up our normal lives. No waiting, no hanging out in the breeze until something happens. No second guessing. Life is consistent, and often very good to us.

I'm sure you've heard the expression "Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on you." We've taken that to heart, and plan our lives with our expanded collection of children as if this is normal life, and by doing so it really becomes normal life. Oh, and we won't stop praying for their parents either.

My Halo is held up by Horns

A couple things happen when people learn that I am raising three nieces and a nephew as well as my own five children. First they are amazed that I could do it. They feel that they could never do something like that. Then they tell me what a good person I am for taking them into my home.

In each response I shake my head. I have had friends who have taken total strangers into their homes through foster care and taken care of them as their own. I always said that I could never do that. It was one thing to take care of my own children day after day, but I was always glad when parents came to get their children after a day of just tending them.

I learned a valuable lesson about stewardship. When I was merely tending children for the day or a couple hours I did not have much control over the things they were taught when they were not with me. Parents do not always, in fact they rarely do, have the same set of rules as we might have.

While a child is under our temporary care we may have to remind them of the rules of our house. They may or may not like your rules and if they don’t, there isn’t much you can do about it.

The other thing about this is that you don’t have access to all their toys and other belongings. They are left to figure out how to keep themselves entertained with the things you have around your house.

When children come into your home to live rather than just to visit, a new world of authority opens up and discipline can be a lot easier. This is not to say that it is perfect…just easier. It took us a few weeks to establish a few ground rules, but once those rules were established and they felt that my home was their home, things got a lot easier to manage.

I have also developed a great response to those who think that I am so wonderful to take these children in. I have a halo and it is held up by horns.

To those on the outside I sometimes look like a saint. On the inside I am dealing with some youngsters who really want to live with their mom and dad, but because of the actions of those parents, cannot. There have been tantrums—not just from the children. There have been times when I have been overwhelmed when I didn’t have the answers. There were times when I really wanted to run away myself.

But there have also been times, many of them, when little rewards sneak up and give you a big hug. This morning I walked through my bedroom doorway and noticed a little note written by my five year old niece. She had written our names at the top alongside hers and said, “I love you two.” She had misspelled ‘love’, but what was written on her heart was spelled correctly.

Being the favorite aunt and being the worst aunt all in the same day is a lot of work. But the rewards for being favorite aunt far out weigh the heart ache of being the worst.

Document Everything

The parents of the child you care for will have troubled lives. That is a given, because you wouldn't have to care for the child otherwise. Identifying exactly how troubled is really quite impossible without spending every moment with them, which is completely impractical. Still, it is critical to have as much of a record as you can manage detailing how things are going.

We've come up with a novel way of tracking how the parents of our kids-in-care are doing. Whenever either my wife's sister or her husband have a court date, I put it onto a calendar. Whenever they make a phone call, that also goes onto the calendar along with a description of the call. When one of them is arrested or released due to either bail or overcrowding, that goes on just like everything else.

Any medium will do. You can use a pad of paper, an email program with calendaring, or any of the many web calendaring tools like those at Google or Yahoo. The method isn't nearly as important as the content. My personal preference at the moment is Google, because it allows me to easily share the calendar with other family members who share our interest.

In our case, the troubles are not just social, but legal as well. What if I want to count how many days they were in jail last year? Break out the calendar. How many times did they call in January? Look it up. What if I can't remember the ID number for that Identity Theft case? Look that up too.

That leads to another area of information that is really useful. Some jails have online access to bookings, releases and occupancy. Check your county lockup to see if they do. If they have one, that web interface can give you a lot of information so you know what's going on in their life. Many courts also publish calendars online, and you can sometimes even look up warrant information. My wife and I have collected a great set of links for the Salt Lake City area. Here's a sampling:

Salt Lake County Jail
Utah District Court Calendars
Davis County Sheriff
Salt Lake County District Attorney Active Cases

A lot of cities do not have electronic interfaces to their court calendars, warrants, or citations. That means it will take plain old phone calling to look things up with those smaller jurisdictions. Most jurisdictions are perfectly willing to share information if you can document that you have a reason to be interested, or if you already have case numbers.

