Its been a while. Too long actually. A lot has happened since I last logged in and wrote anything.
We didnt get the bakery.
That caused depression. Im on medication now and feeling a little bit better. It was hard to do, but here i am trying to take care of myself so i can continue to care for others. We have had a total of 3 adoptions. 2 daughters and a son. Bringing us to 4 forever children. Im still not done with foster care, although my amazing wife is and although I would love one more son, we are done, for know, for good according to her. LOL! And although we are done, we are still licenced, and may do some respite care.
I also have been blessed to be asked to help do some trainings here and there and sit on some panels. Ill get into all this individually in my upcoming blogs. But until then, stay safe, stay hydrated and stay blessed.
Foster Care has felt like it’s been my calling for a very long time. I feel it in my soul on a daily basis. Even on the hard days, I push past the storm and see the rainbow of promise, and know that tomorrow will be a new day.
Being able to be a voice for a child who doesn’t get a say in what has happened to them is a huge responsibility, it’s remembering that you are advocating for their best Interest know matter what it looks like it should be. Their stories are sometimes hard and it’s easy to get wrapped up into the heart of it, your heart of it!!! We love so hard that we forget sometimes, that before us and before all the mess, someone else loved them and still is loving them as hard as you are, they are just doing it in the best way they know how, the way they were taught to love, the way they may have been loved.
When we know better we do better and everyone deserve a chance to know better. Even when it means our hearts might break a little bit.
The chance to see a family heal is rewarding on all levels, and when this happens children get the chance to grow where they should. Family bond and connection is so important to who we are and who we will become, when that connection is broken and that trauma has happened it’s hard to connect to anything in the way that we should. We need to foster the family, not just the children who come Into our homes.
It never gets easier to say goodbye, but hopefully there won’t be goodbyes, hopefully there will be playdates, holidays, birthdays, special occasions shared between new family made. Support and Grace for when it’s needed. An ear to listen and a shoulder to cry in for when it feels hard. Parents will struggle when children go home just as much as the children do. This will be new to them all. Things will be different then they were. Because when we know better we do better. And that might feel weird.
So, after many years and 28 children, I can’t see not doing this still.
We are in the process of 2 adoptions. This next chapter will still be a lot of work. A lot of healing will still have to happen. A lot of patience and understanding. And although it feels like it should be a time for celebration for us, it is also a time of loss for our children. We will work hard to keep relationships open, when safe to do so, and our children will always know their story, age appropriately. And they will always know that they were loved before they came into our home.
On followers and readers. This is different then I normally not about, but we need your help. Anything you can donate will help and will be so appreciated. TIA.
When you phone isn’t ringing for a placement it’s easy to start feeling impatient, it’s easy to wonder why you’re not getting calls. As a new foster parent this can feel frusterating, you’ve spent all the hours in training, getting your home ready, bearing gifts your soul in all the paperwork, letting strangers come Ino your home to see if it is safe, and then when it’s all over your ready, but no call.
My advise….
Take this time to breath, to connect with your family, to enjoy the quiet and peace (if that exists, LOL) in your home. Take this time to take all the training you can, Trauma training, read all you can about raising children that come from hard places. I know I’ve said this all before, but it can’t be said enough.
But most of all, take comfort that your not getting calls because it may mean that there isn’t any children in your age group being abused or neglected right now. In the beginning it’s hard to realize this. And a new child coming I to your home isn’t a reason to celebrate, we shouldn’t be excited about it. Having this child means they have suffered trauma to be there, and that’s never good.
Celebrate instead the parents when they are doing well, celebrate the children’s newileatones being met, celebrate reunification when it’s safe to happen. Celebrate success. Celebrate co parenting when it’s successful. Celebrate learning together as a team. Remember always that we are in the business of healing families, keeping families together when safe to do so.
And… When your doing it right, it will hurt when reunification happens, it should when your doing it right. But also if your doing it right, you can continue the wonderful relationship of extended family.
I started writing this blight as a way to reach out and educate people on the ins and outs of Foster Care and the roller coaster ride that it is.
Somewhere along the line I got sidetracked, got busy, have felt uninspired to write. Not sure which one, maybe a little of everything. But I just stopped. This was not my intention when I decided to blog. I was excited, and ready to share. I thought I had 101 thing plus that I could write about, then the self doubt made it’s way into my head like a semi loosing control on the highway.
