We've been licensed foster parents for 9 months now, and wanted to take some time to answer the most common questions we've gotten, and other questions that you have about foster care, foster kids, and foster parents! These are my answers from my own experience and training; the information I give is accurate to the best of my knowledge for my state and county, but may not be the same everywhere and may change! I've categorized by subject, so feel free to read everything or just the parts that interest you! If you have any other questions, drop a comment or message me! Here we go!
Day to Day Life:
A. Yes! While I hope to stay home full time or most of the time after Matt graduates and finds a job, right now I am still working outside the home!
Q. How does daycare work?
A. Child Protective Services partners with a number of daycares through a voucher program. This voucher is good for a set amount towards the daycare tuition, determined by the child's age. For example, our chosen daycare charges $40/wk more than our voucher is good for (because we don't have a ton of good options in our neighborhood and we're picky!). This means that CPS pays the voucher amount each week, and we pay the extra $40. We use our CPS reimbursement to cover this cost, meaning that daycare is free for us!
Q. How quickly do your kids start daycare?
A. It depends. We have a back-up daycare that has so far told us every time that they can start the next day. Our preferred daycare is wonderful about working with foster families, and will usually be able to make an opening within a week or so. The children also have to be up-to-date on their shots to start daycare which can sometimes be an issue (aka spending 4 hours at the health department the day before they start daycare). I prefer to take some time off to bond with a new child if possible, and Matt's schedule as a student allows him some time at home. Between this and some neighbors who are foster parents and our approved babysitters, we can minimize my time off work, and allow the child some time with us to adjust before beginning daycare.
Q. How does working full time work?
A. Teamwork! You, your spouse or family, your close support network, and your social worker work together to make sure the needs of the child and the requirements of the system are met. Social workers will take children to visitation and doctor appointments if you aren't able to, but we try to do as much of it ourselves as possible! It's also important to know that foster care falls under the Family Medical Leave Act. You can talk to your HR director at work to find out what this means in your company and discuss your leave options when you receive a new placement or need to take time off for court and doctor appointments! My office is incredibly understanding and flexible with me when it comes to foster care, which I don't take for granted, and try not to take unfair advantage of! One of the common questions I see is if you can be single and be a foster parent; I'm going to lump this in here. Yes, you can be single and be a foster parent. I can't imagine doing it as a single parent, but I also can't imagine being a single parent generally speaking! If you have a great community of support, and are willing to take some time off work for it, you can do it! It won't be easy, but it's allowed and possible! Preference may be given to two parent homes (I don't know!), but mostly CPS just wants to put kids in loving homes!
Q. What is the "reimbursement" you mentioned?
A. As a general rule, foster parents don't talk about the financial side of it very much. What I generally say is "we don't do it for the money, but it would be a lot harder to do it without it." The reimbursement is designed to cover the costs of caring for a child in your home. It is not a "payment". There are rules for what it must be spent on, and we've found that it very comfortably covers everything we need for the child and allows us to involve them in all of our normal family activities and trips. At the end of a placement anything we spent the reimbursement on that the child still uses goes with them.
Q. What do foster children call their foster parents?
A.Whatever the child wants to. We haven't personally dealt with this as all of our foster loves have been infants so far but I have a few thoughts on it. The most important thing is that the child is comfortable, especially while they process the change and adjust to their new environment. I've heard of foster children calling their foster parents many different things. Some kids prefer to call them mom and dad because it won't draw attention to the fact that they are foster children when out in public. Some call them mom and dad because it's what their foster siblings call them. Some call them by their first names or "Momma <First Name>". I don't have any issues with a foster child calling me mommy, because I think it's possible for kids to have more than one mom for a while, but if a bio-mom didn't want them calling me mommy I would do my best to respect and accommodate that. We don't immediately call ourselves mom and dad when we get a placement, especially with shorter placements. As we learn about the role of their birth parents in their lives, we may feel more comfortable with it. For example, if a child doesn't have a father figure in their life, we would be more comfortable calling Matt dad. Please feel free to ask a foster-parent what their kids call them, or just pay attention to the family interactions to find out, so you can be consistent with their terminology! This is so helpful to the kids and the parents!