The more information you have on what they're doing, where they're living, when they call, where they are working and everything else, the better armed you will be to either support their claim of being recovered and reformed, or to support protecting their children from them, depending on the path they take.

Insurance Issues

When we picked up four kids-in-care, we hadn't considered everything that we would need to arrange to properly see to their needs. We knew that they needed a home, food and schooling, but beyond that we hadn't really thought about it. There's a limit to what you can do on a single day's notice.

One of the issues we hadn't thought much about in advance was insurance. I have my family insured through my employer. The family policy covers medical and dental insurance as most similar plans do. The children arrived uninsured, since neither parent had a job with insurance benefits. They'd been on state aid for a while, but that's all we had record of.

I approached the Human Resources department at work to see what would be necessary to add the new kids to the insurance plan. They told me that the kids could not be added to the policy. In order to add them, I would need custody of the kids to be formally given to me through the courts.

At this point the parents hadn't yet shown signs of serious drug addiction. I don't even know if they were regular drug abusers at that point. All I knew was that the kids were going to be with us for a while while the parents were fighting, and that the parents could not insure them. It's a scary feeling to be financially exposed like that. What if one of the kids needed surgery or hospitalization for some other reason? Whose obligation would it be to pay?

A little study showed me that it was still the parent's responsibility to support their children, even after custody changes. That did me little good, since I knew they had nothing to pay in case of emergency. That all lead to a real soul-searching conversation with the parents. I told them that to properly care for their children, they needed insurance. Since the parents couldn't provide it, there weren't really many options.

I could insure them, but only if I had custody. There may have been some form of state aid available without the formal change in custody, but I wasn't familiar with what agencies to contact at that point. The parents decided with us that it was best to sign over custody, so we went through all the paperwork. Utah has a convenient Internet-based system called OCAP (Online Court Assistance Program) for uncontested cases where you can represent yourself and pay greatly reduced court fees.

We filled out the paperwork, got the required signatures, and got a court date. We were there, both parents were there, and my wife's mother was there together in the courtroom. After a few tears and no objections, we had been given full custody, which allowed us to insure the children through my work policy. All I needed was to take to our Human Resources department an original stamped version of the court order along with all the birthdates and social security numbers of the children. It was easy, since the custody paperwork had required all that information anyway.

I've changed jobs since then, but it's been the same routine. Get a certificate of creditable coverage for everyone in the family, and take the original custody form to prove that they should be allowed on the insurance policy.

Now that we have custody, it is the parent's responsibility to demonstrate to us at some point in the future that they can once again care for the children. They're back together now, and have at least a desire to get clean. We play it month by month and year by year, always making sure the children know they are welcome and can plan to be with us forever if necessary.

Those of you with a court-ordered custody cases rather than voluntary cases have different rules and requirements, and quite likely a deadline after which the state proceeds to adoption rather than reunification. Those of you with no custody arrangement at all should examine the possibilities closely and do what you can to best care for the children.

For us, it was a poignant but necessary step in giving the children the care they needed. Will it work out that way for you? I couldn't possibly predict that because I don't know your unique situation. I'm simply sharing one case of how things turned out, and hoping to have shared some possibilities that will be useful with you.

Enabling

We all face tough choices. When an addict comes to me for help, what do I do? It depends on a lot of things. Do I have the means to help? Do I have the time to help? Will what they are asking actually help them? The last question has to do with the concept of enabling.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'll define enabling for you:

Actions or lack of action that encourage or promote continued or worsened bad
behavior.

Now for some examples. Some of these are tough calls, and I don't even pretend to know the right answers in everyone's special conditions.

"Can you help me with rent? They're going to evict me if I don't pay by Tuesday."

