[jjawm]

I'm thinking about entering the world of foster care. Dh and I had kinship care of his great-niece a few years ago. It was lovely and wonderful and hard at the same time. I almost can't believe that this is something we may venture into again! I have some questions, though.

When we did kinship care, I had to go to all the court hearings - there were a lot! Which meant finding child care for the boys and the little girl, or having dh take time off work. Is that normal in foster care, to be asked to attend all the court hearings? In our case, the mom would miss the hearings and we'd go home and have it rescheduled over and over again.

Also, I spent lots and lots of time waiting while the little girl had visitation at the children's services office. Normal? How do you do this when you have other kids at home?

Last question - sitters. We had to have our sitters screened by children's services. How in the world do you find people to watch your foster kids? I'll often have friends watch dd for a bit - not often, but maybe once/month.

Thanks in advance!

 

[queenjane]

Alot of this will depend on your state/county/agency.

With my agency...no you are not required to attend court hearings, but are welcome to and encouraged to do so. I never attended any court hearings for my son. I wish i did, but the logistics of it didnt work out. but during a recent training we were told its a good idea to attend, because a foster parent will learn information that the social worker cannot legally tell them....the child's worker might not be able to tell you alot of stuff about the parents, like current drug use, history, etc....but it all comes out in court, and you can hear it then. With my current dfd, i dont know what i'll do...i'd like to attend, but then i would need to arrange care for both her and my son, and i dont think my sister will watch both of them, maybe i can send one to one sister and the other to the other sister. I'm not sure if children are allowed in court, and i doubt it would be a good idea even if they are.

Visits....in my agency, visits are typically one hour each week, at the agency, the FP waits in the larger waiting room while the child goes back to a smaller visitation room (was it BethNC who said closet sized? Yep, that is what they are like)...the visits are arranged around the FP's schedule as much as possible, they have visits typically T-Th at my agency. I've heard that in some places there are transporters and such, but we dont have that. Most FPs bring their other kids with them and try their best to entertain them in the horrible, toyless, rather dreary looking waiting room.

Caregivers...all that is required for my agency is that any caregiver get a local police clearance (not fingerprinting)....easy. My caregivers are just my two sisters, as i dont have a need for daycare. I believe that if its an actual daycare you wouldnt need the clearance, not sure about home/private daycares. And i imagine this varies place to place.

Katherine

 

[mamarhu]

I hope I can say this without sounding snarky, because I don't mean it that way at all.

Foster kids tend to be pretty high needs kids in general. Aside from court and visits, they may never have had medical or dental care, may receive therapeutic services, counseling, and who knows what all else. Depending on age, supervision needs can be surprising.

These kids might have been treated as a burden, been neglected in the most basic ways, and generally treated as "less than". They need foster parents who can joyfully commit to meeting their needs, actively participate in their court case because of sincere interest, willingly celebrate good visits with them, or support them through bad ones. I guess I am just saying they need a parent, dedicated 100% to meeting their needs, same as the bio-kids, and probably more intense in some ways.

Part of the OP sounded like asking for logistic solutions, but it seemed there was an undercurrent of concern that fostering would be inconvenient. That is realistic, but I hope I was reading the depth of those fears wrong. But if you are that concerned, perhaps now is not the right time to be fostering. These kids have been let down enough times, they need the most dedicated parents and advocates, and deserve no less.

Forgive me if I read the OP wrong.

 

[Polliwog]

I go to almost all court dates. I think it's important to be there to hear what's going on and to show the lawyers and the judge pictures of the child. The same is true for team meetings with the parents, social workers, GAL, etc. I get another foster parent or my licensing worker to watch the kids or I scramble to find a friend to help out (often at the last minute.) I consider it to be part of the job. They don't cancel court if the parents don't show up. Whatever happens in court, happens. It hurts their case if they aren't there but I can't see why they would postpone anything. It doesn't stop the clock.

