Our homestudy is finally done, and we should be licensed within a month or so. Right now we are trying to decide whether we want to do after-hours emergency placements. I would love to hear your experiences with that.
We are being told we could wait for an entire year for our first foster placement even after we opened our age range up to 0-5, that's how few kids are in the system in our county and how many foster parents wanting small kids there are. It's so bizarre, given that in most places they are desperate for foster parents and never seem to have enough homes. But it's partly because our state has made some strides in keeping families together, which is ultimately a good thing. Believe it or not, we could get matched with a waiting child for straight adoption through the state before we ever get our first foster placement. Part of our desire to do emergency placements is just not wanting the "Baby Room" to be empty for a year. It would also let us "get our feet wet" and get some experience parenting foster kids so that by the time we have a child stay for longer we are more confident as parents. I also think it might increase the chance of us getting a longer-term placement sooner, since if an emergency placement ends up staying in the system (most go home or to family members within a few days) we would have the first opportunity to be a longer-term foster home for that child. We're leaning towards starting emergency placements in the late spring and only accepting ages 0-2 for emergency (0-5 for regular placements). Passover and some other things that are going on make March a hard month for us to have our first-ever foster care placement, so we wouldn't open our home for emergency after-hours placements until at least April. Obviously if a longer-term placement or potential adoption comes up before then we'll definitely consider it, though.
I have all these rants in me, some of which I've started writing out as posts... and then I get scared to post my true thoughts on some things about the foster care system, about other foster and adoptive parents, about race/racism, about politics. I've blogged before and I just hate how nasty people can get when they are anonymous. Yet I decided to start this blog, and so now it's just a question of how much I want to put myself "out there". For the time being I'm playing it safe, but hopefully I'll get up the courage to write about some more controversial topics soon since that's what's on my mind. I'll put the comments on moderation just to avoid the inevitable.
I wish I knew "now what" since we've gone a year without a placement (as an adoptive home). I'd encourage you to go ahead and write your rants as long as you're being sensitive about not disclosing where you actually are. That's the way to get people reading your blog and get the responses you need. I hope you can get them, but I don't feel like I'm the right person to give you advice since we're in a different context. I look forward to reading about your journey, though! (I think you commented on Foster Ima's blog a while ago and I was intrigued, or maybe you're a different Jewish lesbian couple, in which case that's even better since there's more diversity in the blogosphere!!) Keep writing, and I find that's the best way to get good advice once people know what you really want and need.
ReplyDeleteHi motherissues - Sorry I never responded. Yes, it's probably me who was commenting on Foster Ima's blog. Though there's at least one other Jewish commenter on there (FosterAbba?) We've decided to go ahead with emergency care and see how it goes
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see a new foster blog- welcome! I hope things go smoothly with your process getting started.
ReplyDeleteWe do emergency after-hours, called "hotline" here. For "permanent placement" we generally stick with the 3-and-under set, but for hotline we've gone up to 13. I like doing hotline because if we can keep a child who comes in on hotline, that means they only have to experience one placement, instead of "bouncing" and we try to help minimize that problem. Also, we get to try out placements we would normally be nervous about, like elementary-age, teens, delays/behaviors, etc. We also got our little guy now on hotline, which I don't think would have happened on a permanent, b/c DCF seems to try to place babies with families that have a stay-at-home parent (which I understand, but we wanted a baby!) So we got him one night and told them we wanted to keep him. Maybe you'll have the same luck getting a regular placement that way. Good luck!