[Avodah] Yichud and fostering

[Chana Luntz]

I wrote:

> : I wonder whether this could be considered the basis of the 
> psak referred
> : to above.  After all, if a child is being placed in foster care, the
> : authorities, especially in the first month, are likely to 
> be crawling
> : all over the placement and asking loads of questions...
> 

And RMB replied:

> This is, unfortunately, not the norm in NY or NJ since well 
> before Rav Moshe's arrival in the States. So, if that were 
> the basis of RMF's pesaq,

This appears a bit confused - RMF (as in Rav Moshe Feinstein), as far as
I am aware, did not posken on the issue of foster care that RDK raised.
My understanding from RDK's original post is that a London dayan gave a
psak that allowed the fostering for a month of a 10 year old boy with an
ummarried woman, where the alternative was fostering with a non jewish
family (the only other frum family available not  being able to help for
a month).  There did not seem to be a suggestion that the alternative
was a a non frum Jewish foster family in the locality of RDK (presumably
the UK from his email address, but presumably also not in London).

 it would have based on a 
> misunderstanding of the metzi'us. Gov't agencies aren't "all 
> over the case", to the point that foster children are killed 
> by abuse in stories covered by NY media, every couple of 
> years or so, and in NJ, more than annually.

I don't know the the placement procedures are in NJ/NY so I can't
comment. And I am sure there are cases of this in England too, although
one more commonly reads in our media about:

A) over zealous social workers taking children away from their natural
families due to suspicions of abuse which appear to have been unfounded
(there are a group of now adults who are trying to sue for having been
taken away which has got some media prominence); and

B) a couple of cases where the social workers did not take the child
away from their natural family and the child was indeed killed, with the
investigations and reports into the particular social services
departments running and running for years - with demands to know what
the department is doing about the situation and general upheaval (the
relevant social worker and various others associated likely to never
work again).

Certainly the impression that the media here gives in this regard is
therefore that social workers tend to err on the side of suspicion of
abuse, even when dealing with natural families, and hence one would
assume even more so with foster families where the foster family has no
real standing to dispute anything.

 Other than these media reports, I know only a little bit more about
what the actual procedures are in the UK - but I do know that at least
at the beginning of a placement, social work visits and various other
follow ups are required by law. I know this because as you know, my
oldest son David (aged five) is very very disabled.  Recently we have
been able to arrange respite care where a very nice lady [no, she is not
frum, there don't as you say seem to be frum families doing this kind of
thing out there,- she is rather an upstanding member of her Reform
Temple - something that no doubt would be more of an issue for us if
David ever had a hope of reaching the level of development required for
chinuch] takes him for one weekend a month to give us some respite (and
last month she took him for a week to enable us to have the first
holiday we have had in five years).  However, this arrangement is
through the social services and Norwood (Jewish children's agency), and
involved him being deemed a "looked after" child - ie it is a form of
fostering.  Certainly our social worker has been required by some sort
of law or regulation to make various visits to the home of his "link
carer" during the periods when he is there (including the first and
second time he was there and the first time he was there for a week) and
to write various reports (this is in addition to the independent review
that is required to take place every six months which we all need to
attend - ie our social worker from the local authority, her social
worker from Norwood her and us, chaired by this independent expert).

I am quite sure though that if there was abuse (and any sexual
impropriety with a minor is certainly categorised as such under law) and
the social worker failed to detect it, there would be serious
ramifications for her job, meaning that she has a positive duty of
"drisha v'chakira" at least in the colloquial sense that Rav Moshe used
it in the teshuva I referred to.

> 
> Rather, Rav Moshe relies on incest usually coming out to the 
> wife (or, I presume husband in the reverse case) eventually, 

Well that wasn't quite the way I read the teshuva I quoted.  The issue
seemed to me to be less "incest coming out eventually" but that the very
fact of the extra and deep tie that a mother has with her natural
daughter meant that the husband had a greater fear of anything untoward
coming out than he would in the normal case - thereboy creating a
greater deterent to his doing anything were a yichud situation to occur.
The logic appears to be that yichud is there to prevent the chance of
untoward things happening.  Where there is another additional reason why
somebody might be scared (analogous to the wife's fear if the husband is
in town) then yichud may be permitted. It being this greater fear than
the norm which thereby meant that yichud could be permitted.

> and inappropriate foster and adoption relationships would 
> similarly. But this does require that the foster parents be a 
> couple who live in the same home. For RMF this is true for 
> all children, for the TE, it's only for children who enter 
> the home at a young age.
> 

I am not sure where you are seeing this from this teshuva - are you
referring to some other teshuva?  The basis of the TE seems to me to be
quite different.  His understanding is that a child who is raised from
infancy really is, psychologically, like your own child, and hence the
rules of yichud do not apply just as they do not apply to your own
genetic child.  But this aspect of this teshuva of RMF seems to be
dealing with a different case - ie the particular part I quoted would
seem to apply even where the daughter was well over puberty by the time
she was adopted (ie in no sense a child) and where the relationship
between the husband and her was not necessarily that of father and
daughter really at all).

> That's WRT yichud; normal parental kissing and hugging is 
> mutar according to RMF. (I am told RSZA is machmir, and only 
> allows with younger children. For me, this would be ein 
> yachol la'amod bah, so I never checked anyway.)
> 
> BTW, are you sure you didn't confuse #64 (2), with #7 (also 
> in EH 4)? Because I believe this sevara is in #64, whereas 
> #71 is the one usually cited about marrying a woman with a daughter.
> 

I am not sure I understand your numbering here - but I did indeed mean
#64(2).  #71 is very short and does not give any real reasoning just
that it is a ma'ase b'kol yom that men marry a second time where there
are daughters involved, and that if it is possible that the wife might
come at any time there is no issur yichud.  #64(2) however seems to go
beyond this - which is why I quoted from it, ie that he will have a
particular fear not present in the normal case that his wife is likely
to engage in drisha v'chakira with her daughter.

What I was then doing was likening the additional "fear" and the "drisha
v'chakira" with the additional fear that a foster carer might have of
the authorities and the drisha v'chakira which they are required to
engage in.  Of course, if it is known that the social services do not
engage in such investigations, then there is likely to be no additional
fear over and above the fear of discovery felt by any other person that
found themselves in a yichud situation.  But given the climate in
England, certainly the mythology of the social services is that such
that I would have expected additional fear to indeed exist.

>Tir'u baTov!
>-mi

Regards

Chana