Do you worry about applying the Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard as a foster parent? Check out this interview with Rhonda Serrano, a senior attorney at the ABA Center on Children and the Law, and Kate Schultz, the Deputy Director at Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina and a licensed foster parent.
In this episode, we cover:
Factors to consider when applying this standard.
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Do you worry about applying the Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard as a foster parent? Check out this interview with Rhonda Serrano, a senior attorney at the ABA Center on Children and the Law, and Kate Schultz, the Deputy Director at Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina and a licensed foster parent.
In this episode, we cover:
Factors to consider when applying this standard.
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Welcome, everyone, to Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive, and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of the show, as well as the director of the non -profit, Creating a Family dot org.
Today, we're going to be talking about the reasonable and prudent parent standard. I am sure you have heard about that. And we will learn all about it today through talking with our two guests.
We have Rhonda Serrano. She is a senior attorney at the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. Law, where she works with the state permanency barriers,
trial skills training, and various other projects that focus on high quality legal representation, youth engagement, and multi -disciplinary representation. Prior to joining the Center in January 2020,
she spent over 20 years representing children in their dependency cases at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. We also have Kate Schultz. Kate is the the Deputy Director at Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina and a licensed foster parent.
She has a master's degree in trauma -informed education and works with resource parents and professional involved in child welfare across North Carolina. Welcome Rhonda and Kate to creating a family.
- Thank you. - Thank you so much for having us. - Okay, Rhonda, I'm gonna start with you because this is more of a legal question. question. So where does the concept and the term for reasonable and prudent parent come from?
- Okay, so it comes from the Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act that was passed in 2014. And they decided that, yes, children in foster care need to have a sense of normalcy.
And because of that, they were like, well, as a foster parent, they should be able to have a sense of normalcy. to use a reasonable, prudent parent standard in order to be able to allow the foster children in their care to be able to participate in extracurricular activities,
cultural activities, just the normal type of activities that children who are not in foster care are able to participate in. so that legislation was passed in order to allow that to happen.
>> In general, we wanted kids in foster care to have the same childhood experiences as kids not in foster care. We wanted to normalize their childhood, or their childhood, adolescenthood,
or whatever. That was the gist. So the reasonable and prudent parent standard is supposed to be characterized by careful and simple parental decisions with the idea towards maintaining a child's health safety as well as the best interest.
But we also want to encourage the child to grow emotionally and developmentally and the things that other kids or age peers are doing. And a caregiver is supposed to be able to use this standard to determine whether to allow a child,
which whom they're caring for, to participate in extracurricular enrichment and social activities. So anyway, those are the terms extracurricular enrichment and social activities that were included that we were supposed to consider.
So Kate, who does this standard apply to? It's for resource parents and group home staff, caregivers, kinship caregivers that are caring for kids in out -of -home placement and foster care.
Okay, as well as I would add group home staff. I don't think you mentioned that, but it also applies to staff, men, children, and group homes as well. Rhonda, does it apply to all children in youth in foster care?
- It does, and the beauty of it is it's individualized. So wherever that child is developmentally and their age and maturity levels,
whoever the caregiver is can make those determinations based on those type of things. But it is absolutely... for all children who are in foster care. Ronda,
there is a distinction being made between the term activity and the term service. Why is that important? It's important because when we're talking about activities,
we're talking about things like being able to go to the movies with their friends, being able to participate in extracurricular activities, being able to participate in extracurricular activities. being able to do overnights with their peers,
or to be able to travel, say they're on a basketball team or a football team or whatever the team is, so that they can travel if they have like a tournament out of state.
So they'll be able to do that and the foster parent can make that determination to allow them to do those normal activities. The services are something that will be considered by the agency that's in charge of the child.
- Give us some example of what you mean by services that would be contrasted with the extracurricular enrichment type activities. Give us an example of services. - So those services would be more of a longer term type thing.
