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Dr. Vera Falberg provides us with some assistance to understand what happens when the state intervenes in a family's life. She divides the jobs a parent assumes into three general areas: birth, parenting, and legal tasks and responsibilities.

From the birth parent a child gets important characteristics that make us unique such as sex or physical appearance. The parenting parents provide the child with love, discipline, values, life skills etc. And finally the legal parent provides the child with such things as financial security, legal consent for school entrance or medical care and physical safety and security.

For families where intervention has not occurred these three parenting jobs are combined in one circle. When the state intervenes however, the circles are divided. Birth parents have already provided many elements that can never be taken away. Day to day parenting becomes the foster parents job, and the court and the Department of Social Services become the legal parents. As the case progresses it is important to keep these circles as connected as possible. The eventual goal is to reconnect the circles and enable the family to succeed in all three roles.

The parenting among birth parents, foster parents and the agency helps determine the success of the plan for children in care. The parenting partnership results in "shared parenting". Shared parenting occurs when two or more adults have joint responsibility for care, nurturing and decision making for the same child

Most of us in childhood or with our own children have experienced shared parenting. For example: spouses, babysitters, grandparents, day care providers, or step-parents may share parenting tasks. What makes those relationships work is communication, cooperation, support of each other, good planning, joint-decision making and role clarity.

Shared parenting requires an effort on everyone's part. For children who are in foster care or adopted, shared parenting is a day to day reality, there must be planning, good communication and cooperation among all parties for for shared parenting to work.

10/11/02