Where did that even come from.
I’ve lived a life of self doubt. It makes it way back into the forefront of my thinking way too often. But foster care isn’t an area I doubt myself in. So WTF!!! I guess we are all a work in progress and I’m working on it the best that I can. I did jump into this thinking my following would grow faster, and that people would share and comment more. But today I realized, if I came help one person, reach one person, inspire one person, this doesn’t have to grow at a rate that I wish it would. It will grow. But it can’t grow if I don’t do the work. So here I am, working in my blog and myself, and I’m ready to us both grow, even in small ways.
Don’t doubt yourself. Grow in a way that is comfortable to you. You will get to where you want to be. Rise above the self doubt and know you are enough and what you say and do are important.
I haven’t written anything in a minute. Again, not how Il planned for this blogging experience to go.
I’ve been exhausted. Mentally and physically exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well. Not quote sure why, could be nothing could be that I have a lot on my mind.
We have a 4 month infant not gaining wait, there is a procedure that needs to be done and we can’t get it because of the lack of their parent being absent to sign for it. We have to wait to see if the courts will allow DHHS to sign. That could take a minute. Meanwhile we have appointments almost weekly for thrm, weight checks, tests, more weight checks, tests, it’s never ending, all the while this one very small procedure would fix the whole issue. It will take literally 5 minutes to do.
We are in the middle of an competing party adoption, the ICPC and family assessment are taking FOREVER!!! It’s hard watching a child need permanacy and seeing there is now guidelines that say, it HAS to be done in this time frame or you forfeit your right to adoption.
We are waiting on a TPR for our oldest. Tons of issues on Legal/Bio parent. One parents rights have been terminated for almost a yeR now, the other, no one can get it right, wrong wording in several petitions, no one served properly, bio parent isn’t legal parent the list goes on. All this child wants is for adoption to happen and life to feel more normal. Normalcy is what we are supposed to be striving for, right.
So I’m tired. Waiting is draining. And I just want these little humans to actually be first for a change. I just want best interest to really happen for them. I want it to start being about the little humans who so desperately want a normal life actually get that.
It’s hard. It’s hard to see a family split apart, and to be the person who consistently is a part of it week after week, month after month.
Parenting time is extremely important. It’s what helps to keep any bond or attachment that parents and their children have to remain strong. It helps children feel like their parents didn’t abandon them. It gives children a chance to be loved on by their parents. This doesn’t always look like what we think it should, but it’s not our place to judge it.
Children need this time with their parents, but it’s so hard to be the person who has to take them away from their parents once that visit is over. And although visits most of the time happen several days a week, to child that next visit feels weeks away. And when visits are not consistent, that just adds to how hard this all is.
There are so many things as foster parents that we can do to try and make this part of what we do easier. We can be a cheerleader encouraging parents that they can get through this, when it’s safe we can offer to supervise visits, we can help the children in our care make things to take to their parents on their next visit, or help them pick out a gift on the holidays to give to their parent. We can make sure we give parents photos of their children while they are out of the home, so they don’t miss everything, and so when the children go home they will have those pictures to look back on and see no missing pieces of their life as they were growing up. We can ask parents for advise on how they did things with their children so things feel familiar to the children and this also shows the parents that you are working with them not against them.
Kindness goes a long way. A sence of team shows children in care that we all care about them and we are working together to heal.
Visits are hard, very hard. As foster parents we see first hand the sadness that comes with them at every goodbye. The outbursts and hard behaviors after. Sometimes we hold these children while they cry, until they fall asleep, sometimes we are hated temporarily while their little hearts try to figure out why we would take them away from their parents. Sometimes we are are lashed out at, ignored, set aside, and it’s hard. But we do it, we show up everytime we are called to do the hard stuff, cause it’s whats best for our children from hard places.
And sometimes we see giggles and laughter and joy. And this is why we keep showing up!
Today I’m mad, I’m frustrated, and I’m partially to blame. Somewhat!
Policies for the Foster Care system are outdated, they were written in a time that they may have had to be written the way they are for a reason. When we know better, we should be doing better. But instead of moving along with time and rewriting things so they actually do benefit the children in care, we rest on policies that do not keep their best interest at heart.
