Foster Care

Hi! With a toddler and one on the way, you have a lot on your plate already. Foster parenting is an admirable quest, but please consider the BIG changes that are about to take place in your home already. Having a second child (I have three) poses many challenges which you don't consider and don't compare to having only one child. You have to juggle the responsibilities and it's twice as difficult at times as having one. Your attention will already be divided and until you give yourself a good adjustment period, I believe you should consider waiting to bring yet another child into your home who may have special needs that you hadn't considered as well. You will want to give this child everything he/she hasn't received in their own home in the past and at the same time, not neglect to do the same for your own children. I suggest you wait until your children can gain some independence before you take this next challenge. I hope it works out for you, whatever you decide, and you feel fulfilled in making that decision.

Sincerely,
M. Linette

Hello. I have never been a foster parent, but I am a step-mom and with older children I think it might work the same. I admire your desire to take in foster children. However, being a parent in a some what simular situation, I wonder if it is something you can handle. My 'step-children' (not a word used in my home b.c all of our children are just that our children) are 12 and 8 and the two I had to go through labor with are 4 and 1. What a handful, in all honesty. Trying to work transportation into everyone's schudle and after school activities means interferring with the baby's sleep schedule, and on and on. Our custody arangments recently changed from every other weekend to every weekend and every school break. That adjustment is hard not only on us adults, but hard for all four children to adjust to. By bringing in foster children into your home your two young children will have to adjust to the new family dynamics all the while you and your husband need to adjust, and most importantly, the foster children have to adjust.
You and your husband have alot of diffenert angles to consider. The after school activities, homework, extra expenses, counseling appointments for the foster children while still providing a stable environment for all of the children. I know that our Country needs more parents willing to provide care for the unfortunate, just be sure not to loose sight of the goals and desires you and your husband have for your own children. Also, you might want to start out slow by volunteering with foster children through different projects; such as couching a sports team or providing a 'fun day' once a month for the children in the system. I wish you the best of luck in your decision.

we are a foster family, and just had our first placement about a month ago. we only had the child for a few days as an emergency placement (grandparents showed up to court and wanted custody). it is a lot of work to become certified, and a lot of work once a child arrives. i am NOT kidding. but, you know if its right for you or not during the training that you have to complete. so, get started with the process, and if it just doesn't seem to suit your family you can always back out.
we, too, had an infant when we began fostering, and there is a lot to consider with that being the case...(just something to keep in mind when deciding, like if the child could potentially act something out on your little one) if i can help you out with anything, let me know. i am only aware of how things work in montgomery county though. good luck!

