Step #2: My 1st Home Visit with my Licensing Specialist

I was nervous ALL day for my one-hour home visit! Was the house clean enough? I didn't really have much time to thoroughly clean the house. Would the dogs act all crazy? They get over-excited when people come over. Would I get along with the Licensing Specialist? I knew I would be working with this person throughout the training.

From my phone conversation with my Licensing Specialist, I knew we would be doing the following:

1) Going over the paper work.
2) Doing a quick walk-through of the house to see what has to be changed before the lengthy home study.

Turns out I was worried for nothing. The Licensing Specialist is really nice! She works part-time for the agency and has been a foster parent. She was able to share some of her experiences with me. The dogs DID act a bit out of control... but she didn't seem concerned about that. Thank goodness! From the visit, I learned the following:

• PAPERWORK! I had a week and a half to complete a pile of forms. Including a profile, background check, application, etc. Some of the questions in the profile were extremely personal. I didn't know how I felt about providing such personal details to the State on PUBLIC record. Not that I have anything to hide. But there's something about putting it on paper and having it "on record" that bothered me.
• Life-Safety Preparedness. I had to make a lot of changes to my house to be up-to-par with the safety requirements by the State. A few little things, but also some big things. Thankfully I have a few months to get this all together.
• The Number of Foster Kids. There is a limit of the number of foster children a single person (or a couple) can take in. The thing is, you have to have the beds and room. If I wanted to take in more than one child (like a sibling group), I would need to get more furniture. At this point, I only had the furniture to take in one child.

I felt good about the visit. I had a lot of questions answered, I knew what paperwork I had to complete, and I knew what changes I would need to make with my house. Onto the Step #3: First PS-MAPP Meeting/Training.