Thanks for the support. 

First, I shoudl clarify that there is no physical abuse.  The child is in no real danger.  She is just living in a situation that is too distugusting.  Check out my other posts if you want to see the kind of thing I am talking about.

I will call CPS if we can't address the situation in another way.  But our experience with CPS before is that they scare them into improving for a short while, then once CPS is off their backs for a while, they start returning to the way they were.  But if they figure out we called CPS, they will cut us off so the child will be in an even worse situation.

One thing I want to do is to take pictures so if we have to call CPS, we have facts to back up how bad it is.

I also am thinking of trying to take the special needs child in.  It would take a lot to 'child-proof' our house from a 14 yr old child.  And I don't know if my boyfriend would go for it. 

Or my mom might consider taking her in.  But she is getting up there in years.

Also, I don't know if my brother would tolerate her moving out of the house.  He does love her.  He just doesn't have the self discipline to keep things the way they shoudl be.

You said it yourself, "HER Sponsor." This person is not her probation officer, or anyone to report to. She/he is more her sounding board, her guide.
It is someone a person  needs to trust. To have her getting info from another would break that trust.

After what you have said, sadly it is a situation that warrents help. Not authorities,I would look into an intervention with loved ones. Maybe have each one or whatever go see her and offer to help, or just plain go over and help.

My not blood sis, her niece is a different one. She would read books allll day and do nothing else. Loulou would go over, take care of kids, clean cook and get her sis to do it with her.

She softly talked to her niece, about hey do you read all day? just keep it light with good questions.  HOw often do you change diapers? I had to do it blah blah.

One child is slow. Loulou would ask niece what do you do about this?

Maybe this will help you. Draw your sister in and just talk. Ask what she thinks. Maybe  mention how hard it is to raise a special ed child alone. I KNOW as I worked with them 18 years we had two adults to each kid!

They are precious but have some alarming habits, as you have seen.

Is the child in school? She may be eligible for some help from disabled services. Some one to come in and do stuff.

For me the focus is on taking care of the kids, not the A. She has to do her own care.

She is sick remember. How can anyone think she could take this on? If she had MS or whatever, no one would be surprised at the problem.

I sure relate to your caring so much. You are so wonderful to be like this. Many many people look the other way.

Hugs hon, so glad you are here and keep asking questions! love,debilyn

I don't know that CPS gets into neglect that much. They seem to focus on abuse issues. 

I also don't know that her sponsor can do anything.  If there is a doctor involved maybe you want to let them know. Their mandated reporting is a very different variety. What about the children's school have they noticed?

I do know people who were involved with CPS for years.  I can't say any of them changed.  I do know its one way to not feel as helpless.  The thing I would advise is to carefully monitor  your expectations.  Keep them very very low.

Maresie.

Talking to the sponsor does sound rather extreme and I woud normally not consider it. But callin CPS sounds even more extreme. So I felt talking to the sponsor might actually be something I might consider doing before calling CPS.

Just a last ditch effort before I bring CPS into things.

But I have heard two people so far saying no.

As long as the parents have custody of the child, the father would not consent to the child living with anyone but family. It took a long time for them to consent to her spending the night with the grandmother.

And they would not allow anyone but family to come into their home to help watch the child. The only reason they allowed the school's in-home trainer to come once a week to help us learn how to train her better is that this trainer comes to the grandmother's house (next door), not to their house.

Apparenlty where they used to live, they got some kind of government offered free care and the person who came turned them into CPS. So they don't let anyone into their home.

The reason I would not call cps if it is like here, they could end up in the system and never get out.

If you have ever had to work with them, believe me your eyes would be opened. We all know kids get shuffled like puzzle pieces. Foster home are mostly people who just want the money.

I have seen it hundreds of times in eighteen years of  my life and more.
My theraputice foster girl had been in 27 Homes in 15years.

What those professionals goal is to get the kids back with the parent.

One baby around heres dad broke her arm. She went back home, he killed her.

My friends niece lost her child, niece is a meth addict. State let the child go to the brother, next thing ya know, meth addict is saying brother sexually abused her. It is a horrible mess.

Now gma has the child, gma is a very active A, her husband just died and she has cancer!