So if the child was going to do that, go into respite care, that would be something that would have to be approved in terms of background checks would be necessary just to make sure that depending on the length of time that they're with someone who has been,
and I'm gonna use the word vet in order for them to be there. And of course, Kate can probably enlighten us even more. - Kate, can you think of other services which would not fall?
fall under the reasonable and prudent parent standard versus activities? And we're gonna get into more detail on activities in just a moment. - I mean, technically, I feel like so kind of goes hand in hand with activities,
but things that need approval is leaving the state or traveling for more than 72 hours needs approval. There are certain types of activities that are a little more risky that require approval that don't fall under. Prudent parenting standard,
respite is a big line, more than 72 hours in the child. child's care institute approved by the agency. So I think you guys kind of covered it pretty well. Kate, can you give us some examples from your experience or from the families you work with of extracurricular activities?
I'm going to contrast it. The legislation actually talks about four different types of activities, extracurricular, enrichment, cultural, and social activities. So can you give us some examples of all of those?
Let's start with extracurricular. So that would be, you know, athletics and sports, if a child is interested in playing basketball or soccer or softball, those types of things, it allows you to make the decision to enroll them in those sports and get them into participating.
Okay, what about enrichment? After school clubs, maybe part of that. Panel lessons. Right, those types of things, volunteer opportunities or school field trips, those types of things. of activities that encourage their learning.
After school work could be considered perhaps that as well. Cultural activities go pretty much without saying they would involve anything that would be furthering either the culture they come from or just in general anything cultural.
Social activities I think also go without saying that would include sleepovers. It would include attending the prom just in general anything that would fall. into typical social activities.
Rhonda, would these activities usually be included? Things such as phone and computer use are being on social media. Are those things that the foster parent would have the right to make decisions on?
Yes, they would. They would monitor it, just as any parent would monitor their child. in using the telephone or accessing the social media sites like,
"Well, I'm not going to age myself," but the ones that are popular. TikTok, Instagram, come on. Yes. Yeah, they include those, but of course with monitoring, like any parent would monitor the usage of those outlets.
Right. So, Kate, what about curfews and are you allowed to date? date and who are you allowed to hang out with without adult supervision, that type of thing? Does that fall into things that foster parents can make the decision on?
- Yeah, so anything that as an adoptive parent or a biological parent you may make decisions on or help guide your kids to do would fall under a different parenting with kids that you're caring for in your home through foster care as well.
- And what about driver's license or getting your license? learner's permit? I know that in the past prior to the law that instituted the reasonable and prudent parent standard,
that was a real issue in many states. So what's allowed now under the reasonable and prudent parent standard as far as driver's license, learning permits and things like that? - Teens are still allowed to pursue those things so long as they have approval from their caregivers and then following state laws and things like that.
But there's... still allowed to get permits, get licenses, but they just have to follow the state laws. Kate, one last one for you. What about, as our kids approach in their teen years,
they're doing a lot of unsupervised social activities, going to the movies, dating, hanging out with friends' houses overnight, blah, blah, blah. All those type of things.
Do you have to get permission from caseworkers or can foster parents maybe? those decisions? I should say foster and other resource parents 'cause that would also include kinship parents. - Right, resource parents can make those decisions.
It really just kind of depends on the child that you're caring for at the time. Some kids can handle that level of responsibility and some cannot. So again, you're just using your best judgment to make a safe decision for the child while also giving them as many normal experiences and opportunities like having sleepovers with friends if that's something that they're able to do.
or going to the movies or going to walk around the mall for a couple of hours by themselves if they're old enough to handle that little responsibility. We don't want kids to miss out on normal activities and not be able to have the same experiences as their peers just because they're in foster care.
Rhonda, would a background check be required if your child is going to spend the weekend say at a grandparents' house or sleepover at a friend's house? So under their reasonable prudence?
parent standard, that background check would not be necessary 'cause it's usually like 24 to 48 hours or so, the foster parent would be able to allow the foster child to spend overnights and like a foster grandparent would be considered part of the family,
part of the family support and that would be allowed without the background check. - Yeah, I do think that different states states probably have a different time. Kate, have you heard of different time requirements or limitations for how long a child can stay with their grandparents before that grandparent has to then have a background check?