Requirements
Q. Who can be a foster parent?
A. Just about anyone (which probably means YOU!). Y'all, I'm 25 and my husband is in grad-school; I'm serious, almost anyone is allowed to do this if you have a heart for it! In our state you must be either legally married or legally single (no live-ins).You must be able to demonstrate that you are financially independent (make more than your expenses each month). You can have loans and debt, as long as your monthly payments don't mean that you are earning less than you spend. You can work full-time, part-time or stay at home as long as you meet these requirements and are able to arrange approved childcare for the time you need it. There is a limit on the number of children you may have living in your home, which I believe in our state is 4. Most states have a similar requirement, but some are so desperate for good foster-parents that they may waive this requirement. You must have a medical professional complete an general physical and fill out an accompanying form to prove you are physically capable of caring for foster children. You also can't have a criminal record (a parking ticket won't stop you from becoming a foster-parent though, only serious or repeated offenses!), everyone over 14 in the home must pass a background check.
Q. What are the requirements for your home?
A. SAFETY! This is a hard question as I never actually received a list of requirements, but I'll go through the main things. First of all, you have to have room for a foster-child (but not necessarily A room!). You can live in an apartment or a house. We have a unique living situation, and CPS never batted an eye at it! Children under 18 months may share a room with their foster parents. Children of the same gender and within 2 years of each other may share a bedroom (up to 2 children per room, though exceptions may be made to this, especially for sibling groups). I believe that your own opposite gender children may share a room, but the foster-child may only share a room within these requirements. A foster child must have their own age-appropriate bed. Past that, it's a matter of making the home safe: basic baby-proofing, locking up medicines and cleaning supplies, and having smoke detectors, a 5lb fire extinguisher, a Carbon Monoxide detector, and a fire escape ladder if the child sleeps on the second floor or higher of a building.
The Licensure Process
Q. How long does it take to become a foster parent?
A. It took us 4 months from submitting our first application to getting licensed. And then another 2.5 months before welcoming our first placement. This is EXTREMELY SHORT compared to most states where you're told to plan on it taking a year to get licensed.
Q. What does the licensing process involve?
A. Background check, training, and a homestudy. First, we submitted an online application with CPS. Then once we were contacted by a social worker a month later, we had an initial walk-through of our home to be sure we met minimum space and safety requirements, then attended a 2 hour orientation meeting where we were finger-printed and gave permission for background checks, followed by two more 3 hour training sessions, and more hours of online training. In our state this must all be done in a specific order, and missing a step will make you re-start the entire process. Once this was completed we did a "homestudy" which consists (or is suppose to consist) of a detailed inspection of your home to be sure you've met all the safety requirements, and an interview by your social worker with every member of the household regarding your motivation for foster care, parenting philosophy, day to day lives, religion, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. (you get the point). As mentioned above, we also had to submit financial documents and have physicals as part of the licensing process. It might sound like a lot, but really it wasn't very difficult at all, they're just making sure that vulnerable kids get placed in safe and loving homes!
Foster Kids
Q. What determines the foster children who are placed with you?
A. We do! When we applied to be foster parents we listed all of our criteria. Right now we've even put a limit on the length of placement we're able to take since there's a chance we move out of state after graduation next year. Age, gender, levels of disabilities, and even race are traits that we were able to say we would or wouldn't be willing to accept. Strangely, every time I receive a call for a new placement, we are usually told very little, but we are always told the race. We even had CPS call us back once when they found out the race of the child was different than we'd been told (they didn't tell us the gender and age had also changed!). My response is always, "they can be purple for all I care!" When we get a call for a placement we can say yes or no based on the information they give us or our situation.
Q. "Was it drugs?" (and other questions about foster kids' backgrounds and parents)
A. I can't tell you. I might not even know, and we REALLY aren't allowed to discuss the specifics of a foster child's situation because it's really not our place to tell. What I can tell you, is that children come into care for many different reasons, and it's always important to respect the child, the child's biological family, and the privacy of everyone involved. If you ask me a question and I give you a vague answer, please don't push me to give more information. It's hard not to talk about it, but we want to keep our commitment to respect everyone involved in the process. If there's a question you'd like to ask, prefacing it with "if you aren't allowed to discuss it, that's okay, but I was wondering...." is a great way to show your interest while respecting everyone and our commitments.
