Meet the Snider-Kagley Family!
How I came to adoption is a tricky question! I am the only birth child to my parents. They completed a private adoption for my sister. When I was a teen my mother also fostered children. We had one long-term placement, a girl, who joined us around 12. However, she had a high level of needs related to over a decade in care and eventually had to go live in a specialized home. That was very difficult for me so I decided that I never wanted to do foster care. In fact, I wanted to focus on my career and not have children at all.
I eventually changed my mind and my husband Robert and I ended up having two amazing boys biologically. Prior to that we had also helped raised several nieces and nephews while their parents dealt with personal challenges. Most of those arrangements were worked out between family members without State involvement. However, that is sometimes difficult and when our great nephew who was medically fragile came into care we decided to become foster parents so that the State could help us navigate the complexities of the relationships involved. Our great nephew was medically fragile and we chose not to adopt because if we did we would be unable to provide for his managed care if needed before 18 and we are a single income family (Federal Service). We soon discovered that there are many children like our nephew without families in foster care so we were inspired to parent children with specialized needs for many years. One of my friends estimated we fostered 60 in almost 20 years! (family photo credit to Munkee's Eye)
Our family is also comprised of American Indian/Alaskan Native family members and adoptions outside of the Native community are difficult due to protections provided via ICWA. As a result, we decided we had room for at least one more child (maybe a girl would be nice!) and could give them permanence others could not. This lead to two beautiful girls, one we were able to provide adoptive permanency for and the other we provide relational permanency through another adoptive family via the sibling relationship. The girls see each other monthly, and spend holidays and summer trips together.
We kept our foster license open after adoption so we could do respite for foster friends which of course led to yet one more adorable little boy joining us through adoption. We have also more recently parented some great nieces and nephews temporarily. However, we are truly retired now and closed our license.
Having fostered so many children with special needs in our home has taught my oldest two boys empathy and compassion I rarely see in young adults their age. They also have a kindness and gratitude for family and are thankful for their lives. Our oldest became a caregiver for our great nephew and held him in his arms as he took his last breath. Our oldest Joseph also hopes to support our other adopted son King when we no longer can.
King is so resilient. He has defied the odds in all he has achieved despite the myriad of challenges he faces. King is kind and empathetic, has an amazing sense of humor, and is thankful for everything, especially his dogs.
Gia has talents in theater and art. She is beautiful and peers are drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She is self-reliant and shows signs of resilience when she lets her guard down to try to trust. She could accomplish anything she puts her mind to – she just doesn’t know it yet!
The biggest reward is to see my children who had very rough childhoods go on to be amazing, happy well-adjusted successful adults. Seeing these children make landmarks and accomplishments no one thought possible through hard work and determination is the best reward. Watching all of my children show kindness, gratitude and empathy for others makes everything worthwhile.
The biggest problem we have encountered is in obtaining and navigating services. Medically fragile and behavioral children and their foster families get respite and specialized services not available post-adoption. The burden of caring for these very complex children falls primarily on families without much support from society and that leads to burnout and poorer outcomes for children who deserve better. In general, I would find it hard to even recommend adoption from the foster care system without significant systemic changes in place. There are insurmountable gaps and deficiencies in everything from developmental disability supports to Medicaid, mental health services, lack of coordination between systems, lack of a clear understanding of services and rights for Native families and children, and more that all need to be addressed.
Nonetheless, I love the children beyond all barriers.