Like I said there may be someone who can come in and help with the kids thru disabled services through Human Resources. SIL cannot be changed. NO Way!!

Would hate to see the kids separated and that happens almost all the time. Especially with a sp. needs child.

Foster care is a nightmare. If anything I would pray the family comes in and takes the kids.

Anyway that is my esh. love,debilyn

-- Edited by debilyn on Friday 18th of September 2009 04:49:15 PM

Since you are asking for opinions here, and this isn't an alanon meeting, but just friends in the program casually "talking it out" with each other, I will give you my professional opinion.

I agree 100% with Debilyn, I too know much about the foster care system and 9 times out of 10, they are doing it for the money and it may be even worse than the home the children are in now.  In my area, a foster care agency was recruiting people to do foster care from the "welfare to work" program, and they were telling people it was either take in foster kids, or clean up garbage off the street!  They chose the foster care.  These people did not love kids, or do it to help kids, they did it for the money.  Later, quite a few cases of abuse and neglect came to light from these foster homes.  Some horror stories were cases like one woman refusing to let the children drink anything so they would stop wetting the bed, the children were  reduced to drinking water out of the toilet.  In another case, a woman fed the foster children scraps and leftovers from her biological children's meals, to increase the profit she made from caring for them.

Foster care is necessary at times, due to extreme abuse or neglect, but it really is a last resort as others have pointed out.  It simply is not the quick fix or perfect solution people see it as.   At least in a family, there are biological ties and love, which often cause even sick people to provide a minimum level of care at least.

Surely these children go to school, and those educational professionals are professional trained to spot abuse and/or neglect and report it.  If the children are not brushing their teeth, and are losing weight due to not eating, or have an odor from not bathing, they will be quick to investigate, ESPECIALLY with a special needs child.  If they school has not intervened, it perhaps is not as bad as you think.

Abuse and neglect are very different.  Abuse is easy to spot and report on, neglect is more of a  grey area. 

To some people what may be neglect, to others is not, it is just different family values and priorities.

Also, I had trouble understanding your post.  First you say that your SIL does not feed her children, then you say they eat TV dinners.  TV dinners are food, and it is not good old fashioned from scratch cooking, but it is similar to the quality of school lunches that children eat every day or that they would eat in an institutional setting. Few parents cook dinners from scratch today, and providing TV dinners for her children to heat up IS providing meals for them. 

The family must be doing OK for the  most part, for someone else to not have called CPS already, someone from their school who sees the children DAILY, and who would be trained to spot abuse and ready to call.

I can see you are sincerely concerned, so perhaps you can purchase "grooming kits" for each child to keep in their bedroom.  Those plastic baskets they sell at drugstores for dorm rooms and camping that have a place for soap, a toothbruth, a rinsing cup, toothpaste, shampoo, washcloth bar etc.  You can buy a different color for each child.  You can tell them to keep these kits in their BEDROOMS so they dont' get misplaced or used by someone else.  They just carry their kits to the bathroom with them by the handle when they are ready to groom and perform their personal hygeine, then take their kits back to their bedrooms. Since you were willing to take in the children, which would be very expensive, perhaps you can instead use your money to replenish their grooming supplies, and with taking them out to dinner at least once a week.

Probably best to go through your brother for these things, as your SIL is probably wary of you and will continue to avoid you. 

They are probably avoiding your judgemental interrogating attitude.  I am not saying that is what you are doing, more like what it appears to them.  But, if you offer REAL HELP, and not efforts to control and judge, they may accept it more easily. 

Maybe, eventually, they will even allow you to come over in the evenings and assist in cooking a nice dinner from scratch, giving baths, and putting the kids to bed.  This is a lot less work then having them 24/7 in your home if you were planning on custody.

Keep in mind, just because your SIL is being uncommunicative to you, does not mean she is necessarily isolated.  She is probably just avoiding you and using your brother as a shield since you and he probably get along better.  That is likely her efforts to keep the peace and not engage.  If she is going to meetings, and has a sponsor, perhaps she is associating with people in her meetings.

I hope things work out for the best for the kids.  You sound really frustrated, so I just hope and pray the kids end up OK.

Mary Poppins