- So in North Carolina, it's up to 72 hours that the child can be with someone that you trust as a friend or a family member. And then beyond that 72 hour window, you would need to get the background check and the approval from the caseworker.
caseworker. Everyone would need to check with their state. The states will be slightly different. So check with your state. Generally what I've heard is 72 or 48 at a minimum,
but your state may be different. So check. In my experience as a resource parent as well, sometimes different agencies, especially the private agencies versus the state, sometimes interpreted slightly different too.
So it's always good to check with your agency as well just to make sure they don't. have any additional things that they want you to follow when you sign your paperwork with that agency to become licensed. - That's actually a good point. Check with your agency 'cause they're gonna know the state law,
but their rules might be more stringent. So good point, that is who you should be checking with. All right, so Kate, you alluded to this earlier. Are there activities that are inherently considered too risky for the resource parent to make the decision on whether to make a decision on whether to make a decision on whether to make a decision on whether to make a decision.
participate. - At least in North Carolina, kids can't write on a lawn mower unless they're of a certain age. You know, it's kind of just a silly example, but a more serious example would be, you know, if a child is interested in hunting or using some type of firearm,
that's not something that a caregiver or a foster parent can make a decision on. It has to go through an approval process because it's obviously significantly risky to hand a child a firearm if they're trained on how to properly use it in a safe way.
There are also some other situations. situations, especially once you get past that window of parenting standard where things might be considered a little more risky, using larger equipment, four wheelers,
ATVs, those types of things sometimes require additional permissions to use them to ensure the child's safety during the activity. Again, your agency will have usually a list of specific and when in doubt as a resource parent ask you inherently.
inherently know which activities could potentially be a problem. So get the list because your agency will have a list and when in doubt, ask. For North Carolina, there is a reasonable and parenting activities guide that you can download off of the internet as well as a PDF that has a list of examples in different categories of things that you can do under a reasonable and parenting standard and then things that you need
permission for. Okay, and some states will have that some. some states will not, but your agency will be your guide on this one, be it a public agency or a private agency. Did you know that we have on our website 12 free courses?
They're aimed at those who are in the midst of parenting, be it foster adoptive or kinship parenting. They are brought to you by the Jockey Being Family Foundation. They're one hour,
they are terrific course. they come with a certificate of attendance if you need that. Only reason we need that is a foster or kinship family who needs it for in -service training hours perhaps.
You can find them at bit .ly /jbfsupport, that's b -i -t dot l -y slash j -b -f support. All right,
so the activities, and again we're talking activities, not services. is supposed to be age or developmentally appropriate. Rhonda, who makes the decision if the activity is age or developmentally appropriate?
- It does start with the foster parent and they have hopefully gone through training in order to be able to first learn that they have this ability to make these reasonable,
prudent parents decisions. It fits all on there. conversations with the caseworker. And, you know, I don't want us to forget about the parents. - We're gonna come to that because that's a very important point and we absolutely,
it's going to come to that because it is important and we want to have its own section to discuss it. - Yeah, but yeah, I think the caregiver is the one who is interacting with the child every single day.
They interact with the workers. They... they interact with teachers, with medical providers, if there's mental health providers, they interact with them. And they have a sense of where that child is in terms of their developmental stage,
their maturity level. So, I think that they are an excellent source of being able to make that determination. Okay, now I want to go through some of the factors that we resource parents would weigh in making the decision.
Is this an activity that a reasonable and prudent parent would allow their child to participate in? And keeping in mind that these are much the same things that any parent would consider. In fact,
it should be the things that any parent would consider when making a decision, whether their children already living in their home, their own children, would be able to participate. This is not something that is outside of the parenting decision making.
I think because we call it a standard, it makes it seem like it is something different and unique when in fact every decision we make as a parent, assuming we think of ourselves as being reasonable and prudent or at least reasonable,
we'd be weighing these factors. And also, as Rhonda said at the beginning, this standard is intended to be individualized and customized to the child. This is not a cookie color approach.