Helpful and Unhelpful Things
Q. What are some unhelpful things that people say to foster parents?
A. I try to understand that everything you say is said with the best intentions so if you've said any of these, I'm not upset, I probably don't remember because a million other people have probably said it too. The most common thing most of us hear is "I couldn't do it, I'd get too attached." This is such a common thing that people say that I'm sure most people never think about the implications of it. But to a foster parent, we hear a few different things in this sentence that I'm going to try to briefly unpack; bear with me. First, it says that we must have some sort of special ability to do this, which isn't true. We're normal people with normal limitations and normal hearts. Second, it implies that we don't love them "too much." On this point, the first thing I'll say is that when we had our 2.5 month long placement, I had actual doubts about whether or not I would love our own children as much as I loved her; the same doubts that many parents experience when they are expecting their second child. The amount that we love these children is nothing less than your love for your own kids. Loving them means doing what's best for them, and recognizing that what's best might not be us, it's their own family! Yes, we've selfishly wished that we could keep a foster forever. Yes, saying goodbye was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but, we've learned that when hard comes your way, you do what you need to do, you do what is best, and you make it through. That means saying goodbye, and it means letting your own heart be broken for a child who you love and may never see again and finding out that you're okay after-all. That all being said, this statement implies that these kids aren't worth your love. This statement says "my own emotional comfort is more important than welcoming vulnerable, scared children in need of love and care into my home." I know this isn't what goes through your mind when you say this, but it's what we hear. Not everyone is able to be a foster parent, but please don't write it off so quickly, and there are better ways to acknowledge the difficulty of foster care than this statement. Okay, that wasn't brief, my bad. Most other things that are unhelpful stem from this and what I said above about respecting biological families and privacy: "will you be able to adopt her", "maybe the family won't want her and you can adopt her", "how much do you get paid" etc. Please remember that I will always try to understand that what you've said is with the best intentions and remind myself you just may not know how to say it, or I might have training or information that you don't; I really don't get my metaphorical feathers ruffled over it! Now on to the flip side of this:
Q. What are some helpful things people can SAY to foster parents?
A. Basically, just have some tact when you talk to foster parents! Ask kind, open questions instead of making statements and assumptions! We want to answer your questions as much as we're able to (hence this blog post!), and we want your support. Please don't let worrying about offending me get in the way of you asking, but also be teachable, and not a busybody!Ask out of genuine concern and a desire to get to know us and our kids, and you can't go wrong! Let us know that you pray for us, and that you love us and our kids for however long they may be around! The way our church loved our foster daughter while she was with us was incredible to us, and their sadness at her leaving was an encouragement, especially when people were able to share the bittersweetness with us. Again, ask us about our emotions and experiences instead of assuming what they are, foster care is complicated and messy, and so are our emotions about it! If you've read this, it means you care, and we are so thankful for you and your willingness to learn about our lives and our kids!
Q. What are some helpful things people can DO for foster Parents?
A. Normal things you'd do for other new parents, but you may have to do them a little differently. Meals are 100% always appreciated, especially when we first get a new placement! Babysitting can be tricky, because there are restrictions on who can watch foster-children, but you can still find ways. Ask foster parents what you can do to be able to babysit for them (this may mean getting background checked through CPS) or offer to come play with the kids or rock babies at the foster family's house so the parents can clean, cook, fold laundry, nap, or just sit in another room to have an uninterrupted conversation, or even better, do some cleaning for them so they can bond with their fosters! There are ALWAYS bottles in need of washing at our house when we have a placement! A friend of ours even offered to come stay overnight and get up with our foster baby throughout the night for us once to let us get some sleep! Even though we never took him up on it, the thought was very appreciated! Encourage your kids to play with our kids instead of being afraid of their "influence", foster kids need friends too, and having friends will help them heal and learn! Understand that we aren't allowed to discipline our children the same way you might discipline yours, and that there may be traumas and emotional issues that you aren't aware of when foster parents interact with their children and respond to their behaviors. If the foster family has other kids, offer to take the bio kids (and maybe do something special with them) so the parents can bond with the new child or take them to the doctor/visitations, etc! Another thing you can do is offer gently used hand-me-downs and extra furniture to foster families. Our area has a huge facebook group for this that allows people to donate to foster homes, or biological families who need to meet certain requirements to be able to bring their kids home (beds, clothes, food, etc!). Please, don't offer them your junk though! And, of course, pray for us and our kids, and ask us how you can do so!
Wow. Thanks for reading this, friends! Your support means the world to us and there's no way we could do this without our community behind us! If you have any questions about foster care, or any interest in becoming foster parents, please reach out, we LOVE to talk about it!
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