Today we completed our home study! I, of course, made sure we had everything that was required for our home to be approved. We tried our best to prepare our son that a nice lady was going to come to our house and talk with mommy and daddy about taking care of little ones. He was well behaved and only showed off two of his favorite trucks instead of every truck he has in his room, and Ms. Diane was nice to play along.
Everyone I had talked to prior to today, let me know that the home study was really no big deal, and I would say the same was true for us as well. Just lots of questions about our families growing up and about our family now.
Ms. Diane will be coming out in a little over a week to do additional questioning but that should only last an hour or so, and shouldn't be too bad, I don't think.
She has 45 days from the last day of our PRIDE training to get her report into DHS. She did inform us it would be every bit of those 45 days because we had so many people in our training class (which means the end of November). Once the report is sent into DHS, they will then review it and our family social worker will come out again to do her final walk through. We will at that time be an approved (hopefully!) foster home. She mentioned that it is taking awhile for DHS to review her reports (apparently the reports are SEVERAL SEVERAL pages long), so I'm not looking to have our final walk through before Christmas time. I could be wrong, but I'm just trying to be realistic.
Anyways, I know the Lord has it all in His hands. He knows what child needs us, and what child we need. So now we will just keep waiting!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Application Process: Arkansas
I would have loved it if someone had handed me a list almost a year ago of what to expect when thinking about becoming foster parents. I knew a couple of girls from church and bible study that were already foster parents, but other than the occasional lunch to talk about what I should expect, I really had no idea.
Here is the basic outline of what we did and where we are in our journey:
1. First we attended an informational meeting at a local church through The Call. (February 2011)
2. We received a Standards of Approval for Foster and Adoptive Homes at the informational meeting which we began to go through to see if this was for sure what we wanted to do (It was!)
3. We personally moved, and then began the process having background checks/finger prints and getting several things notarized (April 2011)
4. We learned though The Call in our county (which is pretty new in our county) that there were PRIDE trainings set up for June (we were going to be on vacation...boo!) and September (We signed up to do the September training).
5. In-Home Consultation (August 2011) Received a questionnaire (SAFE 1) to fill out with a bunch of questions on how we were raised, what we believe etc.
6. Learned that The Call leader for our county was moving and a new girl was starting to train and get informed on the ministry.
7. Received an e-mail saying that the September training was cancelled and moved to November (had a mini-meltdown and contacted our caseworker asking if we could attend the state training...same training just spread out over 5 weeks, rather than crammed into two full weekends).
8. Attended the CPR/First Aid certification class one Tuesday night..for about 4 hours. (August 2011)
9. Got the okay to do the PRIDE training through Mid-south. Met every Saturday in September (except Labor Day weekend) from 9-4 and did two sessions each Saturday. We also had homework after each session which I was not aware of, but it has been very informative, though slightly time-consuming. (we will be done this weekend!! YAY!!!) (September 2011) I think the hardest part was having to ask someone to watch my son every single Saturday, but he's four, he didn't mind too much.
10. There are 13 families in our training class. Our trainer is the one who will be doing the home study for each family. We have our first home study in two weeks. (October 2011) She has informed us that basically she takes our answers from our homework, and our questionnaire from our in-home consultation, and begins to ask us questions. We will be interviewed together as a family and then she will interview us separately. (Luckily she's not going to really interview our son because he is young, but if your child was older, she would do that as well). We will then receive another questionnaire (SAFE 2). Before she leaves, she will do a walk through of our house to make sure the things listed in the Foster Parent Handbook. The whole thing should take about 3 hours. After she reviews our SAFE 2, she will then come back out for additional interviewing.
11. Once the Home Study is complete, our Family Service Worker will come back out to our home to do another walk through, and then we should hopefully be an open foster home!!!! (Soon, I hope!)
So that is where we are at right now! Hope it helps a little!!
Here is the basic outline of what we did and where we are in our journey:
1. First we attended an informational meeting at a local church through The Call. (February 2011)
2. We received a Standards of Approval for Foster and Adoptive Homes at the informational meeting which we began to go through to see if this was for sure what we wanted to do (It was!)
3. We personally moved, and then began the process having background checks/finger prints and getting several things notarized (April 2011)
4. We learned though The Call in our county (which is pretty new in our county) that there were PRIDE trainings set up for June (we were going to be on vacation...boo!) and September (We signed up to do the September training).
5. In-Home Consultation (August 2011) Received a questionnaire (SAFE 1) to fill out with a bunch of questions on how we were raised, what we believe etc.
6. Learned that The Call leader for our county was moving and a new girl was starting to train and get informed on the ministry.
7. Received an e-mail saying that the September training was cancelled and moved to November (had a mini-meltdown and contacted our caseworker asking if we could attend the state training...same training just spread out over 5 weeks, rather than crammed into two full weekends).