Every 13 -year -old is allowed to do X. That simply isn't how parenting works, it isn't how children work, and it's not how the standard is supposed to work. And we're supposed to take into consideration the child's age,
their maturity, and their developmental level. All right, so why don't we just go between the two of you. In fact, we'll go through all three of us, sharing factors that you would weigh when making the decision of whether or not not child can participate in this activity.
Rhonda, we'll start with you. So you'd want to think about the risk factors of the activity that they are going to be participating in. Okay, Kate.
Behavioral history, current behaviors, sometimes kids grow past previous behaviors and are able to try new activity even though they may have struggled with something in the past. But if it's an ongoing concern,
check with our therapists too. if they have one, but also use your best judgment or the prudent parenting standard to determine like if a child can handle something, you know, if a child is struggling with aggression towards peers,
then they maybe shouldn't go unsupervised with other peers. So just taking into consideration their behavioral concerns or if there's a significant panic or anxiety disorder, things like that, they may need some additional assistance in order to engage in those activities.
But if they don't have those struggles, then they can probably safely do them. them on their own. Okay, excellent. Another example is a child who has struggled with sticky fingers, shoplifting in the past,
should probably not go with their peers unsupervised to the mall to walk around. Correct. Okay, I'll give a factor to consider. How important is it to the child or the youth to do this activity?
Does it fit with their interests, their likes and their dislikes? Is this something that is important to them and they really want to do? So I think that has to be taken into consideration. Okay,
Rhonda, it's your turn. Do you have another factor that parents would consider? - Let's see. We've already talked about their emotional behavioral and all the developmental buzzwords. We want to think about their health,
their mental health. Where do they stand? Does the activity pose any risk to any mental health, any triggers that they may have? you also want to take into consideration their physical health,
and if this activity is something that is going to be safe for them. Okay, and Kate, how about you? Does it promote their development in some way? You know,
does it give them skills to continue to advance in life, especially when we're talking about our older kids? Is this activity going to help them develop new skills that will help them transition into adulthood? And if so,
that's probably really really valuable activity to consider letting them participate in. Or even if it's something that contributes to their identity in some way, is it a cultural and ethnic or religious activity that is really valuable to them?
Yes, that's a good one. Rhonda had talked about risk, how risky is the activity. I also think that we need to give our young people opportunities for healthy risk taking. I think that taking risks is developmentally appropriate.
as our children are in their adolescence. And looking for opportunities where they can test their limits within a supervised environment, I think,
is healthy. So does it provide an opportunity for healthy risk -taking? I would also say is a factor to consider. Rhonda, we're up for you. Do you have another factor?
I think you probably hit on it earlier when you were talking about how much does the child want to do whatever the activity is. Maybe it's something that someone else is pushing on them.
Like maybe they don't want to be in the choir. Maybe they're a great singer and they don't want to be on the choir, but someone may be pushing them. You know, is this something that they really, really want to do? You just have conversations with them about whether to participate or whether not to participate.
But yeah, just really delve into it. the subject with the child. - Okay, Kate, thoughts on some other factors? - One that I think is kind of, well, not kind of, it's really important.
And it's one of the more serious things to consider when deciding if a child should participate is, do they have medical needs that may interfere with the activity? And if they do, do they know how to ask for help if they have a medical situation come up?
But then also the other side of that, too, is, are there safety problems? in place by the therapist or PCP or their court orders that may be violated by this activity? You know, there are certain situations where there are other stipulating conditions and factors that are put in place by other people that are involved in the child's care that need to be considered when you're saying yes or no to an activity for the
child. Absolutely. The last one and then there are others and we will list them elsewhere, but another one would be is there going to be appropriate adult supervision at this activity?
There are times where youth should and have the opportunity to do things where they are not being supervised, but depending on the activity, you may be looking for adult supervision. So that would be a question.