Hi A.
I used to be a Foster parent in Va. for 4 and a half years. I quit because my husband was going to be transferred and I didn't want to get any children attached to us and then have to leave.
Anyway, Foster care has its good and its bad side. We went into Fostercare, because we couldn't have children and we were discouraged looking at the adoption options that were out there. So much money, so long waiting lists and then still things can go wrong and the mother can change her mind and you are out all your money.
So we decided to try Foster care and told them, we would be willing to adopt a child if possible.
We also told them we wanted a Baby and they told us Sorry, but we don't get many Babies’. You need to give us a bigger age range. We did, 0-6 years old, boy or girl, not with any medical conditions.
Social Services in Val do an extensive background check, because they approve you right away for foster care and adoptive parents if needed in the future. They probably do the same here.
We were applied in 2001 and waited for the background checks to clear. It took a little longer for us, I'm German and they had to send letters to Germany and back, which took some time.
At the end of March 2002 we were approved to have one child in our home, boy or girl, 0-6 years and with no medical conditions. The reason we can only have one and with no contion is, that I myself have one, I have Ms and they wouldn't approve me for more then one child at first. In April we got a phone call asking if we wanted a 10 month old boy, we were going on our 10th anniversary trip to Disney the following week, so I asked them if we could take him with us, they said no. I said no, stupid me right. I called my husband all excited and upset and told him, he told me to call them back. I did and they had placed him with someone else. I had not acted fast enough and I should have just canceled vacation.
We went on vacation and got a phone call in the middle of the week asking if we were still interested in taking the same boy, we said yes, but we were in Florida what now. They knew and they asked if we could be back by Friday so we could take him before the weekend or if we would want to wait till Monday. We said Friday. Thursday was our 10th anniversary and we had tickets to a dinner show. We packed up our stuff took it with us to the show and afterwards my husband drove straight from Florida to Virginia all night long.
We got a little sleep before we go Wesley at 2:00 PM.
And we weren't quite prepared. We had a room ready for a 6 year old. We had an old car seat, they will not leave a baby if you don't and old Portable bed from yard sales. But nothing I would use for a child permanently.
The social worker didn't stay very long, she gave us paperwork and explained a little and left us with a bundle of joy. He was by the way only 6 month old, just big for his age. It took us not very long to find out why the foster parents before didn't want him He was a screamer. He cried and cried and cried. Well not really, he screamed. For hours. He would be quiet in the car.
That's the story about our child and how we got him and we still have him. We adopted him two and a half years later. He has 7 brothers and sisters.
Foster care is not easy, from my experience. But I love my child and wouldn't do anything differently if I would have known the outcome. It was a hard road. Social services trains you, they give you classes, at least in Vat ey did, and they try to prepare you for all you have to deal with. It helps some, but not much, you will be calling your social worker all the time, especially at the beginning. You will be talking to other foster parents and most of them can give you good information and help you out.
I learned a lot but I learned this for sure, you will be excited to have a child coming in your home and stay with you, that child is not. It sees you as a stranger and doesn't want to be there and every time it sees its parents it starts all over again. And the parents will have visitation wrights. Depending on the judge, normally one hour a week. The kids are terrors that day. By the way I got approved to have an other child so I wanted to try to get a little girl closer to Wesley's age so they could play. They called and asked if I could take two, they had siblings they didn't want to split up. We took them; actually my husband agreed to it, I wasn't there. I was thrilled. My husband though forgot that foster kids don't want to be in your house and have some attitude problems that will take time to fix. They stayed with us for 3 month. It was pretty rough, they were 2 and 3 and Wes was 4. They were finally getting used to our house rules and calming down and things were getting easier when I had to ask social Services to remove them. I had a family emergency, my mom was very sick I had to fly to Germany remediably. We didn't take anymore children after them. I’m thinking about it sometime. We just moved up here and I'm not sure if we will do it again or not.
Foster kids will have problems, they most of the time have not had any discipline at all or they have been abused. They will be torn between the love to there parent and the love they will feel towards you. Most of the time the siblings will be split up in different foster homes, foster care kids normally have anywhere from 3-6 siblings. Social services and the court systems job is it to return the kids home to their parents, when its save. They will train the parens,councel them and do whatever they can think of and give them many chances to get the children back. For foster parents its frustrating, we see the pain the children went through, the pain they are in because of the situation they are in now and we can only imagine what will happen if they go back. We start loving them and we hope the parents will change and do better. But very few do. They all fight for the kids and don't want to give them up for adoption, the court will take their rights away and then they can appeal it and this can prolong the process even further. Normal for it is anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 years to 5 years before a child can be adopted by his foster parents. Long time, I know it looked like we had to give him back a few times, but one foster mom told me the first time she saw him that she didn't think he would ever go back. His parent's gave their rights away willingly after 2 1/2 years. She was pregnant again and the lawyer convinced them, that they lost these kids already, but they might have a chance with the new Baby. It didn't work out that way for her though.
Wesley knows he's adopted and that he has brothers and sisters, he knows his birth mommy couldn't take care of him and we could and we wanted a Baby but couldn’t have any of our own and he told me that he was glad that God had brought us together. Pretty smart for a 6 year old. And by the way his Birthday is October 2001.
Sorry long story, mostly about Wesley and us, hope it had some useful information. If you have any questions just e-mail me.
Thanks
M.

I was a fosterparent for 6 years. We have adopted two from foster care and we have two biological. We started fostercare when my youngest was 8 and my oldest was 12. They have had alot to say about it and love it but my oldest says she is glad she was older when we started and we are now starting to see some affects it had on my youngest. I do believe that you have to have a heart for it and it sounds like you do but I would definately wait until your own children can tell you if something is going on and when they can tell you their own needs and how they are feeling about the whole thing. My children did have a choice when we were fostering because it was their life too. They never asked for anyone to go but they did ask for ones to stay that we had no control over. Good luck. I wish many blessings on you and your family.

I really don't know much about fostering kids, but I do know it takes special people with plenty of love, compassion and patients. I wish you luck.

Hi A.,
I used to work for a foster care agency in the Cincinnati area and loved it. I was also a foster parent (until I found out I was having my own child) Being a foster parent has its ups and downs. It is A LOT of work but can be so rewarding. It is nothing like parenting your own child though. My suggestion before picking an agency to work with is to do research about the agency. Talk to a couple different ones to find out their rules, policies etc. Also a personal preference, work with a private agency and not the county. Of course eveyrthing depends on your worker but you get a lot more help and a lot quicker response from a private agency. If you would like to talk about it more, feel free to contact me directly at ____@____.com
Good luck with your decision!!

Hi there!! My husband and I could not conceive on our own, so we turned to foster care thru the state and that is how we met our adopted son. In addition to the miracle of adopting our son, I ended up pregnant and now I'm a very busy mom of two adorable boys (5yrs & a 18 month old) - We are very blessed............Now, the road to the adoption process was very lengthy and a very hard road - well worth it, but a very hard/tough road. It requires full time dedication and commitment because the children in foster care come from such different backgrounds and they are lacking love and attention among other things. I'm not trying to discourage you at all, the experience in foster care has been very rewarding - we had a total of about 7 placements during the time we kept our home open. Now that we have the two boys, our commitment and time is for them - I don't want to take away the love and attention they need. Maybe when they are older, we will consider reopening our home. There are lots of children out there that need homes and someone with a big heart to take care of them!!!!