Any foster parents here?

[Rajah]

Can anyone tell me about foster care?

How it works? What's involved? Etc?

 

[workinggal]

Some information, the internet is a wonderful tool.

 

[Cindy B]

It all depends.

A coworker of my DH's is a foster parent. They were already parents.

The wife (DH's workmate is the husband) requested infants.

They both had to go to classes, and do fingerprinting. They had to have a home visit (maybe two?).

They have had infants for a while. They do get paid for the care, but its basically a wash with all the expenses going in. They were fortunate enough to have many baby items from their own children.

Their own children did click well with the foster babies.

However, there were some babies that they couldn't do. There were some drug addicted/FAS babies that were just inconsolable.

 

[Mimi Q]

I have thought about being a foster parent. My DH and I love children, but he thinks I would have a real problem letting them go. I would still like to try it when the girls are older. I volunteered at our local foster children's Christmas party for several years, and my heart just ached for those children.

 

[hipporina]

DH and I are foster/adopt parents. Our goal is adoption and we don't do traditional foster care. Our first pair came as foster kids with a plan of adoption. We had them 8 months before we were able to adopt them. Our third child was a similar situation, but CPS found relatives for him and he left. Our newest pair is an adoptive placement. They have been through the foster program and are cleared for adoption and we will finalize in 6 months.

My best piece of advice is to find a good private agency to go through, don't foster through CPS. If you tell me where in TX you are (pm if you like) I may be able to recommend an agency to you. We use Texas Baptist Homes and absolutely LOVE them! Not only have we been foster parents for about 2 years, but dh used to work as a case manager with a foster agency.

The first step is to select an agency and get licensed. In order to do that, you will have to go through a training program, do a homestudy, and have background checks done. There is usually little to no cost for this except for getting First Aid/CPR training.

After you finish all that, you can have children placed in your home. You will get payment for the kids based on how needy the children are. You also will be required to keep logs on how the children are doing and follow all of the policies of the agency and CPS.

Before you commit to doing this, be sure that you will be able to handle losing the kids after you get attached. We had that happen only that once, and it was incredibly difficult for me. It is not something I ever want to experience again. However, a lot of people can do this and accept it as part of the process.

If you have any more specific questions, I will be glad to answer them for you. Feel free to ask me here, or pm me.