If your child is going to a party over at Leticia's house, asking whether Leticia's parents are going to be there is often not a bad idea. And perhaps checking with Leticia's parents. parents to know if they've even heard about the party is not a bad idea either.
Speaking from personal experience. (laughing) So I also think it's important to say that saying no is also a normal experience.
It's also a normalizing. The reasonable and prudent parent standard does not mean that it's an automatic yes. It's okay to say. no, or I might say yes.
You can go over to Bethany's house once you finish your chores, or yes, you can, but it's a mask no. Sometimes it can be no. You know,
the last time you were at the mall, you came home with things you didn't pay for. So no, you're not going to go to the mall. So it's not an automatic yes. I think sometimes some resource parents have thought,
well, this standard means that I'm going to be judged if I say no. It is reasonable and prudent for parents to say no at times. So, yeah, great. I'm so glad that you bought that up because that is so important because just because they ask and just because it's something that they really,
really want to do doesn't mean that it has to be a yes. And one of the other things that I want to throw in real quick is that as the caregiver to the best of their ability,
they have to take into consideration the child's best interest at the end of the day and make sure that that is something that is in the child's presence. Very good point. Let me pause here for a moment to tell you about a resource that we have at Creating a Family.
It is an interactive training, or it could be used as support group for either one, and it's for, of course, foster, adoptive and kinship family. We have 25 curriculum, each is on a separate topic that's directly relevant to these demographics,
these families. They're video -based. It is a facilitated training to be done online or in person. It is just a wonderful resource and there are two ways to find it.
One, you can go to parentsupportgroups .org, that's parentsupportgroups .org. or you can go to the creatingandfamily .org website,
hover over training and click on it there. Rhonda, what liability do resource parents have if things go wrong at the activity? Let's say Bethany's parents in fact were not there.
You asked the question that Bethany's or your darling child either one shaded the truth, shall we say, and Bethany's parents were not there. there, and things went south. What liability does the resource parent have?
The legislation has made it so that as long as the resource parent is using a reasonable prudent parent's standard, and they're not violating the standard,
if something does go wrong, there should be no liability that attaches to them. It is a protection because they are employing a method of allowing normalcy for the child.
And in doing so, they will not be held liable as long as they use that reasonable prudent parent standard. They won't be held liable if something, unfortunately,
goes wrong. - Kate, in your experience working with resource parents, do they worry about the liability at all? aspect? And does that influence how they make decisions on the reasonable and prudent parent standard?
Absolutely. I think there are a lot of resource parents that are concerned about it. And I think some of it is that there's still some misunderstanding about what is a reasonable and prudent parent standard.
Sometimes caregivers are not entirely sure what they're allowed to say yes to or say no to. And then I think there's also some misunderstandings with the professionals too. too and that can intentionally pass on some fears to the caregivers when the social worker maybe doesn't fully understand the standard and maybe says some things that are a little disconcerting as a foster parent to feel like it may be more your
responsibility than the standard actually says. Can you give us some specific examples? No names or anything like that but just examples and real life practice how it actually looks and where the concerns are.
I think the biggest one that we've seen in interacting with many resource parents across the state is that there's a fear of having a child removed from your home. If, you know, something goes awry and it's seen as the foster parent or the kinship caregiver's fault,
you know, they say yes to an activity, the child went there, the child got severely hurt. Sometimes the professionals have looked at foster parents in that situation and passed a little bit of judgment as if it was entirely the foster parent's fault.
And so then there's a fear of it. backlash that the child will be moved elsewhere based on more judgment of sending them to said activity. So I think we've seen that play out a little bit where caregivers have approved things and then had to kind of answer to DSS or the caseworker about why they said yes to such an activity.
Can you think of examples of specific activities we've used some that are pretty innocuous, spending the night going to the mall, things like that. What are some other activities that would come up that are more challenging on how you would apply the standard?
I want to say I think sometimes sleepovers because you don't always know the kids that are going to be there and if they're good influences or maybe not so great of influences on your kids that you're preparing for. You don't always know the rules that the other parents have or how strict or loose they are.