Today my child in care had a procedure cancelled that would have been life changing immediately for them if they could have had it done. We needed a parents signature that we couldn’t get. The parent has been absent for quite some time and I should have known this would happen. I know better. But because of a previous child, I believed we would be ok, so I didn’t push to get this signature. I’m not soley to blame. The agency knew policy says we needed to have a bio parents signature, we all just dropped the ball on this.
In my opinion policy needs to change on this matter, if a child is removed it should be automatic that the agency should be able to sign for such things if a parent is MIA, it shouldn’t have to be court ordered. For the love of God, you removed them for abuse or neglect, who’s to say they aren’t going to be neglectful in being around to sign documents.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m very upset today, there are parents that are still trying to do the right things, I’m not mad at the parents, even the ones who aren’t around to get these things done for their children, I’m mad at the outdated policies and procedures and hoops we have to jump through just to take care for some of the kiddos that come into our homes. In some cases we could take care of so much for them in very short amounts of time if it weren’t for these outdated policies. Instead something like starting Early On that could start immediately sometimes takes months to get going because of something as simple as consent.
The State puts these children into our homes, they ask us to care for them as our own, they ask us to help get them what they need so they don’t fall further behind and so we can start to heal trauma, but then we have to wait, and wait and wait. I’m not saying I should be able to consent to major life changing operations or procedures, but the Agencies the children are placed with should be able to when a parent is not around to do so. Waiting, sometimes makes issues worse for these children, when it could have been avoided. This could be the case for my little one. Today’s decision could effect what happens next for them.
So I guess what I’m saying is, even if you think it might be ok, because it was in past practice, just do the work, even if you know for sure, just bug everyone til you get the signatures/consent that you need. If they tell you that you don’t need them, push to have them anyway. It won’t hurt. And you won’t be stuck one day before a procedure being told it can’t happen now.
Gonna chalk today up to a lesson re learned. Keep Moving forward.
I haven’t written much lately, and I’ve really wanted to, but life gets busy.
Being a Foster Parent sometimes means that you will be busier then you have ever been. For my family it includes not only juggling the everyday chaos of being parents to 4 amazing little humans, who are all so totally different, with sepereate needs that must be met for each one, but I also work full time outside the home, while my wife works full time inside the home in a much more complex compacity then I do. She’s amazing for all she does for our family.
Together we wade through the never ending chaos of scheduling mountains of in home and out of home appointments, these include 3 weekly parents visits, court hearings, doctors appointments, therapy and psychiatric appointments, in home visits with three different case workers, and 3 different GALs, visits with the adoption worker and paperwork for that, visits and phone calls with CASA workers, speech therapy, Early on appointments for 2 little humans, tutoring sessions, and when that’s all done we still have to take care of our appointments to care for ourselves, and all the unexpected things that pop up.
There really isn’t a day of the week were we don’t have at least one thing going on and most days of the week it’s more then one. It’s hard work, but when things start changing and you see growth and change in the kids who come to us from hard places, it’s all worth it. Every sleepless night, every tear shed, every frustration, every smile, every laugh shared, all of it is worth it!!
So my goal is to try and at least post something everyday. We will see how that works out. Meanwhile if there is anything you would like me to write about, if you want, feel free to leave me a comment on what you would like to know. Can’t wait to hear from you!!!
Amoung all the other highly important things you will do for your children In care, you will also be called to be their biggest advocates.
This is an extremely important part of being a Foster Parent , the information that you share with their Case Worker, their GAL (Guardian Ad Litem), and if they are blessed to have a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) will go a long way in helping your child receive all the services they may need, all the extra support they deserve, and it will give them a voice in the court room when they are not able to do it for themselves.
As a Foster Parent, you are with that child more then anyone on the team will be. You see the day in and day out of their lives, your’e there to pick up the pieces when they are too heavy to carry, and to celebrate the victories when they happen. You see every smile and every tear, every outburst caused by something triggering, and you live deep in the trenches of their traumas, so it’s important to advocate, speak up and don’t feel bad for speaking their truth. It needs to be heard, it needs to be honored. Write everything down, share it with the team, and don’t hold back because you feel like you may feel backlash for speaking up. These children deserve it. They deserve their truth to be shouted out and taken seriously. They matter!!