Sorry, but paying the rent means that what was supposed to go to rent ends up going to drugs. This is tough. It may end up with them on the street, or hanging with friends. It may end up that they have nowhere to go but your living room couch. Despite all this, the hard lesson is that their responsibilities don't go away when ignored.

"I need some cash for a bus pass so I can get to work."

This is actually a bit misleading. They don't need the cash, really. (See the rent response.) What they need is a bus pass. The response here depends on how desperate they are. From what I've seen personally, buying the pass has been useful. It's helped to get them to both work and court appearances. The tough part is to keep it from being a new monthly expense on your part, so it needs to come with restrictions that you will stick to. It could be something like "I can get you a pass for this month, but next month is entirely your job." Then do not give in next month or you will have turned into their monthly transportation supplier.

"I can't get to work until my car has (new brakes/headlights/gas/whatever)."

Can you afford the expense? Let's assume yes. Is it your responsibility? Not likely. Can you do it as an act of compassion? So long as it doesn't involve the addict handling any cash. Will it help? It depends on the situation. If it's really a crisis they couldn't have avoided, I'm more likely to side with mercy. If it's something they could have done, but blew the cash on a high, then I'm inclinded to let justice rule.

You've probably noticed a theme here. Addicts are poor handlers of cash. Money in the hand tends to turn quickly into a high rather than going toward rent, food, auto repairs, or child care. Will they pitch a fit when you don't hand over what they want? Of course they will. You need to be strong and realize they will do almost anything and say almost anything to get what they think they need.

You will be called heartless. You will likely be sworn at. They may cry and tell you that you're the only thing keeping them from death in a gutter on some forgotten street. They may even threaten suicide. If you buckle and give them what they want instead of what they need, nothing will change. Learning that actions result in consequences is something everyone should learn as a child simply because it's so painful to learn it as an adult. It looks to me like it's even worse to learn about consequences as a drug addicted adult.

Their responses will tell you a lot about what they really need. It could be that they need jail, therapy, intervention, rehabilitation, or even just a bus pass. Every case is different, and you need to be aware of how your assistance will be used in order to know if it's the right thing to do.

Until you see them managing their own money successfully and paying their bills with money earned through their job, don't even consider sending cash their way. Once they are managing their own accounts, they won't need cash assistance for anything but emergencies.

We must all be compassionate and care for those who cannot care for themselves, but please never get confused between acts of compassion and enabling the destruction of another human being. Do what you can to help them to recover. That's quite often different from what they want.

Success Stories

It's amazing how well children can do when put into an environment where they have structure, rules, and most importantly love. My own story includes my lovely wife, our five children ranging from sixteen to ten year old twins, along with three nieces and a nephew who range from ten to five. Their parents have a long history of both legal and drug abuse issues. They seemed to have mostly gotten over things for a while, but there was a major relapse. We were asked if we could take the kids for a while since they were seperated, barely scraping by, and couldn't give the kids the care they needed.

We've had legal custody of them now for over two years, and don't know if the parents will recover their lives or not. What matters most to us is that the kids now have a stable environment in which to thrive, and thrive they have. They're doing great in school and church. They have friends. Not to mention never a dull moment with a total of nine kids in the house.

Sure, it's hectic. Sure, it's tough sometimes. Sure, life would have been simpler with just our own five kids. But what would you have done if you knew that you were the last line of defense, the last shot for four children to have a shot at a fairly normal life? The rewards are worth every minute of it. We share. We help each other. We teach each other. I wouldn't ever wish to go back and change that choice to take in four children who needed help.

Personal successes keep us going. Sharing those successes are what keep others going in the face of adversity and trial. Do you have a success to share about raising children of addicts, or with addiction itself? Please share so we can all benefit.

Drug Addiction Recovery Resources

If you know of a good web resource for drug addiction recovery, foster children, or kin care, post a reply here and let us all know what you've found and why it has helped you. Between us, we'll do a lot better job of locating all those useful bits of the Internet. I know that I certainly haven't found all the useful stuff out there.

Just include a URL, the name, and why you think it was useful.