So sometimes kids get into tricky situations when they're there's someone else's sleep revision. It's reasonably imprudent to say there will be no sleepovers in our family,
especially if other children in the family are allowed to have sleepovers. You could question whether that is, but it's awkward to go back to other parents and say, how much supervision are you giving?
What type of movies do you allow? What type of movies do the young people have access to? How are resource parents handling that? I think it's a spectrum. I think there are some caregivers that say, you know what,
it's fine. They're going to be exposed to these things at school or out in the community. community. So pick them up when something happens, you know, and I'm going to be there to guide them and teach them, use it as a teachable moment.
And then there are some that say, you know, we're not going to do sleepovers at all. And then some will say, you know, you can have sleepovers here under our supervision, but you're not going to have sleepovers elsewhere. Again, it comes back to that individualized idea of knowing what the child needs and what level of supervision and some kids maybe just might be trusted to be under other adult supervision because they
have have a history of doing things when they're not in the home and with adequate supervision. One of the other things that comes to mind, you know, that some teens or younger kids or older kids may struggle with is suicidal radiation or some vendery.
And in those situations, you know, it may be more stressful to allow a child to leave the home and go somewhere else, not knowing if they're going to have access to things that they may use to harm themselves in some way that you know in your home they're safe from.
So using those kinds of things again, it's just individual. There's a spectrum of ways that you can handle it's going to other homes and having sleepovers. Do you see it come up very often with extracurricular type activities that could be dangerous?
Now you could argue that it's healthy risk taking, but mountain biking, wrestling, of course I could argue that football, any of these would have a certain inherent danger associated with it from a practical standpoint from what you're seeing,
Kate, are parents struggling with making those decisions? I think they're struggling last when it's a sport or something that's monitored by a coach, you know, that there's another adult who likely has been vetted.
If it's through your local county parks and rec, you know, they've all been background checks. So I think that in some of those situations, it's easier to make those decisions. decisions knowing that they're adults who should have gone through some sort of vetting process so that you know that there will be another safe adult president monitoring those activities.
- Rhonda, is that what you were seeing as well as far as extracurricular activities that carry some risk but are somehow an organized activity being more or less accepted from resource parents standpoint?
- Yes. Yes. Yes, absolutely. I think there's a sense of comfort in knowing. Yes. I think you're exactly right. That's a very good point.
Something we haven't brought up is we're talking about these enrichment activities, extracurricular, cultural, social. How are parents paying for these activities,
Rhonda? It is not cheap to have your child in wrestling. wrestling, unless it's the school wrestling team. And even then, you've got uniforms and things like that that you have to buy. What's the mechanism for how are resource parents supposed to pay for these activities?
So, I think that, and it probably varies across the states, what the states will allow, like whether or not that they'll give an extra stipend for these type of activities.
Of course, there's always the creative, maybe the work. worker has tapped into sources that will donate to a child or an activity or something.
But like I said, it'll vary from state to state about how if like Title IV funds can be used to help pay for these activities.
I guess I would say ask. Ask the case worker and also ask the people who are are providing the activity. Oftentimes, they have the ability to waive fees or to have others.
They have extra uniforms or whatever. Kate, from what you see in your everyday work with resource parents, is how to fund activities for foster kids a significant issue?
I haven't seen that question come up a lot. I know that there are some organizations that offer scholarships for kids in foster. care. I personally was able to get survival swim lessons for my toddler that way.
They were willing to provide a scholarship for him because he was in foster care, so I didn't have to pay for that one. In other situations, you know, we encourage foster parents more kinds of caregivers that are receiving a stipend to have a separate bank account for that stipend goes into so that it's a little easier to allocate those funds to help cover the cost of activities and things for the kids to do.
In some situations where shared parenting is really good, the bioperence will help contribute. I've seen that happen in a handful of situations and then again you know just asking the caseworker if there's a separate fund or things like that that they can reimburse for.
