What leads to burnout, and how that affects me as a foster parent

Somone called recently to find out about being a foster parent. I shared some points that should be considered seriously about before entering the ‘field’, but my caller brushed off whatever I said. I finished our call as I was entering a class party where a couple of other foster mothers were present. After the party, I shared with them about the conversation and asked for their feedback. They thought it was critical to help take off her rainbow colored glasses.

When I called her back, she already had decided against fostering – because she found out the monthly stipend is a quarter of what she thought.

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I think often about if I would recommend fostering to someone interested. I often feel very frustrated when dealing with the foster care system. I try to look for the good in everyone and everything, and that leads me to continually try to reframe my frustrations, to have fewer expectations, to try to tolerate apathy and incompetence.

I try to convince myself that it’s not so bad. Or maybe it’s me – maybe I’m too sensitive, maybe I need to get more help in the house, maybe I need to develop a thicker skin.

I’ve begun reading The Burnout Epidemic, The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It, by Jennifer Moss. Even though I’m only a couple of chapters in and it’s geared for the workplace, it’s been surprisingly validating and puts into words some of what is so hard for me about being a foster parent, and why it’s not only understandable, but predictable, that sometimes I feel so done.

She writes that burnout is triggered by the following:

• workload
• perceived lack of control
• lack of reward or recognition
• poor relationships
• lack of fairness
• values mismatch

I read this list out loud to my husband, and he right away said, “It sounds like being a foster parent.”

It’s important to note that you don’t need all of these to be burned out, and she asserts that each one is damaging and even one of these causes can lead to burnout. But for me as a foster parent, I regularly experience all six.

1) Workload – whatever was agreed upon before the children came is irrelevant. Obviously care for the children is an around the clock responsibility. But the additional requests have no end – more paperwork, more visits, more appointments and documentation – I don’t know how it’s possible that there’s always something else they want done. Whatever they want us to do, we have to do, regardless of it’s what we committed to or not. If they would give us a heads up we could more easily fit this into our timeline, but there’s no proactivity in the social services system. Everything becomes urgent and stressful because they tell us to get it done right when they need it.

2) Perceived lack of control – you’re expected to raise the child as your own, but at the same time, you have limited control over or input into the choices relating to them.

As a foster parent, I don’t do anything that I think is best, until other people authorize me to do that, and that’s only after I convince them that my position is worth considering. Here’s one small example (this was annoying but bigger instances can be painful).

If you as a biological parent want to switch your child from one school to another, you do that. For me, it’s an extended negotiation.

When I learned in the beginning of July that there was a viable local school option for dd9 (who travels over an hour each way to school), I checked out all the details, thought through all the benefits and drawbacks, and then called my social worker to discuss the possibility.

Irritated, she told me that she was too busy to talk about it, and she would call back after her meeting. She didn’t, so hours later, I called back. Impatiently, she told me, “Listen, it’s very strange that she’s in a school where she’s doing fine, and all of a sudden because she likes day camp there, you want to change everything around. That’s not how we do things.”

Taken aback, I said, “I understand it might seem my request is out of the blue. Do you have time to listen to my considerations now, or should I call you at a better time?” After she heard me out, she agreed that it sounded like a good avenue to pursue, but would need to go to her supervisor to get authorization before she could move forward with gathering information. Then there were other technicalities to address. Though time was of the essence to ensure that special ed services would be available to dd since it was late to be registering her for school, I wasn’t allowed to take care of anything until they authorized it.

(I’ll add it’s frustrating to be criticized since this option is a more difficult one for me, and making arrangements to change schools also requires more of me. If I was’t invested in what is best for dd, I would have left her where she was.)

3) Lack of reward or recognition – I’ve gotten very positive feedback from experienced professionals who are independent of the system, who understand the significance of the developmental leaps the children have made. I deeply appreciate that, and it encourages and energizes me when someone with this background expresses their amazement of their unusual progress, and has understanding of what it takes to get these results.

But within the system, there’s a general absence of appreciation or recognition. Not only that, I often think we’d be better off if we did the bare minimum and the the children hadn’t progressed as much as they have. (That’s too complicated to detail in a short amount of words.)

While foster families offer children the very best option for healthy integration into society, their contribution isn’t respected or valued.

4) Poor relationships – I am blessed to generally get along with people, even difficult people. But that hasn’t helped me with the guardian ad litem, nor the bio parents (who I’ve never met) – and the complaints from all of them.

5) Lack of fairness – I don’t want to say much about this because I don’t want to sound like a kindergartener. But I do regularly wonder why neglectful and abusive parents who caused their children great harm to the point the children were removed by police, have a bigger say than I do, and their mostly fabricated complaints about me are taken seriously.

6) Values mismatch – this is the hardest thing for me. As a values driven individual, it’s my values that keep me committed to fostering even when it’s been very difficult. Recognizing that my priorities and those of social services are so different has been very disheartening.

You might think that social services has the best interests of the children at heart, and since we also do, seemingly we have the same values.

But you’d be completely wrong. In the foster care department of social services, bio parents are the first priority. Second is the children. (Nowhere on the list of anything they’re concerned about, are foster parents – they could care less.) The ramifications of this are disturbing and can endanger the welfare of the children (another topic I’m currently distressed about).

What concerns them with the children? Concrete items can check off of a list. There’s nothing wrong with that, but raising children well isn’t about the things you buy them or the appointments you take them to. That’s a part of being responsible, of course. But there’s so, so much more.

Emotional well-being, security, sense of belonging – these are irrelevant because they aren’t documentable. There is no interest in why the children no longer display obsessive and disturbing behaviors, why they are socially in the normative range, why their many lags in every area have significantly closed – instead, there’s always some small detail to investigate or chastise me about – for example, the once a year complaints from the parents about fingernails being dirty, the specious complaint about shaving dd’s head, excessive conversations and pressure for me to buy dd9 a desk for her room.

Back to The Burnout Epidemic, the author explains that behind these six causes of burnout is one major force that she refers to as ‘poor corporate hygiene’. Good corporate hygiene includes paying people what they’re worth, physical and mental safety, making sure everyone knows what his job is and helping him get access to resources if he doesn’t, and people getting along. According to ‘dual factor motivation hygiene theory’ (yes, that’s a real thing that is studied), satisfaction and dissatisfaction are independent or one another. You need to have good hygiene factors just so someone isn’t dissatisfied.

As a foster parent, you’re accountable directly to the foster care agency (my experience with them has been positive), but since they are accountable to social services which is the arm of the judicial court, ipso facto social services is the real ’employer’ of a foster parent. Unfortunately, that’s an institution with very poor corporate hygiene.

Encouraging increased performance would require motivational factors beyond good corporate hygiene, which is completely beyond the range of this discussion. I’m not talking about motivation to do more. I’m talking about not making life hard for the people who are the front lines, doing the hardest work to help children in need. In the US, 50% of foster families quit after the first year. Here in Israel a higher percentage of foster families continue, since about 80% of children are placed in institutions rather than with foster families, so a large percentage of foster families are caring for young children and/or family members.

So what keeps me doing what I do? Firstly, because I consider G-d my true employer, and He’s the one I want to please. I do believe that what I’m doing is seen and valued Above and see the challenges as a spiritual challenge for me to grow from.

Secondly, I truly believe there’s nothing more important you can do in this world or for this world, than raise children (your own or others) in a healthy way. It’s my values that keep me going even when I feel discouraged and worn down.

As far as burnout goes, does this list of burnout factors resonate with you? Can you see how it has applied in your life at some point?

Avivah