The one thing they can’t teach you or prepare you for in any training is how to deal with the heartbreak that comes with fostering a child who is placed in your home.
Reunification is and should always be the goal of a child in foster care, when it’s safe to do so. We know that children will always do best when with their biological parents/family.
Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around that last statement! How is it that a child does better with parents that have temporarily lost their rights to have their children live with them. Easy answer, it’s their parents. It’s all they have ever known and for most children the life they are living is normal.
Biology is who we are, where we come from, where our connection is, it defines us. We carry attributes of the people we are connected to biologically. Our features, our mannerisms, the way we walk, the way we talk. We are connected to that. And when we are torn from that, we loose a sence of who we are supposed to be. And while there is belief that a foster home may be what’s best for children who are being abused and neglected we also have to remember that this is just another layer of trauma, no matter how “better” your home may be then the one that they were moved from.
It’s hard to care for and love a child who has come from hard places and to remember that supporting reunification, when it’s safe, is what is in the best interest of that child. It’s import to support and build up those children’s parents, and support the family unit, because we see on a daily basis what these children have gone through, we see the pain and fear in some of their eyes, we see the sadness flow out of them in anger and tantrums, we see them break everytime we have to take them for a visit and them remove them from their parents arms over and over. It’s hard work!! It’s heartbreaking. These children do better when they see a United front, everyone on the same page and for them to see you caring about their parent also helps them to know that they are safe. When these parents fight and do the hard work and feel support it can also be so healing for everyone. Reunification is not always a goodbye, when done right, you can become a forever support, even an extended family.
Children leaving our homes after being with us for so long is hard, It’s traumatic, it’s sad. But with every heartbreak, I’ve become a stronger person. I’ve learned another lesson and I’ve grown so much.
This is also where your supports that I talked about before come in. Lean on them, talk to them, cry with them and heal with them.
If your heart doesn’t break, you’re doing it wrong.
When we recieved the phone call for our first placement I think the newness of being a foster parent was quite evident. The call lasted all of approximately 7 minutes and we were promoted to parents just like that.
The call was brief with little information about the toddler that was about to start living with us full time. And upon his arrival his list of behaviors grew much larger then the shared information. Oh to know then, what I know now.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the information just isn’t there to give. Sometime the agency has no idea because information was not shared with them also. But sometimes it’s not shared because they are desperate for a home to take said child.
This is why I encourage anyone whom is new to fostering or who is thinking of being a foster parent, write down a list of questions that are important to you and your family, don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions, or just any question that you believe will help you make the decision to take a child from foster care into your home.
It’s best to ask ALL the questions. Children who are in care deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, they deserve a chance, and disruptions in a placement will cause additional trauma to that child that didn’t need to happen. But like I said, sometimes there isn’t an answer for some things. This is where you need to take a few minutes, have a real conversation with the whole family, get input from your support people even if you need it, ask them if they would be willing to help if things weren’t as they seemed they would be. Don’t just say yes. Know your limitations and don’t be swayed because you feel bad for that child. It would be a worse disservice to take them into your home to only have them moved again.
Questions are Important. Knowing your limitations are important. Let that Placement Worker know that you will have to talk first about it and dont be afraid to ask them to look into finding answers to the questions you have asked if they don’t have an answer for you.
This step is so important, it can set you up for success or failure. Not only does that child they are asking you to take into your home deserve this, but your family also deserves it.
Probably the most asked question I hear when talking to people about being a foster parent is, How do you do it?
The short answer is, I can’t picture not doing it. I feel called.
The longer answer…
Each year approximately 7,400 children enter the foster care for the first time. And on any given day approximately 13,000 children are in foster care or residential placement due to abuse and neglect.
On an average children and youth are in an out of home placement for 1-2 years before exiting care.
Today more then half a million children in America live in foster care. This year alone approximately 20,000 of them will age out of foster care typically at age 18.
Between 31% and 46% of youth exiting foster care experience homelessness by age 26. A study conducted in Washington State found that approximately one quarter of youth that exited foster care at age 17 or older became homeless within 12 months of exit.