8. Attended the CPR/First Aid certification class one Tuesday night..for about 4 hours. (August 2011)
9. Got the okay to do the PRIDE training through Mid-south. Met every Saturday in September (except Labor Day weekend) from 9-4 and did two sessions each Saturday. We also had homework after each session which I was not aware of, but it has been very informative, though slightly time-consuming. (we will be done this weekend!! YAY!!!) (September 2011) I think the hardest part was having to ask someone to watch my son every single Saturday, but he's four, he didn't mind too much.
10. There are 13 families in our training class. Our trainer is the one who will be doing the home study for each family. We have our first home study in two weeks. (October 2011) She has informed us that basically she takes our answers from our homework, and our questionnaire from our in-home consultation, and begins to ask us questions. We will be interviewed together as a family and then she will interview us separately. (Luckily she's not going to really interview our son because he is young, but if your child was older, she would do that as well). We will then receive another questionnaire (SAFE 2). Before she leaves, she will do a walk through of our house to make sure the things listed in the Foster Parent Handbook. The whole thing should take about 3 hours. After she reviews our SAFE 2, she will then come back out for additional interviewing.
11. Once the Home Study is complete, our Family Service Worker will come back out to our home to do another walk through, and then we should hopefully be an open foster home!!!! (Soon, I hope!)
So that is where we are at right now! Hope it helps a little!!
Monday, September 19, 2011
A checklist full of guilt.
I just sat down to fill out our preference checklist. Three pages of child's characteristics; mental/behavioral health issues; other conditions; sex; age; race; education; parent history; and number of children we are willing to accept or discuss or deem as unacceptable.
I felt so bad saying I would take a child that had this condition and not one with this condition. I know that I have to be realistic in what I can/cannot handle especially since there is another child in our home that is home all day too.
I felt so bad saying I would take a child that had this condition and not one with this condition. I know that I have to be realistic in what I can/cannot handle especially since there is another child in our home that is home all day too.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Learning to have patience is key with foster care.
After reading so many foster care blogs, I am slowly but surely realizing your case worker is a very important person.
We signed up to the process through a program in our state called The Call. We attended the interest meeting in February with hopes to attend the PRIDE training soon! The Call is an amazing ministry and is extremely organized in parts of our state, but it's just not quite there yet in our county.
We received an e-mail saying there were PRIDE trainings offered in June; unfortunately for us, we were going to be out of town both of those weekends. Another training was to be offered in September, and we were beyond excited to attend!
Two weeks prior to the first PRIDE training, it was cancelled, and rescheduled for November.
UGH!!! Enter tears!!!
and this is when a great caseworker is an answered prayer!!!! Luckily the sweet girl that is over the foster parents in our county, was able to get us into the state PRIDE trainings that occur over 5 Saturdays in the month of September.
So we are three down and we have two to go! It feels so close, yet I know we have a way to go! Very very excited!
We signed up to the process through a program in our state called The Call. We attended the interest meeting in February with hopes to attend the PRIDE training soon! The Call is an amazing ministry and is extremely organized in parts of our state, but it's just not quite there yet in our county.
We received an e-mail saying there were PRIDE trainings offered in June; unfortunately for us, we were going to be out of town both of those weekends. Another training was to be offered in September, and we were beyond excited to attend!
Two weeks prior to the first PRIDE training, it was cancelled, and rescheduled for November.
UGH!!! Enter tears!!!
and this is when a great caseworker is an answered prayer!!!! Luckily the sweet girl that is over the foster parents in our county, was able to get us into the state PRIDE trainings that occur over 5 Saturdays in the month of September.
So we are three down and we have two to go! It feels so close, yet I know we have a way to go! Very very excited!
Background Checks
Finally in April we had moved to our new county and could begin the process of getting our background checks and finger prints done.
I had the police officer take our picture, and I think she thought I was NUTS! he,he
I was just excited!
I had the police officer take our picture, and I think she thought I was NUTS! he,he
I was just excited!
The decision.
My husband and I decided last November that we wanted our life to be different. We were in the process of building a house and we were going to have an empty bedroom that we had decided that we would be the playroom until we had another little one. We have received many blessings and it just seemed wrong to enjoy the blessings without looking at how we could help others.
One day as we were talking about our life and the lessons we wanted to teach our son, we began to discuss what life might be like if we became foster parents. I will be honest, we had an "adoption talk" just about six months prior, and neither felt led to take that road at that time, so I wasn't exactly sure what hubby would say about foster care. I had been praying about it for awhile, and the Lord was gracious to confirm to my husband that yes this indeed would be the road to travel.
One day as we were talking about our life and the lessons we wanted to teach our son, we began to discuss what life might be like if we became foster parents. I will be honest, we had an "adoption talk" just about six months prior, and neither felt led to take that road at that time, so I wasn't exactly sure what hubby would say about foster care. I had been praying about it for awhile, and the Lord was gracious to confirm to my husband that yes this indeed would be the road to travel.
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