Most of you know by now that I am a foster mama. We became licensed last November and were placed with two little girls within 3 months of being licensed.

It took me over a year to convince myself that I had the strength to become a foster parent. Throughout the licensing process, and especially during the 10 weeks of training, I had nagging doubts about the decision I had made to go forward. It’s not easy hearing of the abuse that children coming to you from the foster care system have gone through and how it might affect your family after placement.

Thankfully, I had some fantastic support along the way from friends both in person and online.

As I was skimming through blogs looking for my next Highlights post, I came across a foster blog written from a man’s perspective as he and his wife jump through the hoops to get licensed. In the post I’m highlighting, he confronts his fears about having the strength to go on.

Won’t you please read his post and then offer him some encouragement. Fostering isn’t for everyone but even if you’re not at a place in your life to become a foster parent, encouraging those that are is a very good thing! I know the encouragement that I received made all the difference in the world!

Where does time go?

Yesterday we had our official home visit from the case worker. She went over the criteria we choose last time she was here, to see if we had any changes since we started taking the classes. I’m not sure. Do I have the strength to do this?

Last Thursday’s class we covered two classes worth of material, to make up for the rained out class the week before. the further we go in this endeavor, the more distressing it becomes. It is really heartbreaking to read some of the sample case studies and what these children go through at the hands of their parents. What are we doing to our children?

Ok, here is the updates of classes and topics discussed:

Class 5 - Helping Children Learn to Manage Behaviors

This subject is tough for us. There is the urge to punish, but you can’t. Discipline! Punishment is “a behavior designed to stop a behavior.” Discipline is ” training intended to produce a specified character or pattern of behavior.”

Punishment is the quick and dirty way, but Discipline produces long-term results!

We worked through the differences between RISK and SAFETY in Foster Care. Risk is the likelihood of long-term harm or mistreatment, while Safety deals with immediate issues.

An example would be the situation with the FLDS church kids in Texas. Texas CPS pulled those kids when the compound was raided. However, there was no Safety issue to justify the removal. There are Risk issues, yes, but nothing that would justify immediate action. Although I would prefer they err on the side of caution instead of Arizona, which seems to have a habit of leaving kids in bad situations until they are dead.

Mainly, we dealt with safety and care in the foster setting, and how that should help mitigate some of the behavior patterns in the children, at least to an extent.

Class 6: Helping Children with Birth Family Connection

This module is a bit hard to describe. It deals with self-concept, connections, identity and culture.

We learned the definitions of identity, self-concept, Connections, Culture, Race and Ethnicity. We worked at identifying and understanding cultural needs as well as ways to manage problems with family visits. This whole module is focused on dealing with interactions between the child and birth family and what it might entail.

Class 7: Gains and Losses: Helping Children Leave Foster Care

This module has been the hardest for me personally. We talked about children leaving the Foster Care program, either through adoption, return to parents, or Age-ing out of the system.

Unfortunately, the points of this class were hammered home through case histories and interviews with case workers and children that the system failed. They are classic stories of society failing. I took from this reading an idea of what NOT to do in the future. It was also interesting that they took one girl’s story and contrasted it with the case worker’s report. Wow.

Foster Parents have a big roll in transitioning children out of Foster Care, and how we fill that roll makes a big difference in how the children will function.

The homework was to read a case study and then a letter written by a adoptive family to friends telling how an adoption fell apart.

Again, do I have the strength to go on with this? Can I see this through?

~ By David of Our Adoption Trail

Categories: Highlights
Tags: encouragement, fostering, Highlights, leap of faith, parenting