2nd Homestudy Down

Well, we seem to have successfully navigated questions about discipline, assessing impact, finding support, etc. Our second homestudy (of 3) is finished! :) We're pleased to be making connections with others in our class. We'll be done with classes in March, and should have our license in April or May. We're hoping to start with respite care initially, which means we'd basically take kids for other families for a couple days at a time while they go away for a weekend or something to that effect.

A few things adopting requires you to do that we might not have otherwise done:

1. Buy a locking cabinet for prescription meds (probably not a bad idea anyway)

2. Draw a floorplan of your home including where beds will be placed (We had fun with this one. It was like HGTV. Dave drew everything to scale.)

3. Detail your discipline strategies before you have really used them.

4. Disclose your family history and what you would do the same or different as your nuclear family. (Proved to be helpful.)

5. Get a statement of good physical and mental health. (C'mon, get off that couch!)

We're excited to move forward. We're still stripping wallpaper in what will be the 2nd bedroom we use for kids, but we hope to have it ready soon. Then the bunk beds go up. :)

Thanks for reading~Sarah

Social Workers as Telemarketers...uh-oh!

In conjunction with last week's class about "culture," we seemed to be magnets for frustrating stories. Although they have you fill out forms about what you prefer in kids, etc...apparently the reality is that when they're in a pinch to find a home for a kid, they pretty much just start going down the list to see who will take them in.

A family that has recently become foster parents has described social workers as "telemarketers who know what you want," so they just tell you that's what the kid is. Then the kid shows up, and that's not what they are at all. This happened to them with blatenly obvious things such as misreporting race, availability for adoption, and how many previous homes the kids had been in. Imagine getting a call that they have "a nice young boy for you," and when you open your door it's the girl in the picture. Are you going to say "no" to her face? This puts the foster parents in a really bad position.

We had been thinking that we would like to foster to adopt, which means you take in children while they're still technically working toward reunification, but the social worker doesn't see it going well so they're doing "concurrant planning." We had thought it would be better for the kid if we could essentially lessen their time in the system by beginning to parent them sooner. However, it sounds like it works out out better if you are just willing to be foster parents in general and when a kid comes along that you like and they're available for adoption, you say "sure!"

So, we are now leaning toward taking kids who are "waiting." It may take longer before kids enter our home. You have to be approved as a good fit for the kids, meet each other a few times, and then they start to live with you. Then there's a 6 month sort of trial period where the social worker regularly checks in to see how it's going. Finally, the adoption is legalized. This actually sounds nice to have the support as opposed to having the kids just show up one day-sink or swim!

We're learning. We're a bit disgruntled that the decision seems to rest so much on the parents when it comes to foster kids. We're learning that we will more than likely have to say "no" for quite a while before we can say "yes."

Good thing that we're trusting God to know which kids are right for us more than we're trusting the system! :o)