I will say some caregivers definitely struggle with the idea of putting many kids in many activities and we'll tell them to pick one activity or something like that just so that you know it's fair across the board for all the kids but it's definitely a very personal vision as far as finances go and I've seen some agencies willing to provide and cover more than others so again it's one of those things we just have to
ask. Okay yeah and you're correct that the other thing a factor to consider do we as a family have time to add this activity in that is fair that is a fair question that a reasonable and prudent parent would ask is,
"Do we have the time to allocate to this?" All right, Rhonda, you had brought it up at the beginning, which is how to include biological parents or the parents in making decisions about the reasonable and prudent parent standard.
We want to keep the legal parents informed about their child's activities, and when possible and appropriate, we want their approval. So how is this handled Rhonda by the law and how have you seen it handled in various states about involving the biological parents?
I think across the board everyone tries to keep the biological parents in the loop let's just say it's like keep them informed of what is going on and getting their opinion.
on whatever it is that's surrounding the care of their child, which would include participating in any of the activities that we've talked about today.
It's really imperative that they're bought in. And like I said, for the most part, I think across the board, everyone really wants to make sure that that parent is part of the conversation.
Even if it's... on their end, even if it's a no, I would rather my child not participate in that. Getting their opinion,
getting their point of view on it is very, very important. And I do believe that in most places, they do take the parent's wishes into consideration.
- Kate, what happens when the biological parent let's say, objects to an activity, but the foster parents, resource parents, are in favor of allowing the child to participate?
What happens then? In my experience, I've seen it play out where there's a child and family team meeting to talk about it, and then ultimately it kind of boils down to the social worker's decision,
and a lot of times they touch base with the child. Is this something that the child really wants to do? Is it something that the biological parent is pressuring them out? out of or even pressuring them into doing and just kind of getting a broader scope and a more full picture?
And then at that point, you know, the social worker kind of helps mediate that situation between the biological parent and the caregiver to discern what the best interests of the child is. Because again, that's really what it should come back to is,
is this in the child's best interest? And is the foster parent able to get them to practice and afford to pay for this for things like that? And if they're not, if this is something that the biological parent wants them to do, are they willing to contribute to help cover costs or things like that?
But I would say when there's a disagreement between the foster or a kinship caregiver and the bioparent, you see the social worker stepping. It is not up to the foster parent to navigate that situation.
It elevates up to someone else. And again, the standard is supposed to be the best interest of the child. I will say that I think that it often does matter why the parent is objecting.
Is it because the parent has safety concerns? Or is it because the parent feels like it's against their religious beliefs? An example of this is a child wanted to go trick -or -treating,
and the child and the parents were Jehovah's Witness, and the parents objected because that was against their religious beliefs? or the parents could object because it interferes with other activities that the parent thinks are more important,
could be that the parent thinks that the child should be spending more time studying, or it could be that it interferes with the best visitation time. So there's a number of reasons, and I think that the reasons that the biological parents are objecting matter,
and should matter, quite frankly, as to what decision is altered. made because they are the parents of the child and if reunification is our goal we need them to be in the parenting position and this is a good way to make certain they are in the parenting position.
Absolutely and let me just add that in some situations even when the parent is objecting and they've elevated it to the caseworker sometimes it can even be elevated to the court in terms of having a decision being made.
Yes, I have seen that as well. And that's a good point. And not a bad outcome. If ultimately you need an impartial, if the case worker doesn't feel capable or her relation or his relation with the biological parents is such that it would be better to have somebody other than that case worker or social worker making the decision,
then it can be elevated. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Rhonda Serrano and Kate Schultz, for talking with us today about the reasonable and prudent parent standard.
We truly appreciate both of your times. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us. Hey, before you leave, before you turn off this podcast, let me say thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Children's Connection. Children's Connection has been one of our longest supporters of this show. They are an adoption agency providing services for domestic infant adoption,
placing babies throughout the U .S. They also do home studies and post -adoption support for families in Texas. Okay, now you can go. Thanks, guys.