The turn-around was really fabulous on this one. While we were on vacation, we received a call from the CI that the final home study had been submitted on November 26, and the following week we received the official letter with signatures on it stating we are cleared and ready to roll.
Of course, the children we're seeking for adoption are typically not often available, which is why we chose the foster-adoption route this time around. So our files will be sent to the county foster offices eventually (date unspecified) and we'll see what they need. But we're moving forward!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Recommended Foster Care Reading List
I don't think I've put this here yet, and I keep forgetting to put it in a central place, so here we go.
This is the recommended reading list from experienced foster parents at Foster Care Central.
This is the recommended reading list from experienced foster parents at Foster Care Central.
- A Guide to Foster Parenting: Everything but the Kids! By Mary Ann Goodearle
- The Five Love Languages of Children, By Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell
- Bad Childhood---Good Life: How to Blossom and Thrive in Spite of an Unhappy Childhood, By Dr. Laura Schlessinger
- Parenting Your Out-of-control Child: An Effective, Easy-to-use Program for Teaching Self-control, by George M. Kapalka
- 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child: The Breakthrough Program for Overcoming Your Child's Difficult Behavior, by Ph.D. Jeffrey Bernstein Ph.D.
- How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk (How to Help Your Child), by Adele Faber , Elaine Mazlish
- Fostering a Child's Recovery, by Mike Thomas, Terry Philpot, and Mary Walsh
- Robbie Rabbit's Trail through Foster Care (and the Trail through Adoption) www.robbietherabbit.com [for kids]
- Mulberry Bird (if going through adoption only), by Anne Braff Brodzinsky and Diana L. Stanley [for kids]
- Forever Fingerprints, Maybe Days, by Jennifer Wilgocki (highly recommend) [for kids]
- Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control by Heather Forbes
- Adopting the Hurt Child, by Gregory Keck
- Parenting the Hurt Child, by Gregory Keck
- Telling the Truth to your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past by Betsy Keefer & Jayne Schooler
- Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew, by Sherrie Eldridge
- Another Place at the Table, by Kathy Harrison
- Three Little Words, by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
- The Connected Child, by Karyn Purvis, David Cross, and Wendy Sunshine
- Nancy Thomas CDs (audio)
- Amazon.com Foster Parent Reading List
Friday, November 12, 2010
CI Interview II Report
Yesterday the CI called and said she had a cancellation for this morning, so we took it! Speed is always a good thing. She arrived at 8:30 and left a little after 10:00, and the questions weren't as intense as they were on Wednesday. Topics covered today:
So now we wait again. But it sounds like we won't wait very long, at least not with her part. She will write up what she has to write up and submit it to our social worker at the beginning of next week, and call us to let us know she submitted it. Then our social worker will make any corrections and send it back to her, she'll make the changes, resubmit, and call us again. She estimates that process will be done before we travel for the holiday. Then, over our trip, they'll (theoretically) get the paperwork to the county foster office and we'll go from there.
I really have no idea if we'll have a placement right away, but there's potential. We have not yet been assigned a foster care social worker, so we'll have to get connected there and find out what we need to complete the clearance. But if they're as motivated as the CI, we could... maybe... have a child for Christmas. I'm starting to get excited again, but still feeling like I probably shouldn't quite yet.
The CI also asked if we were being foster cleared for multiple counties, which is something that hadn't come up as a possibility. There's apparently a much higher need for foster care in Charleston County, which is not our county, so if we can get multiple clearances, it may help things move more quickly as well. We'll follow up on that when we hear from our social worker.
Again, and always, thank you for your ongoing prayers!
- Child checklist: what behaviors/history/disabilities are we willing/not willing to accept/consider in a child/birth family. While this sounds difficult (and it is) because everything on the list could happen to anyone, the choices need to be made as to what needs, if any, we're simply not physically able or prepared to meet. Not being prepared to deal with basic needs while a child is recovering from trauma is something they'd like to avoid in general. That said, almost everything on the list (as far as behaviors) are developmentally appropriate for the age range we're looking at, so this part wasn't really that complicated.
- Level of comfort/concerns/personal perspectives on continuing birth family/important other people contact
- Finances and Will/future plans for child
- How would you respond if... child/family/public did/said...
- How will you address the concept of adoption/questions/birth family search (when older) with the child
- How will you handle child/adult offering information on trauma/details
- Importance of our faith/plans for child
- Plans for discipline/views of child development
- Plans for daily child care/babysitters/respite providers
So now we wait again. But it sounds like we won't wait very long, at least not with her part. She will write up what she has to write up and submit it to our social worker at the beginning of next week, and call us to let us know she submitted it. Then our social worker will make any corrections and send it back to her, she'll make the changes, resubmit, and call us again. She estimates that process will be done before we travel for the holiday. Then, over our trip, they'll (theoretically) get the paperwork to the county foster office and we'll go from there.
