Yes, the dreaded home study. Let me put your minds at ease if this is in your future. As the days drawn nearer the panic sets in. We stay up late cleaning the corners of every room with a toothpick, actually it is a foster mom's equivalence of "nesting", as I felt the same. Our home study worker arrived and to be honest it was a walk in the park. PLEASE NOTE: Every home study worker is different. For instance, some friends have had them ask the children questions about how they are disciplined, look in every nook and cranny etc. However, the home studies are really about preparing you, not exactly all about scrutinizing your flaws.
We were a bit discouraged when we heard our chance for adopting from fostering was about 10%. You really must be prepared to be willing and facilitating the child to go back with the parent if reunification is possible. While keeping in mind, if reunification is not possible we would be first to be considered for adoption, after family. Usually they try to check out the family option in the initial days so they you don't end up fostering for a year and a half only to find out the child is going to be adopted by an aunt. This is a fairly new practice since in the past many cases went exactly that way.
Newborns and the issues were a main concern for us. Most people do not consider to apply for fostering newborns since they are told (as we were) there simply not any available. Guess what? That is a myth. Many foster families are dual income. They simply cannot take an infant unless they are six weeks or older due to the fact they need them to be able to go into daycare. Since I am home, we are willing to take the newborns.
Let's face it there are primarily a few reasons a newborn would be in foster care already. 1. Mother is incarcerated. 2. Mother tested positive for illegal drugs while giving birth. 3. Mother has already had previous children taken into foster care. (Note: that does not mean she automatically loses custody of this baby, but it does mean automatically there is an investigation.) So that could be a short term care of a few days while they check out that she is fit.
Drugs. Most of issues with drugs are the baby has undoubtedly been lacking in prenatal care whether withdrawl symptoms are present in the child or not. More likely than not they will be born prematurely so there are all of the things that come along with premature babies as well. For instance, apnea machines, child not able to eat or sleep properly just due to weight. The hospital will have you get some training before leaving with the child, thankfully.
I guess I am getting off topic but all in all the home study was a breeze. Our worker comes back for a second one which is scheduled in a few days and that is mostly to go over paper work and policy. She told us at the first study that we should have our approval in two weeks after her supervisor signs off and the next supervisor up signs off.
The following day all our references called to say they received the forms in the mail. Make sure to choose someone who will return them right away or you will hold things up. Once again we come back to praying for God to lead us and us to not jump ahead of Him.
Showing posts with label foster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foster. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
No must be NO
We are onto the part of what type of child would we accept. The list of circumstances is long and prayer provoking. Different race? Disabilities? Mental illness? Sexually Abused? Product of rape or incest? Part of a sibling group? Exposed to drugs or alcohol? Everything unknown? All of it takes faith, even birthing your own healthy child from your womb.
They say that 80% of children in foster care have been sexually abused. Many times it is not even known until they are in a family where they build enough trust to discuss it or traumatic memories resurface. There are many types of abuse of this type from exposure to inappropriate material to the unthinkable.
The advice I think that will serve us well regardless of what we can accept and what we cannot is, LET OUR NO BE OUR NO. In other words, if we say we can take a single child ages 5-9 do not buckle when they call with twin newborns. Or if you want a child under 3 do not cave in when they call and say we have a new baby but it comes with an 8 year old. If you are not able to be comfortable with medically fragile children no matter how rosy the picture is painted about the prognosis do not be swayed.
That is not to say any of these situations are bad but whatever you feel God is leading you to stick with it and do not take on something He is not calling you to. We went through several scenarios in class and I already saw myself letting my heart get away from me. The bible says our heart is deceitful. Stick with God's plan. Case workers have a heart too, and they live with the idea of all these kids that are not placed with a family. They also know how terrific some of the kids are. Unfortunately, it's easy for them to become persuasive at convincing you that you can handle a situation that God isn't calling you to. Not to paint them in an unethical light, I am sure I would sell you on a child or sibling group too! Remember "No Must Be No"!
They say that 80% of children in foster care have been sexually abused. Many times it is not even known until they are in a family where they build enough trust to discuss it or traumatic memories resurface. There are many types of abuse of this type from exposure to inappropriate material to the unthinkable.
The advice I think that will serve us well regardless of what we can accept and what we cannot is, LET OUR NO BE OUR NO. In other words, if we say we can take a single child ages 5-9 do not buckle when they call with twin newborns. Or if you want a child under 3 do not cave in when they call and say we have a new baby but it comes with an 8 year old. If you are not able to be comfortable with medically fragile children no matter how rosy the picture is painted about the prognosis do not be swayed.
That is not to say any of these situations are bad but whatever you feel God is leading you to stick with it and do not take on something He is not calling you to. We went through several scenarios in class and I already saw myself letting my heart get away from me. The bible says our heart is deceitful. Stick with God's plan. Case workers have a heart too, and they live with the idea of all these kids that are not placed with a family. They also know how terrific some of the kids are. Unfortunately, it's easy for them to become persuasive at convincing you that you can handle a situation that God isn't calling you to. Not to paint them in an unethical light, I am sure I would sell you on a child or sibling group too! Remember "No Must Be No"!
Fostering?
We decided to go through a Christian agency at first. There were two issues, one the cost (is it me or is that always were the crisis of faith comes in?). The second was my age. I will be 44 this fall and at 45 if we are not chosen by a birth mother our file is deleted. That is a lot of legwork, costs etc to be deleted.
Some dear friends are going through a custody battle with their foster son who they have had since birth in jail. It's been over a year and the parents were released on a loophole. My heart has ached praying for the decision to come down from the judge. Judges are nothing if not unpredictable. At that point I said "I could never foster." Yep, you know where this is going, don't you?
At first we thought, we could do respite (basically, babysitting to give foster parents a break, since they cannot use just any childcare for a foster child.) There are also needs for people to drive kids to appointments for the foster parents and other duties. Since the process is the same to foster and to do respite we thought this will be a great way to get our home study done and other costly things while we help out people who foster. So the process began.
In the meantime, a different family we are close friends with were interested in adopting a little girl who had been fostered by friends of theirs for 15 months. So they were starting the process as well. They have six children and took some stretching to think about starting over with a toddler since their youngest was 8. As they were wrapping their brain and heart around the idea of this sweet girl a phone call comes. She asked me if I was sitting down when she told me. "No one in the system was aware that the birthmom was pregnant and she just gave birth to the little girl's brother, there was a newborn at the hospital!" So there addition of one jumped to two.
Some dear friends are going through a custody battle with their foster son who they have had since birth in jail. It's been over a year and the parents were released on a loophole. My heart has ached praying for the decision to come down from the judge. Judges are nothing if not unpredictable. At that point I said "I could never foster." Yep, you know where this is going, don't you?
At first we thought, we could do respite (basically, babysitting to give foster parents a break, since they cannot use just any childcare for a foster child.) There are also needs for people to drive kids to appointments for the foster parents and other duties. Since the process is the same to foster and to do respite we thought this will be a great way to get our home study done and other costly things while we help out people who foster. So the process began.
In the meantime, a different family we are close friends with were interested in adopting a little girl who had been fostered by friends of theirs for 15 months. So they were starting the process as well. They have six children and took some stretching to think about starting over with a toddler since their youngest was 8. As they were wrapping their brain and heart around the idea of this sweet girl a phone call comes. She asked me if I was sitting down when she told me. "No one in the system was aware that the birthmom was pregnant and she just gave birth to the little girl's brother, there was a newborn at the hospital!" So there addition of one jumped to two.
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