More than 3,000 children in Michigan are waiting for permanent, loving homes each year.
Approximately 13,000 children in Michigan alone are in Foster care, are the are only approximately 6,000 licensed homes. The fluctuates due to homes closing at an alarming rate. Simply put, there just isn’t enough homes to take the children in need. This often lands them in Residential Facilities, homeless shelters, and sometimes sleeping on the floors in agencies until a placement can be found.
CHILDREN IN THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM CONTINUE TO:
spend unnecessary time in residential or shelter placements because of the lack of available foster homes;
experience multiple placement moves due to the lack of available homes from which to choose a good match;
experience greater uncertainty, increased trauma and poorer outcomes due to multiple placement moves; and
are more frequently separated from their siblings because of a lack of available homes to accommodate multiple children.
So, my heart is called and although I know we can’t help them all. We say yes to those we can, and pray that the rest can find a place where they may heal and hopefully their stay in foster care will not be long.
Our first child in foster care came to stay with us July 7, 2011, just a few weeks before our 1 year anniversary of becoming a licensed foster home.
We were on our yearly camping vacation to Mackinaw City when we got the call. This 3 year old little boy had seen many disruptions in placements before he came to us. My heart really hurt for him. They told us he was busy, and that he had epilepsy, but it was managed with medication. They didn’t have enough much more information to give us at that time. We told them that we would love to give him a home but we couldn’t do it until we were back from vacation. They were desperate to find him a home and asked if we thought our secondary care giver would be able to pick him up and have him stay there until we got back. It was only going to be overnight. We called my mother in law and she was happy to go get him.
When we got home we went to pick him up, he was just this little human standing there waiting to be loved on. My wife introduced herself to him and asked him what his name was, he looked at her and said “6.”
The first couple days with 6 were pretty fun getting to know him, but the first thing we noticed is that he had absolutely no idea how to play with toys, he just sat on our floor with some cars and stared at them. Then when nap time came he became very triggered. He would throw himself around so much that we were afraid he would fall off the bed and hurt himself, we had to move the mattress to the floor. One day during bed time he asked my wife to hold his hand, she did and she had to till he fell asleep and this turned into every night and at nap time.
I had to sleep on the couch, because we weren’t sure if he would come out of his room and get into things. He would wake up and come out and kiss my face and say “goo mornin”, it was the sweetest thing. We then would do breakfast, meds and get ready for the day. It wouldn’t be long after his meds that we stated noticing that there would be an abrupt behavior change. He would get angry and throw fits and not communicate as well.
I made an appointment with his neurologist, I explained what we had been noticing in hopes we could get a medication change. That visit was a joke, they didn’t want to listen to our concerns and stated they didn’t want to change his medication because they had not seen him for his normal visits since being prescribed the medication and they wanted to see how they were working now that they would be seeing him regularly. They sent us home and we were stuck were we started.
One day while my wife was doing some running around, she stopped at a home that was having a rummage sale. Her and 6 got out of the car and a lady came out of the house, she asked if we were 6s foster parents, she had stated that he was previously placed in her home and that she had been the 5th home he had been in. That’s when we learned we were the 6th home he had been in, in less then 6 months.
We had talked a lot about what we could give 6 and if we were what was in his best interest. At this point we had not even heard about trauma training or any other kind of training we could have had to help him. This was our first placement and we probably should have never even been asked to take a placement with such high needs.
We got information that 6s father wanted placement of him, he actually had legal custody of him, but had to set up housing in the state he moved to before he took him, so his father left him with his mother and that when we ends up in Foster Care. We had by the time we received this information decided to put in a notice to have him moved. When I heard his father wanted him to come home with him I started making calls to the GAL and the fathers lawyer and the case worker, I asked if there was a way I could speak in court to the judge, 6s GAL said she would look into it. At court I was called to the stand. I did the only thing that I knew was in 6s best interest. I told the judge I felt it would be harmful to move 6 yet again to another foster home when his father so desperately wanted him home. I explained that we were his 6th placement and that moving him again to strangers would only cause more problems for him.
I held my breath while the hearing continued, everyone said the things they had to say and at the end, the judge ordered 6 to be placed with his father. I was so happy for him. He was going home. We were asked to keep him for a few more days to give his dad time to get to Michigan to get him and on August 29, 2011 6 and his 2 sisters went home to their dads.