I really have no idea if we'll have a placement right away, but there's potential. We have not yet been assigned a foster care social worker, so we'll have to get connected there and find out what we need to complete the clearance. But if they're as motivated as the CI, we could... maybe... have a child for Christmas. I'm starting to get excited again, but still feeling like I probably shouldn't quite yet.
The CI also asked if we were being foster cleared for multiple counties, which is something that hadn't come up as a possibility. There's apparently a much higher need for foster care in Charleston County, which is not our county, so if we can get multiple clearances, it may help things move more quickly as well. We'll follow up on that when we hear from our social worker.
Again, and always, thank you for your ongoing prayers!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
CI Interview I report
I am exhausted. They say that people's favorite subject to talk about is themselves, but three hours of it in a row with a lot riding on it really takes it out of you. Our CI was very sociable, making it more like a strongly guided conversation and less like an interrogation. She spent some time talking to both of us together, then half an hour or so with Lanse and then with me, and then both together again. Prior to today, people had asked what kind of things she needed to know, so here's some things we talked about:
And now that I've unwound a bit, it's time for some lunch! Thank you all for your ongoing prayers!
- Adoption: why/how so far/reception of family & friends/concerns/hopes
- Parents/brothers/sisters/additional family and their past/work/hobbies and our relationship with them as a child/currently and amount of time we talk to/see them
- Our childhood: hardships/hobbies/ personality/discipline/chores/jobs
- Our formative years/events/hardships/ losses and our methods of coping/healing
- Our marriage/communication/routines/ decisionmaking/changes expected by a child's arrival
- Our/family's health: physical/mental/ emotional and how/why/treatment and how it affects us
And now that I've unwound a bit, it's time for some lunch! Thank you all for your ongoing prayers!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
CI Tomorrow
Tomorrow morning at 8:30 the CI will be here to begin our interview process. She should be here for two or three hours, and we'll talk about everything, apparently. We were told that she's really good and "very thorough". Thank the Lord that I woke up yesterday with scads of energy, something that almost never happens! I was able to clean the main areas of the house, put away all the filing, balance the budget, read four chapters of homework, and cook a steak dinner. Amazing!
Today, however, there's not so much energy. The medication I'm on at the moment is making me twitchy and feeling at loose ends, but I'm exhausted and don't really want to move. Even so, this morning I cleared up the kid's room and put bedding out, so that room is lovely, found another stack of books and had to rearrange the shelves to make them fit (a task I actually enjoy, so long as I don't get sucked into reading things), and aside from a small list of incidentals, I only have the upstairs loft left to straighten. Most of that is done already, and I just need to finish filling up the BORC (Box Of Random Stuff) and shove it in the attic. I also have to clean my bathroom floor, which is tiny, so that's okay. Doesn't sound like much compared to yesterday, but it's been a lot harder to get going today.
I appear to have wandered a bit. I find it interesting, though, how our attitudes have changed each time we've done the homestudy. The first time through, we didn't make it to the home visit, so we didn't have to clean like this. The second time, we were tweaked out about every little detail, and friends from church volunteered to come over and help me deep scrub. We emptied and cleaned out all the cabinets and sanitized the entire house top to bottom. This time we're much more relaxed, and balanced on that edge of wanting it to be company-ready, but also accurately represent our style of living, which is not company-ready. I seem to be the only one actually stressing out about it, (though Lanse is under a lot of stress at work, so it's hard to tell) but I'm definitely not sweating what I think of as the small stuff. Of course, my definition of "the small stuff" is different from other people's. But I figure if we ever have to do a homestudy again, we'll probably just vaccuum and make the beds.
Pray for us tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes!
Today, however, there's not so much energy. The medication I'm on at the moment is making me twitchy and feeling at loose ends, but I'm exhausted and don't really want to move. Even so, this morning I cleared up the kid's room and put bedding out, so that room is lovely, found another stack of books and had to rearrange the shelves to make them fit (a task I actually enjoy, so long as I don't get sucked into reading things), and aside from a small list of incidentals, I only have the upstairs loft left to straighten. Most of that is done already, and I just need to finish filling up the BORC (Box Of Random Stuff) and shove it in the attic. I also have to clean my bathroom floor, which is tiny, so that's okay. Doesn't sound like much compared to yesterday, but it's been a lot harder to get going today.
