Travel Restrictions When Fostering - Weekend Wisdom

Question: Are there travel restrictions when you are fostering? For example, my family lives out of state, but can I bring the child with me when I travel to visit family?

Resources:

• Working as Part of a Foster Care Team
• Working with the Birth Parents for the Child's Best Interest
• Becoming a Foster Parent

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Hello and welcome to Creating a Family's Weekend Wisdom podcast. I'm Tracy Whitme,
the content manager of Creating a Family and your host for this Weekend Wisdom
episode. This podcast is our chance to hear from you about the things that puzzle
you. If you have a question about adoption, foster care, or kinship care, or you
want to know more about how to handle some of the issues that come up with raising
kids in this community, We'd love for you to send it to us. We will dig through
our archives and gather some information to help strengthen your family, and you can
send your questions to info @creatingafamily .org. We'll consider them for the show and
maybe even shout you out by name. Today's question comes from Helene in Montana.
Thanks for writing in Helene. She says, "Are there any travel restrictions when you
are fostering? For example, my family lives out of state. Can I bring my foster
child with me when I travel to visit family? Well, Colleen, this is a really good
question and I'm going to try and do it justice. When foster parents are planning a
vacation or a trip, especially out of state or overnight, it's essential to
understand the very specific travel restrictions and requirements that apply to the
foster children in the state where you are fostering. These rules are designed to
prioritize the child's safety and maintain legal protections and to support ongoing
relationship with birth families when appropriate and safe. So here's a few things
for you to consider, Helene. Number one, know the policies and that they vary by
state and by agency. As with so many of the issues around foster care,
it will not surprise you to learn that there is no one single national policy on
traveling with foster children. Each state welfare system and each individual agency
or foster care provider can have different rules. For example, some states require
written permission from the case worker or a court order for travel out of state.
Others may allow in -state travel more freely, but require formal approval for air
travel or international trips, and emergency contacts and licensing agencies may have
to be notified in advance. So Helene, before you make any travel arrangements,
check directly with your child's caseworker and the licensing agency that you accepted
this placement through. They can guide you through their specific travel approval
process and the timelines as well as who needs to know what and when. Second,
you need to obtain your required documentation in advance. So if they're requiring
written permission or anything like that, you have to plan ahead and most agencies
will require some sort of advanced notice two weeks, four weeks, six weeks for the
travel approval process. You might need to provide things like written permission from
the child's caseworker, from the agency or the court, travel consent letter signed by
the appropriate authorities, documentation detailing where you're going, when you're
going, where you're staying, contact information for where you're staying, also contact
information for emergencies while you're traveling, you know, who's your next of kin,
medical insurance, contact information for you and for the child, etc. And for
international travel, the child's passport and sometimes court approval will often be
needed and has to be provided in advance. This is when being an organized resource
parent will come in really handy. It's so important that you keep all of this
documentation organized and accessible when you are traveling. Paper and digital copies
of all of that paperwork will be helpful for you. So on your phone or your laptop,
as well as paper hard copy form in a file. Be prepared to bring these documents
with you. And when you travel with a foster child, always be sure to carry a copy
of the foster placement agreement and the travel consent or court order that allows
you to bring this child out of the state. You also need to make sure you have
with you the child's medical insurance cards and immunization records, the caseworkers
contact information, your licensing workers, emergency numbers, and any medications,
dosages, and instructions for those medications, along with any other related health
informations that might come into play during travel. Identification for this child
while you're flying or crossing borders, including state ID or birth certificates will
depend on the child's age and travel method. It'll also depend which forms of
identification you use on what your agency or state's requirements are. You might
also want to consider communicating with the birth parents when permitted. If it's
safe and allowed to do so, notifying the birth parents that you are planning to
travel with their child is not just considerate and respectful, but it's also helpful
communication for rearranging schedules and visitations and contact and if they have
an communication agreement or a visitation rights agreement, you may need to look at
the fine print of that to see what specific information you have to provide to them
if you are traveling with their child. So you're going to want to notify the
caseworker well in advance So they can coordinate with the birth parents about that
and then be open and flexible to rearranging previously scheduled visits or contact
so that if you missed a visit or you missed a video call or something like that,
you're still partnering with them to allow contact for their child. You can share
your travel dates when appropriate and allowed like we're going to the beach for
four days in Florida you don't have to give specific details of where you're staying
or who you're staying with if privacy is a concern or safety is a concern.
So it's important to remember that all of this communication and all of this
documentation and all of this permission seeking should follow your local agency that
you placed with as well as your state requirements. So you're going to again want
to check with and work with your case worker for guidance on this and don't contact
those birth parents directly unless you have specific permission to do so. It takes
some planning, it takes some thought, it takes some intentionality to kind of put
all of this together. You could also network with another foster parent who's done
this before and get their read on how to do it and when to do it, and it is
possible. So you can include this child on your family vacations or memorable trips
or visits to grandma. It can be done. It can be done and be a really wonderful
experience for you and for this child. It just has to be planned and thought about
in advance. So in summary, let's just review real quick. Foster parents have to
understand and follow their state and agency specific travel policies. Foster parents
have to request the necessary permissions and documents in advance. Foster parents
have to carry the important paperwork that goes with all of that during their travel
time. And they should communicate with their caseworkers and the birth families as
allowed and as safe to do so. With the proper steps travel can be a very exciting
and enriching experience for you all and it can be compliant with the child's care
plan. So we would love to know if this ends up helping you, Haline. You can write
back to us and let us know. You can leave a rating or a review to tell us how
we did and let us know what else you want to know about traveling with foster kids
or what to do with your foster kids if you can't travel with them is always a
good question that we could cover in the future. So if today's podcast helped you,
Helene or anyone else listening, we would love to know how it helped you. Please
consider leaving us a rating or a review wherever you catch this episode today. And
don't forget we are on YouTube and Spotify. So if you like to watch your podcasts
or listen to podcasts in places Like Spotify, we would love to hear from you over
there as well. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.