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What prompted you to become a Foster Parent?
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I'm not really sure. The basis of the motivation is love for children, but other than that, I really can't pinpoint it. When I was a little kid, and I played "house" and pretended I was a mom, I always had foster children.
dw and I talked about it when we started talking about having kids, but dw at that time said she wasn't sure she could "handle" the heartbreak of kids leaving, especially when they weren't going back to homes she could 100% trust were safe. However, we kept talking about it, and my commitment to being there for foster children grew the more I researched. Slowly dw reconsidered her initial position, not as much because of my influence (though I kept the idea on our shared radar), but because her own ideas shifted once she had time for the ideas to percolate. dw just changed.
A few years later we moved to a new state and were basically starting a life there. At that time, I researched foster care in our new state and found an agency near us that did emergency care for very young children only. We talked about doing emergency foster care for newborn babies (we were in a large city and had a
very small urban apartment that wasn't designed particularly well and wouldn't have been the best for even older babies). I called the agency and spoke with them, but concluded from our conversation that we couldn't get licensed because we only had one bedroom. The agency told us even though the newborns could sleep in a crip in our room, and even though we were interested in short-term placements thus wouldn't be worrying about kidos growing out of the space we could offer, they wouldn't license a house without at least two bedrooms.
Finally, a year later, we moved into a house in a new city. We moved in part because we wanted a home we could license and couldn't find an affordable, suitable place in the expensive urban city. In our new house, in our new city, we knew we would eventually try to get foster licensed, but we put it off because we were having a wedding, we got a new puppy, we were first time homeowners, I was starting a new career, and so forth. It just felt like we had so much going on.
We went to a church retreat (I work in family ministry), and one of the congregants was chatting with us one afternoon over a snack in the dining hall. Somehow our interest in foster parenting came up, and she asked more about it. It turns out she worked at a youth agency that had a foster care unit. She called a month or two later and said she'd been thinking about our interest and wanted to know if she could have a licensor give us a call. We said okay. The licensor called, and we had a very good discussion with her. She followed up by sending us a packet of licensing materials. The packet was overwhelming, and we filed it away for sometime in the distant future. Again, we had just bought a house, moved to a new city, started new jobs, and got a new puppy.
So
then what prompted us? We were asked. We were chosen for a child and asked. I guess it boils down to: we were needed.
A couple months after filing the packet away, we got a completely out-of-the-blue, unexpected call from the director of the agency who had a child she needed to place with a very specific type of family. We were exactly what was needed, and there was no where else for this kid to go (not an appropriate place for his needs anyway). Remember, we weren't licensed. We hadn't even gone into the licensing process. We'd only had an informational phone call with the licensor. That's it. But there we were on the phone with the director who wanted to know if we would be willing to get licensed and parent this kid, who oh yeah, and by the way, needed a permanent placement (which would extend past the teen years into adulthood because of his special needs).
All of the sudden we had to scramble to make a decision. Could we do this? Did we have what it would take? This was a teen with many, many special needs. Would we be in over our heads? We spent hours on the phone with the director. We met this kid and spent two half-days with him. We debated back and forth. But we had to make a decision within days. For us it came down to a question of faith. Did we truly believe that all children are children of God or not? If so, there really wasn't a choice. If this was a child of God, then we needed to care for him. That was it. That was the start of our journey.
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What are the rewards of fostering children?
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My kids teach me almost everything valuable that I know. I have really developed as a *human being* over my years of fostering. I've developed into my humanity. I have grown into greater compassion, grown into a more fun and playful individual, grown into a stronger, more confident advocate, supported families struggling to overcome great challenges, learned that I can survive heartbreaking experiences, found a mission inside my heart, heard stories and been a part of things I may never find adequate words to describe that have just changed me in the deepest, most core level.
