My licensing agency has a monthly foster care support group. I'm not officially licensed yet, my Home Study is still being written and needs to get approved. Oh, and I just found out they need to meet my dogs since they may have some pit in their blood. No way to know really if they do, since they are both rescues and their parents are unknown... So, should be another few weeks before I receive the actual license.
The first support group meeting was interesting. It was kind of funny because I'm all "bright eyed" about it and everyone else is a little tainted from the process... I can see me getting to that point very quickly. I couldn't believe the stories they all had. Some heartbreaking, some straight out scary, some funny. What I noticed is that the more kids they had in the house the more complicated it got. I think for sanity purposes, i would not take more than 3-4 kids (in the future of course). There's just too much going on with one child, think about 4! Oh my.
I wasn't deterred from wanting to pursue this. I was very interested to find out that out of the 4 groups of people at the support group: Two had adopted and still foster, one was looking to adopt but is currently fostering, and one is looking to adopt her current placements. They also provided some great book references! I've already requested one from my library. Also, it was great to hear some of the ways they've had to get creative with rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior! I'm not even going to try to make a list now, I know that it's all going to be thrown out the door once the kids come in!
What was sad, one of the foster moms was talking about a recent incident with her foster daughter who is 11 years old. It was crazy, but the way she was describing the situation - it sounded exactly like me at that age! I was kind of shocked at that. Made me start thinking how I would deal with such scary and tragic events if I had a child with a similar situation.
My heart just goes out to all the children in foster care. I just can't believe the things that happened to them. What's the oddest thing is, it's not un-normal. Statistically, the types of abuse that they have experienced is more wide spread than what we think. It's heartbreaking.
Onto the next phase of waiting! But it's not that much longer. I need to get my house in order. Meaning "clean" and everything put away. I have a lot of junk, want to get rid of it before I get my first placement. I'm anxious and excited and nervous!
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