OHEL
Last night at 11:50 we received a phone call. I had only slept two hours on motsai Shabbos and had already fallen asleep half an hour earlier but MHW was still up. It was someone from OHEL Children's Home and Family Services on the line. They had an emergency placement requirement for a six-month old child. They were looking for someone in Brooklyn to take the baby but were having trouble. Could we take the baby? (One of the curious things about this episode is that MHW never once asked whether it was a boy or a girl!). MHW woke me up and we agreed to take the placement.
We have been certified as foster parents for OHEL for the past five years. During that time, we've taken two long term placements and a few short term 'respite' placements. We'd never been called upon to take an emergency placement before. (OHEL gets the first call for any Jewish child in the NYC foster care system. They have 24 hours to place the child with a Jewish home. If they can't, the child goes into the regular system and can be placed anywhere).
I got out of bed and pulled the crib from storage. I took out a screw driver and put the crib together. Our previous short term placement was also for a baby so I had been through this drill before. Last time it took me forever to figure out how to put the crib together (I'm not a Jewish carpenter) but this time it was up in ten minutes.
Literally the minute I finished the crib, OHEL called back to tell us that ACS, the city administrators of foster care, was not happy that OHEL was placing the baby outside of Brooklyn (where the baby came from). So, OHEL had kept calling until they found a suitable placement. We were off the hook.
MHW and I went back to bed at 12:30 a.m., relieved on the one hand, but strangely disappointed on the other (even though it would have required immense mesiras nefesh from MHW who has a full time job). It took me over an hour to get back to sleep. (Yet another example of the principle that no good deed goes unpunished).
We are always saddened to hear of these horrible circumstances where kids have to be pulled out of their homes, sometimes literally in the middle of the night. But we take chizzuk from the fact that OHEL is there. We are always awed by the people who work for OHEL who are on call 24/7 to deal with these situations.
Last night at 11:50 we received a phone call. I had only slept two hours on motsai Shabbos and had already fallen asleep half an hour earlier but MHW was still up. It was someone from OHEL Children's Home and Family Services on the line. They had an emergency placement requirement for a six-month old child. They were looking for someone in Brooklyn to take the baby but were having trouble. Could we take the baby? (One of the curious things about this episode is that MHW never once asked whether it was a boy or a girl!). MHW woke me up and we agreed to take the placement.
We have been certified as foster parents for OHEL for the past five years. During that time, we've taken two long term placements and a few short term 'respite' placements. We'd never been called upon to take an emergency placement before. (OHEL gets the first call for any Jewish child in the NYC foster care system. They have 24 hours to place the child with a Jewish home. If they can't, the child goes into the regular system and can be placed anywhere).
I got out of bed and pulled the crib from storage. I took out a screw driver and put the crib together. Our previous short term placement was also for a baby so I had been through this drill before. Last time it took me forever to figure out how to put the crib together (I'm not a Jewish carpenter) but this time it was up in ten minutes.
Literally the minute I finished the crib, OHEL called back to tell us that ACS, the city administrators of foster care, was not happy that OHEL was placing the baby outside of Brooklyn (where the baby came from). So, OHEL had kept calling until they found a suitable placement. We were off the hook.
MHW and I went back to bed at 12:30 a.m., relieved on the one hand, but strangely disappointed on the other (even though it would have required immense mesiras nefesh from MHW who has a full time job). It took me over an hour to get back to sleep. (Yet another example of the principle that no good deed goes unpunished).
We are always saddened to hear of these horrible circumstances where kids have to be pulled out of their homes, sometimes literally in the middle of the night. But we take chizzuk from the fact that OHEL is there. We are always awed by the people who work for OHEL who are on call 24/7 to deal with these situations.
posted by MoChassid @ 10:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home