Keeping up the license

As a part of keeping your foster license, you are required to do training classes, read books, attend seminars…educational stuff…every year.  Today we did 4 hours of online training, covering Disaster Planning and Cultural Understanding (those are 2 different classes, not one class on disasters with cultural problems).  I also accidentally did an hour of training on car safety seats that I realized later I didn’t need to do. So now I know how to safely strap a kid into a car and how to get them to safety in an emergency, all while recognizing their culture.

The bunk beds are in, the waterproof protectors and sheets are on.  All that is missing are the kids to sleep on them. Last week we got called 3 different times, all with infants.  We didn’t plan on or set up for infants (no crib, high chair, stroller, changing table), so we said No to all those opportunities. We were also called with an emergency, where 2 small boys already in foster care had to be moved to a new home while the family is being investigated. The case manager talked herself out of giving us those boys since we are both working and the smaller boy needs all day supervision.

The family is being investigated because one of the kids had a head injury.  We have been warned that almost every single foster family will end up being investigate for one reason or another; injury to a child, the child calls a hot line and says we are abusing them, the agency is concerned about the treatment they are seeing, or we aren’t keeping up with our training.  There are any number of reasons – something I’m not looking forward to happening to us, that’s for sure.

We are ready and waiting still.  Say some prayers for us – that the right match comes along to make our family grow.