The social workers here will transport the child to visits, if needed. My first FD's SW did that since I was teaching at the same time. My son's mother had visits at his (our) school so there wasn't any transportation needed. My FD will have her first visit next week and I'm going to be part of it. Again, if you can transport the children, it's important to do it. You get to see the parents more often and prepare/comfort the child before and after. Of course, if it isn't safe then that should be taken into account.

Here, sitters need to have a local criminal record check but it doesn't involve fingerprinting. BUT, they want children to be able to go with their friends whenever they want. So, friends don't need background checks. We've got lots of friends- children and adults! I think they call it prudent parenting- using your best judgement. I can't afford sitters very often, so I do child care swaps with other foster parents and/or my son spends time with his sisters adoptive parents. I've also screened (but never used) a few local sitters. I've never had anyone object to giving the social worker their date of birth and SSN.

Fostering is a big time commitment, but I don't see it as a burden. There's lots of home visits and meetings and sometimes therapy session but it's all part of making sure that the kids get what they need and that they stay connected with their parents if it's part of the case plan and safe to do so. I've only fostered infants and toddlers, though.

 

[jjawm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamarhu I hope I can say this without sounding snarky, because I don't mean it that way at all. Foster kids tend to be pretty high needs kids in general. Aside from court and visits, they may never have had medical or dental care, may receive therapeutic services, counseling, and who knows what all else. Depending on age, supervision needs can be surprising. These kids might have been treated as a burden, been neglected in the most basic ways, and generally treated as "less than". They need foster parents who can joyfully commit to meeting their needs, actively participate in their court case because of sincere interest, willingly celebrate good visits with them, or support them through bad ones. I guess I am just saying they need a parent, dedicated 100% to meeting their needs, same as the bio-kids, and probably more intense in some ways. Part of the OP sounded like asking for logistic solutions, but it seemed there was an undercurrent of concern that fostering would be inconvenient. That is realistic, but I hope I was reading the depth of those fears wrong. But if you are that concerned, perhaps now is not the right time to be fostering. These kids have been let down enough times, they need the most dedicated parents and advocates, and deserve no less. Forgive me if I read the OP wrong.

I was worried I'd come off as thinking about convenience rather than the child's needs, which isn't true. I'm sort of looking before I leap (or rather take up resources from our county agency with classes). I didn't know how to phrase it so I didn't sound... selfish, I guess. When we had our great-niece living with us, I was not prepared for the myriad of court hearings (and court was canceled when mom wasn't there). Caregivers here have to go down to the courthouse to be fingerprinted, even occasional sitters. This makes sense to me - and the idea of using other foster parents as resources is great!

Are there online resources about the reality of doing foster care? The nitty gritty stuff of how people make it work? I feel like this is something that dh and I want to do, but I also want to be prepared in a way we weren't when we did kinship care.

Thanks so much.

 

[queenjane]

I didnt get the sense that the OP thought fostering might be "inconvenient" but rather was trying to take a realistic assessment of whether her experience in kinship care was indicative of the investment she'd need to make in general fostering cases. And whether now is the right time for her to make that investment.

I dont think thats wrong...i technically have space for another foster child, but while i would LOVE to have another one, i have to think about things like...i only have two arms, how would i parent another baby, how would i get from the house to the car? How would i go grocery shopping?

I've inquired on kids in other states to adopt, and yet when i think about it...i know that being able to travel to another state to visit a child is just not an option right now, given my other young child (and now two)...its not that its "inconvenient" its that it would be really really hard.

Katherine

 

[mamarhu]

Check out www.fosterparents.com . The forums there are pretty much down-to-earth, in the trenches!

I'm glad to hear I misread the tone of your original post. Fostering is about the same commitment as having a child any other way, but for those of us who do it, it is SO worth it!

Thank you for coming back and clarifying.

 

[jjawm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mamarhu Check out www.fosterparents.com . The forums there are pretty much down-to-earth, in the trenches! I'm glad to hear I misread the tone of your original post. Fostering is about the same commitment as having a child any other way, but for those of us who do it, it is SO worth it! Thank you for coming back and clarifying.

Thanks for the link. Exactly what I was looking for but couldn't find.