I have been so lucky to have loved so many amazing kids, and had some time to spend with them in this short life. I have played a lot of fun games. I've tried new sports, learned to appreciate jokes I never knew I could appreciate, and seen some children's plays and musical performances that I never would have otherwise had the opportunity to enjoy. I have met some amazing people young and old alike, enjoyed helping with some interesting homework assignments that have stretched my mind and even sparked a slight love for math, become a semi-expert in special education laws and policies and felt good about sharing this expertise with other families when it was needed. I've learned about many types of parenting techniques, tried a wide variety of foods I never otherwise might have encountered, incorportated new traditions into our family's holiday traditions, and learned a lot about all the latest fads and fashions. I have been forced to try harder to balance work-family life, and have had a lot of fun and played a lot along the way
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Just to name a few things.
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Can you provide some examples of how being a Foster Parent has contributed to the well being of children placed in your care?
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Every kid who has ever been with us has known they are appreciated and loved for who they are, has had role modeling of healthy family dynamics, has had room to grieve, has received advocacy at school and ended up with better IEPs, etc., has been listened to and respected, has had experiences with adults setting age-appropriate limits and keeping them safe, has known what it is like to be cared for, fed, and nourished, and has had opportunities to play and just "be a kid."
Every kid who has ever been with us has been told that some issues are "adult issues" and has been given explicit permission to unburden him or herself of worrying about adults and adult issues at least while in our home (adult issues include what kind of money is coming into the home, how food is going to get on the table, adult emotions, care of younger siblings, issues of safety, and so forth).
Every kid who has come and gone from our lives has left with age-appropriate, comfortable clothes that fit them and don't violate school dress codes, and so forth.
When it has been the case plan, we've supported families in getting it together for their kids.
Foster care is hard because its not like you make it all better for a kid. Many kids go back to really rough situations that "just pass" for safe. You don't necessarily know how much of a difference you have made, and you don't know how the child will fair. But we've had kids who have kept in touch, which at least shows they know there are people who care for them. They are doing okay.
Also, we did end up foster-adopting our ds, and we will probably be adopting dfd. Having done therapeutic foster care for older kids and teens who were never given a shot at this type of stability and permanency, I believe in this. I don't think we rescued them or anything. There were other families who would have adopted them, I am sure. But they had an attachment to us, and they needed parents and we wanted to be their parents, so it met a mutual need. We needed each other. What I do know in my heart of hearts is that they have a good home and a good life.
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What is the role of a Foster Family?
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Our role is to care for and love children for the time they are with us.
Our secondary roles are not limited to but include:
*Supporting parents when they are working to improve their lives so they can safely parent
*Advocating for "our" kids, especially when it comes to education
*Giving our kids space, permission, and freedom to grieve, work through trauma, and heal
*Holding a vision for our kids of their best selves, and trusting that they will grow into those people
*Making sure our kids have the services they need to have a good childhood, a good education, and a shot at meeting their full potential as they continue to grow
*Being firm with others, especially for example in the schools, that our kids are not "bad" or "abnormal" or "damaged," but rather normal people responding in normal ways to abnormal conditions
*Learning to read behavior as communication
*Putting up with and working as a team with and communicating with a huge number of adults who are involved in our children's lives (judges, attorneys, social workers, case workers, sometimes parents, CASAs/GALs, therapists, school professionals, and so forth)...this can at times be the hardest role of them all
*Documenting everything
*Making sure our kids leave our home with photos and memories, and maybe even lifebooks
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What are the challenges of Fostering?
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The biggest two challenges for me are (1) all the adults and (2) all the beaurocracy.
Sometimes adults just suck.
Sometimes it is very hard to be the person who knows a child best, from the natural intimacy that arises from day to day parenting--sometimes extending over many years-- and be absolutely without any control over so many aspects of our kid's lives.
She's happy, well-adjusted, and thriving wonderfully. Her appetite has improved and she's hitting her milestones on target.
Day to day the reward was getting to watch DS grow and learn and bond with us- having him look to me for comfort. Even though the reunification process was very hard it was a growing experience for me and DH.
