Hi! What state are you in? Are you required to go through an agency? I hope you can get through soon. We are in Washington state and it took us a year to go through the process. Classes, background checks, interviews etc.

We are in Missouri, from what I have discovered it is all pretty much privatized so we had to go through an agency. It's been 2 months with our initial call to Children's Services and no call back yet, so I am forgetting about them. We have started the application and autobiographies, the references mostly have been done and sent to our contact. Still no word on classes, but she is adamant that we will have kids in the house before the end of the year.

Our agency actually takes time to pair up kids with foster families to help lessen the impact of repeated movements and trauma. They actually want a thick autobiography, memories, places you lived, schools, friends and hard times gone through. It is pretty tough getting all of this out and sharing this stuff with random people!

Ambie99 I use to live in Tacoma when I was stationed at Ft. Lewis :)

Just to put it out there, we happened to buy a bunk bed and a twin bed since our contact kept nudging us that we can take on 3 kids with the one spare room. We have also had church friends donate a crib, toys and clothes! We have a good head start on being prepared for the intake, and I have thought of a process for when they come in.

Here is what I think we will do: We will do a proper greeting and first meeting. We will have suitcases at the ready and empty, so when they get to the door, the trash bags will not come in. They will have a suitcase to bring in the house. Then we will give them the option of meeting the dogs first, or tour the house first. Then I have a "Worry Box" (I acquired as part of random stuff at an auction) and have them use it. It is a music box that says "Put all of your worries deep in here, when you drop them in they will stay here. Let your heart be free and happy." Then we'll get them a snack and settled in their room. I think we will hold off on the rules until the following day when things aren't so exciting and moving fast. What do you guys/girls think?

Let them unpack their stuff in the house instead of on the front porch. It gives them more privacy and self-respect.

Yeah... Good point! Thanks dryadteacher!

I completely agree with giving each kid a suitcase, though. We try to come up with a reason to get them one relatively quickly.

Hi again grizz. I thought I would get a notification if there were any responses on this tread so I am sorry it took so long to reply back to you.

Up here too, there are a lot of private agencies and most people go through them. We preferred the state route because we had more freedom to accept or decline placements. We were also not looking for too specific of a demographic. The only real issue is a ton of kids coming out of the Office of Indian Child Welfare. There are tons of rules. It took us two months to get permission to cut our little guys hair even though he has been getting hair cuts his whole life.

I can tell you when our kiddos (3 at one time) came into the house it was like a tornado hit. They were hyped up on McD and it was "mom, dad, where are our rooms". They were into everything in about the time it took us to get over being called mom and dad (two minutes).

They had tons of clothes that didn't fit, a ton that did. No toys, no personal care products, no stuffed animals. We were well stocked on toothbrushes, hair brushes, shampoo etc. A trip to Dollar Tree is good because they have tons of character shampoos, body washes etc. Options are good when they don't want to bathe. Are you going to use superman or batman today, strawberry shortcake or hello kitty? That whole give them a choice you can live with is golden.

The McD thing is something to get used to. They get it every visit, every doctor appointment. The weird thing is that during training they told us don't use food as a reward or for comfort but the social workers do it all the time. If not the social worker, then mom does it.

Anyway, the whole waiting for the process to begin is hard. You want to get going but have to be patient. Our process was orientation, core parenting class (28 hours) cpr/first aid/bbp/ then paper work, inspection and interviews. Our licensor was amazing. It was still hard to have someone open every drawer and riffle through it. Tell you every hair product and lotion you own is toxic and needs to be under lock and key.

Keep us informed on your process. I am trying to contribute more because there are things that come up everyday and surprise me.

All I can say is that in this situation, patience is a virtue. My husband and I started the process two and a half years ago and just got licensed in November. We have had three kids in our home since then. It took two years of fighting and interviews and classes and general Bull to get it done. All I can tell you is that it is SOOOO WORTH IT. Hang in there.

Things have gone quite smoothly so far for us. All of our training starts in September and have already been told we'll be visiting with some kids well before the end of training so they know if we'd be a good fit for the ones they have chosen for us already. Kind of odd they already have an idea since they haven't looked at our autobiographies? Who knows, maybe we just told our rep just enough that she has a sense of what we can do. We have hit the "nesting" phase, painted the room, new dressers built, beds have been bought and due to be shipped in any day now. We have also started working on the plan of locking up the chemicals and medicines. I just have to see if it is acceptable. We have had our first home visit, and looking forward to having another one in the next few weeks. I think we are missing only a few things which are child-proofing items, one more fire extinguisher, and the fire plan (easy) and our dogs needing shots in November anyways. It just seems things are falling into place!

We have been reading a huge amount on the psychological aspects, and how to deal with difficult kids. We have already had some experience with that with our autistic nephew when we watched him. He has a pretty severe case and would scream, hit and kick, many trying times with him, but once he learned we had a routine he was fine with it. I have that booming voice that I can bring out if and when needed, but only when it's needed. I am generally pretty low-key and can deal with things without getting loud and angry. I think that is such a huge thing for kids, is being able to sit down and talk it out without them getting their kicks at making me blow up, so when I do it they know it's serious and I am serious. Otherwise I am the guy that will sit down on the floor and play and imagine things with the kids, which seems like it doesn't happen enough now in todays society...

Hi Grizz,
I am also new to the process. We are going fast in the process tho. Within weeks we had our first 3 visit a week apart from each other. We were very prepared with the home inspection list from DSHS.
I just have to get a copy of my divorce decree, and husband needs him medical exam finished up. Then tomorrow we have our finger prints. Next week we take CPR classes.
I'm very excited about this new adventure in our lives. I have always wanted to foster because my Aunt was a foster parent and I loved it.
I like your ideas, they are a lot like mine. I will be giving each child a suitcase when they leave my home. I will NOT let them leave my home with a garbage bag! Each child will get a teddy bear of their choice and a quilt of their choice. I am a quilter so that will be fun.
I like your Worry Box. I might have to do something like that. At our church we have a box "Something for Jesus to do". We put our worries in their and we have to leave for Jesus. We can't take it back!
I just wanted to say hi and welcome to the journey. And tell you that my ideas were so close to yours. My Aunt told me about the suitcase tho. :)

Take care!

Hi folks, just giving an update real quick. We have finished our training and having our final home visit in the next couple of weeks, all paperwork has been completed and just waiting on our licensing agent to finish up her end to send to the state for our license approval. We have been approved to babysit kids in care and are approved for home visits, but can't take kids until our license goes through. We had some fantastic friends throw us a foster care shower to help us out with some needed items, we had a blast! We were hoping to have kids by Christmas, but it'll be next year now. More updates to come soon! Thanks everyone!

Another update, we were called a couple of weeks about a placement through our agency, we aren't licensed yet, BUT it is an emergency placement and quite severe of needing a place. We'll have our first FS be placed in our home tomorrow. With the way the push is being done, it feels like an act of congress is being pushed through with zero questions being asked on him coming in to our home. Feeling quite excited, we drove across the state to meet him last week and had a great time with him. I wish I could post more info, but as you know litigation proceedings keeps my mouth taped and hands tied.

Hi I am in Missouri also. I am not sure what part of the state you are in I am in the Southeast area. We are currently doing kinship care but have been contacted several times about more children. I would also contact other areas in the state. I have many friends that have done this. Mainly due to not wanting to run into the bio family out and about.