I appear to have wandered a bit. I find it interesting, though, how our attitudes have changed each time we've done the homestudy. The first time through, we didn't make it to the home visit, so we didn't have to clean like this. The second time, we were tweaked out about every little detail, and friends from church volunteered to come over and help me deep scrub. We emptied and cleaned out all the cabinets and sanitized the entire house top to bottom. This time we're much more relaxed, and balanced on that edge of wanting it to be company-ready, but also accurately represent our style of living, which is not company-ready. I seem to be the only one actually stressing out about it, (though Lanse is under a lot of stress at work, so it's hard to tell) but I'm definitely not sweating what I think of as the small stuff. Of course, my definition of "the small stuff" is different from other people's. But I figure if we ever have to do a homestudy again, we'll probably just vaccuum and make the beds.
Pray for us tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Self-induced DSS meeting
We passed the fire inspection easily, he just checked the smoke detectors and that was about it. He'd already measured windows and suchlike last year, and he treated it mostly as an update, but since we haven't any children placed yet there were some things that he didn't have to deal with (like checking records of fire drills and escape routes and such). I did have to redo our floor plan drawing just a little bit because in my haste I put the screen porch on in the wrong place, blocking a window that they could feasibly need to access in an emergency. So that's done.
All of the reference letters have been received. THANK YOU to all of our lovely friends who helped refer us! I don't know if those will be updated every year or not; obviously I hope for the fewest items to update, but if they do, I'm sure you'll hear from us.
The title of this post occurred this morning. When we were going through this process with Bethany, they explained to us that the autobiography interviews and the home visits were the ways in which our social worker gets to know us better as individuals, and we build that trust relationship. I know that I became much more comfortable working with them because of these steps. In the current system, however, we did not have to redo our autobiographies from the Bethany homestudy, and SC employs Certified Investigators (CI) - social workers whose only job is to travel around and do home visits and create the text of the homestudy from them. This person is not our personal social worker. So, I wondered, when do we get to know our own worker? I wrote and asked her how the process allowed for that opportunity, and she said, "How's Thursday morning at 10:00?"
So this morning we went to meet with her for the sole purpose of chatting about anything and becoming more comfortable with each other. I was really worried because when it came down to it, I didn't have any specific questions and didn't know what I'd say. I was also worried that by straying from "the way it officially works" we'd be labeled some of "THOSE" people, or that it would have negative repercussions somehow.
It ended up being a very nice hour. We mostly went over the process again, trying to identify those things which vary from the private agency approach, clarifying the differences between the adoption regional office and the foster county office and who does what, we shared photos of our niece and goddaughters, and chatted a little bit off topic about work, school, pets and life in general. It was a very good conversation, and accomplished what I had hoped: that we're now hopefully more comfortable working together.
Next Wednesday our CI comes to do the first of two home visits. Our lovely friend Katharine is coming tomorrow to help me do some deep cleaning that hasn't been done in a while, and hopefully everything will still be in order by Wednesday. After that visit we'll have a break for turkey day and then have the second visit (I assume that it won't be quick enough to finish before we travel, but you never know), and she'll wrap up the homestudy. Then it all goes over to the county foster office and we'll be licensed. Because we're hoping for very young children, there could be a bit of a wait... or we could have a temporary placement by Christmas. More uncertainty, but at least things are moving.
Thanks for your continued prayers!
All of the reference letters have been received. THANK YOU to all of our lovely friends who helped refer us! I don't know if those will be updated every year or not; obviously I hope for the fewest items to update, but if they do, I'm sure you'll hear from us.
The title of this post occurred this morning. When we were going through this process with Bethany, they explained to us that the autobiography interviews and the home visits were the ways in which our social worker gets to know us better as individuals, and we build that trust relationship. I know that I became much more comfortable working with them because of these steps. In the current system, however, we did not have to redo our autobiographies from the Bethany homestudy, and SC employs Certified Investigators (CI) - social workers whose only job is to travel around and do home visits and create the text of the homestudy from them. This person is not our personal social worker. So, I wondered, when do we get to know our own worker? I wrote and asked her how the process allowed for that opportunity, and she said, "How's Thursday morning at 10:00?"
So this morning we went to meet with her for the sole purpose of chatting about anything and becoming more comfortable with each other. I was really worried because when it came down to it, I didn't have any specific questions and didn't know what I'd say. I was also worried that by straying from "the way it officially works" we'd be labeled some of "THOSE" people, or that it would have negative repercussions somehow.
It ended up being a very nice hour. We mostly went over the process again, trying to identify those things which vary from the private agency approach, clarifying the differences between the adoption regional office and the foster county office and who does what, we shared photos of our niece and goddaughters, and chatted a little bit off topic about work, school, pets and life in general. It was a very good conversation, and accomplished what I had hoped: that we're now hopefully more comfortable working together.
