Let's jump right in!
Question: If Little Man goes to live with family, and he was to enter into the foster care system again, is he guaranteed to come back to you?
No, he is not. Most of the time, they will give you a call that he has come back into care. This doesn't always happen because they can be getting so many children in the system that day. Also, currently we are only licensed for two children in our house. So if we were to take a sibling pair, then technically we couldn't accept him. We are thinking about increasing our intake number though...
Question: How long is the training? How much is required?
Training and requirements differ a little with whatever agency you end up with. They all require the same basic information, but may offer their training in different ways or require less paperwork once you become a foster parent. Some people will tell you one agency requires more and one requires less. With our agency, we attended almost 50-60 hours of training, including in-person and online. They run all the background checks, and I mean ALL of them. We had to have a doctor sign off that we were well enough to have a child in our home, they asked how much money was in our savings account, they asked for a breakdown of our monthly expenses, driving records, and Oso even had to be vetted. After all of the paperwork, someone came to our house and completed a home study. This was an eight-hour interview consisting of talking with Sterling and me together, separately, (if you have biological children over the age of 3, they will interview them as well) and then a tour of hour home to make sure it was safe. We started the process in January, and we were licensed in May. It may seem like a lot, but broken down it wasn't that bad. I am also glad we had to jump through all the hoops because it made me feel more confident that if you become licensed, this is something you really wanted to do to help children.
Question: What agency do you recommend? How do you choose a good one?
At the beginning of January, Sterling and I attended the CPS Orientation meeting intended to introduce you to the foster care system. At the meeting, they told us we could choose CPS or another agency to get our license (I didn't know there were agencies that did this). We talked to some people familiar with the foster care system, and we decided that working with an agency would be best for us. Also, we decided to work with a faith-based agency, because God was such a huge part of our decision to do this, we needed people to support that. We recommend CK Family Services because they are AWESOME! We loved them. We walked into their Orientation, and we knew that we should be there. We had talked to someone who was licensed with them and had said wonderful things. When you're choosing an agency, talk to people that are licensed with various agencies, attend Orientations with different agencies, and then you can make an informed decision.
Question: Do you have any tips for home study approval?
Be yourself and be honest. They don't want you to fit into a certain mold. In fact, they use your home study to decide what placement calls you should get. If you aren't yourself, you may struggle more with your placement. Your agency will give you a checklist of everything that needs to be done before your home study. Honestly, I think I cared a little too much about how clean my house was. It needs to be clean, but don't freak out and get an intense cleaning crew. We answered all of our questions honestly, and I'm so glad we did.
Question: What do they tell you when you get a call? How much time do you have before the child gets to your home?
When you get a call, you can get very little information or more information just depending on what was told to the intake team. We were told age, gender, race/ethnicity, the reason for removal, allergies, and other medical information. You can ask questions, and I had asked if this was his first time in care (because my other questions had been answered). I was given a moment to call Sterling, ask him what he thought, and then I called the intake team back. Then, they send your family to the main intake unit, and all the other agencies send their families in, and that main unit decides who will be the best fit for the child. We received a call back an hour later telling us that we had been chosen. They asked us when they could bring him over, and I said in an hour and a half. Sterling and I ran to Target to grab a car seat and some items that tended to his medical needs they told us about. We had already purchased gender neutral clothes and diapers in every size for whatever age we would take.
Question: How long does a case last? What is the judicial process like?
Best way to answer this question:
Kidding, but kind of not. Cases should last a max of 12 months, but sometimes they last 16 or more months with appeals and extensions. Each case follows it's own process, but this is a chart of the process in it's most BASIC form.
