Questions about Foster Care

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!!  The weather here was beautiful!!  And like Heidi said here, Maddie's party was beautiful and amazing!  :)  Jen - you and Dusty did a fabulous job!  Maddie - your Mommy and Daddy love you SO much!  We all do!!

On Friday, I posted something different, questions and answers!! 

Today, I'll be answering some of those questions about foster care!!

How did you and your husband first get introduced to fostering?

Great question!!!  A very good friend of mine's sister and her husband were fostering a sweet little boy who is now our son!  Stacy's heart for orphans and adoption is like no other!  We are so thankful for their family for saying Yes to our son!  I remember babysitting for Del, and their two boys with Ryan and that night we talked about what if there's an opportunity to adopt him.  Ry and I knew in our hearts that if it was meant for him to become our son, everything would fall into place.

How long of a process is it to get your foster care license?

For us, it took 5 months from the time we first met with the agency until we got our license approved by the state!  It was the LONGEST 5 months but we are so thankful for every minute of it!  It was a great transition for our family and Stacy's!  The first step we took was to meet with a worker and we discussed the process and what was involved.  There are classes you must take, paperwork you and your spouse need to fill out, then there's a home study which is where a worker will come to your house to make sure it meets the guidelines.  After that, you continue to take classes and earn hours to your license while the state looks everything over.  That is the longest part, waiting!  Although, it's so worth it!  To renew your license each year, you have a case worker come to your house to make sure everything's still up to the rules & guidelines, fill out anymore paperwork and then it's renewed!  You do need to earn hours but you can go to informational classes to earn those as well!  

What is the cost to get your foster care license?

 There is no cost to you to get your license!!  Serious!! The only cost you have is when you adopt out of foster care, and even that is less than $500!!  

If you ever have any questions regarding fostering and/or adoption, please ask!!!  It's an amazing experience and opportunity!!!  There are so many different areas in fostering that you can get involved!!

You can choose to do just respite care, which is where you will get licensed and follow all of the steps above, but you only "watch" the child/children while the foster care family is out of town.  You can take the foster children with you however sometimes that is not feasible or maybe they have other obligations.  

You can choose to just foster, there are a lot of older children that need a stable home that may not want to be adopted or are almost old enough to be adopted out.

Have a blessed Monday!