We got to meet 6s father and 2 siblings, we wrote out a diary of sorts of all the things we learned that 6 liked, the foods he had become found of, of the stuff he hated, our routine that seemed to work well for him. We wanted this transition to be easy for his father and for him. Unfortunately his father wanted nothing to do with what we had done for him, he ignored us and didn’t say much. But that’s part of what we do as foster parents. We do our best to make transitions smooth, and after it’s all said and done we can hope that some of what we brought will be utilized and the children we cared for will be better off for it.
My last blog I talked about support and how important it is to make sure that you have a good support system around you when you decide to become a foster parent.
This brings me to the introduction of my beautiful wife, Nikki Tanguay, my rock, my supporter, my shelter, my best friend, my soul mate, my hero, my hat trying on friend, the person I can cry with and laugh with and the most wonderful mother I could ever ask for for our children.
We met when she was 8 and I was 9. I moved on to the street that she lived on and we became best friends. I spent every weekend at her house and when I moved away that didn’t stop. I also spent most of my summers there too. Her mother was a kinda unofficial foster mother to me. To most the kids in the neighborhood, and some outside of it too actually. We’re a big group, that are still connected to each other.
When we got older we became roommates and lived in several homes together, and when we didn’t live in the same home we still were at each others houses hanging out all the time.
We officially started dating on April 2011. But according to friends and family that knew us, they thought it should have happened sooner. When we finally started dating a lot of them said, ‘It’s about time”
We were engaged on November 23, 2012 and got married on September 28, 2013. We couldn’t legally get married but that didn’t matter to us. We just knew we needed to spend the rest of our lives together.
Then June 26, 2015 happen, LOVE WINS, same sex marriage in now legal and we didn’t miss a beat. As soon as I heard I called my wife on the phone and asked her to marry me again, she proposed the first time. We planned the wedding for July 25, 2015, we didn’t want to take a chance that it would get overturned. We have now been married legally for 7 years, and they have been the best years of my life.
My wife has supported me in all the things I have ever dreamed of doing. Encouraging and supporting me every step of the way. When the dream of adopting and soon after fostering became a reality for me, she was there cheering me on. Even before marriage. As a best friend and roommate she took the Pride classes (now called GROW Classes) with me. When I wanted to continue licensing our house as foster home, she jumped right in. I couldn’t ask for a better person to be by my side through this crazy adventure of a life we have.
One thing I wish I would of done at the beginning of my Fostering Adventure is gain more support early on.
This is one of the many things I wish I would of known about sooner then later, and my hope is, by talking about it, I can help someone else in navigating through this part of Foster Care.
Don’t get me wrong, family and friends can and often will be very supportive, some more then others, but getting support from people who are going through what you are going through is such an amazing and valuable tool to have. I’ll be talking some time later about your Foster Care Tool Box.
Aside from friends and family, having a network of other Foster parents around you is so important, they do the court dates, the visits, the extra doctors/specialist appointments, the visits with Case Workers, GALs, and CASAs. It’s a lot and not everyone gets it. Join a support group on line, there are great ones in person also. We have a wonderful one in my County called Foster Love, it’s filled with amazing, seasoned, helpful, loving people. They get it. They live it. And when it’s hard, they pull each other up.
Now, by no means am I saying that family and friends can’t do all that for you too. I hope your as lucky as I am to have that kind of support. But, you will have people who were eager to support early on and as time goes by it gets hard for them. Not only does life change and responsibilities change but sometimes the hurt that comes from children coming and going in your life can be very hard. We know this first hand, as Foster Parents we live this daily. If we could buy stocks in it, we would be billionaires. But it’s important to remember and to have some grace for family and friends, they didn’t sign up for this. They may have supported you and still do, they just have to do it in a different way. Or like my Mother in Law, they will be all in all of the time, loving them as her own, being a Grams to kids that just need additional love.
The process to becoming a licensed foster home up to receiving that first call for your first placement can seem like forever.
We started the process in January of 2010, classes ended in Feb. But it would be until July of 2011 that we would be officially a licensed foster home.
First call a foster care navigator in your area, you will recieve tons of information from them. Then interview some agencies in your area, so you can best choose who will be a good fit for your family. Attend an orientation and sign up for GROW classes. After you attend a GROW class, you can then decide if Foatering is truly what is best for your family.
After GROW classes the work begins.
There is so much paper work. And a lot of it seemed repetitive. You will have to disclose your bills, your pay stubs, your pet vaccinations and licenses. You will have to make an emergency plan and post it in your home along with an emergency contact list. You will also have to have your fingerprints done, and have a physical for anyone living in the home. There will be a background checks also.
Amoung all this paperwork, you will also have to write an autobiography. You will recieve questions that they want answered included. This by far was the hardest thing that I had ever done. This brought up a lot of past trauma that I had neatly tucked behind a wall that I built so carefully to keep people away from it. You will answer stuff such as, favorite holiday, how was discipline done in your house as a child, what’s your strengths/weaknesses, religious background, what were the roles of your parents in the house growing up, amough a slew of other questions.
Along with paperwork comes the home study, this consists of measurements in all bedrooms, who sleeps were, what beds and furniture are in each broom, checking water temperature, checking your fire alarms/carbon monoxide detectors, If you have a second floor you will need a fire escape ladder, having a safety plan for if you have a pool or water on your property, checking alarms on your doors leading to said water, describing the layout of your home, checking to make sure your home phone works, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but this is the just of it.
After all this is done….. You wait….. And wait……
When we finally got news we were licensed, I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to be help for a little human. We waited…. And waited…
Finally a year later almost to the date we received our first call for our first placement…… What a rollercoaster of a ride and learning experience that was….
The adventure of foster care really started a year before I even knew I would become a foster parent. I honestly had no idea I even ever wanted to be one.
That all changed in 2008 when I met 2 darling little humans who were in foster care. My cousin had been a foster parent for some time and had adopted a son through foster care, and was in the process of adopting this darling sibling set. The little girl had been with her since 10 months old and her brother came to her after birth. I did not meet them until they we’re 2 and 3. I started babysitting for my cousin and helping out when I could, and it didn’t take long to fall in love with G and A, thats what we will call them to respect their privacy.
G and A stayed with me for 10 days while my cousin had to go out of town. It didn’t take much for me to instantly fall in love with them. They were the sweetest.
Things happened in the home with my cousins (adopted) son and because of those things she was unable to adopt G and A. This issue in the home is not my story to tell but it is one of the many reason why I strongly believe the system is broken. All children in the home were safe and very loved. I’ll talk more about the issue in a later blog.
Because of G and A would no longer be adopted by my cousin I decided to put in an Intent to Adopt. I can tell you know from experience that the process was not handled properly and I was not chosen. This is another reason I strongly believe our system is broken. G and A were our family, they knew no other family, and that did not keep them with us. My heart was broken, along side my cousin who had loved and nurtured and protected these children their whole lives. This is when I decided to continue the process to licence my home as a foster home.
G and A, although never legally, will always be considered my first children from foster care. Being blessed to be able to love on them for the short time that I did opened my eyes to my calling of being a foster parent. I haven’t regretted it for a minute since we welcomed our first little human into our home. That’s a story for another day.
Hello, I’m Stacy. I’ve been a Foster Parent longer then I have been a biological parent.
My journey as a foster parent started in 2009, and since I have been blessed with helping 29 children through this rocky, scary, unpredictable chapter of their lives.
I went into this totally unaware of exactly what it all entailed, unaware of how my heart would break, and how it would love so deeply and unconditionally.
I’m hoping through my blog, I can help others navigate through this system that is broken and help people see exactly what it is like to become a foster parent, the ins and outs of the daily life as a foster parent, but most of all I hope I can help people see why it is so important to be educated fully, not only with the classes provided to become a licensed foster home, but how important it is to seek other education before deciding to do the work of healing children and their families who come from hard places. And along the way, hopefully you will learn to heal from your hard places.
I’m not a writer by nature. I’m scared to do this and put myself out there. I’m pationate about the work I do as a Parent of Children who are in foster care. So today I begin my chapter of healing another part of myself that came from hard places, so I can grow more into the person my family sees. I’m diving in. Facing my fear of rejection. My fear of failure. I hope you decide to come along.
Fostering.... The Life 