Next Wednesday our CI comes to do the first of two home visits. Our lovely friend Katharine is coming tomorrow to help me do some deep cleaning that hasn't been done in a while, and hopefully everything will still be in order by Wednesday. After that visit we'll have a break for turkey day and then have the second visit (I assume that it won't be quick enough to finish before we travel, but you never know), and she'll wrap up the homestudy. Then it all goes over to the county foster office and we'll be licensed. Because we're hoping for very young children, there could be a bit of a wait... or we could have a temporary placement by Christmas. More uncertainty, but at least things are moving.
Thanks for your continued prayers!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
DSS homestudy update
Here's a quick update for anyone still following along. We've gone through the training weekend, which was incredibly informational and a bit overwhelming just to do it all in one weekend. Our fire inspection is next Friday, our paperwork is all in, and then we just wait for the reference letters to arrive and we're good to move forward.
After our adoption worker has all our information, she'll meet with us (I believe) and we'll get to know each other, and figure out what to do next. I think we'll be working with both her and a foster care worker in Dorchester county (adoption is regionally handled, foster care is county level), so we'll be getting more information on that.
And that's all we know right now. Please keep praying!!
After our adoption worker has all our information, she'll meet with us (I believe) and we'll get to know each other, and figure out what to do next. I think we'll be working with both her and a foster care worker in Dorchester county (adoption is regionally handled, foster care is county level), so we'll be getting more information on that.
And that's all we know right now. Please keep praying!!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
DSS orientation meeting
Amazingly enough, something has happened in our adoption journey! It's not really new in essence, but it's motion, the one step back in preparation for the two forward.
We got a return call two weeks ago from SC DSS, received paperwork via email, filled it out, got Bethany records transferred, and this evening attended the informational orientation meeting.
This meeting, while required for everyone entering the DSS program, was an introduction to 'how to adopt', and we got copies of all the paperwork - a binder-full - that we've already done, but with different headers on it, so we have to copy (re-copy in some cases) everything over. Not entirely unexpected, but still very frustrating. We did learn some DSS specific things that we need to know, and we met our social worker, who seems very nice. So that's all good.
What did surprise us, (me especially, being that I'd spoken on the phone to the person doing the meeting) was that this was strictly a meeting on adoption, and not fostering. We had intended to enter the foster care program and be hopefully adopting a child we foster. But what happens, apparently, is that once our adoption homestudy approval process is complete, they'll share all the records with the foster worker in our county, she'll require one or two more things for the foster care side of it, and then we'll be set to go. But they'll be done separately.
Despite our previous 14 hours of training, we will probably have to go to the DSS training. Ours were topics picked at random in an online setting, and so we didn't happen to learn a lot about some of the things that DSS covers. It sounds like this one is done in a sort of high-impact cramming weekend, though I'm not precisely sure what the time committment will be.
We will be finding out more as we go. We continue to appreciate all your prayers and support through this ever lengthening process.
We got a return call two weeks ago from SC DSS, received paperwork via email, filled it out, got Bethany records transferred, and this evening attended the informational orientation meeting.
This meeting, while required for everyone entering the DSS program, was an introduction to 'how to adopt', and we got copies of all the paperwork - a binder-full - that we've already done, but with different headers on it, so we have to copy (re-copy in some cases) everything over. Not entirely unexpected, but still very frustrating. We did learn some DSS specific things that we need to know, and we met our social worker, who seems very nice. So that's all good.
What did surprise us, (me especially, being that I'd spoken on the phone to the person doing the meeting) was that this was strictly a meeting on adoption, and not fostering. We had intended to enter the foster care program and be hopefully adopting a child we foster. But what happens, apparently, is that once our adoption homestudy approval process is complete, they'll share all the records with the foster worker in our county, she'll require one or two more things for the foster care side of it, and then we'll be set to go. But they'll be done separately.
Despite our previous 14 hours of training, we will probably have to go to the DSS training. Ours were topics picked at random in an online setting, and so we didn't happen to learn a lot about some of the things that DSS covers. It sounds like this one is done in a sort of high-impact cramming weekend, though I'm not precisely sure what the time committment will be.
We will be finding out more as we go. We continue to appreciate all your prayers and support through this ever lengthening process.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Quick update
After a lot of prayer and seeking God's will, and reading up on things, we made the call today to start transferring our records from Bethany to the local DSS, where we hope we can get involved in the foster to adopt program. I had to leave a message on voicemail there, so we'll see how quickly they get back to us and what steps we need to take. More info as I know it.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Another year ended
Apparently the last time I updated was October. I keep waiting for something to happen that I can report on, and then nothing does. This weekend something happened: our homestudy had it's first birthday. I've been saying that it "expired", because we technically don't have an approved homestudy available between the last day and the renewal. Normally renewal happens prior to expiration date (which was May 2 for us), but due to one thing and another, it hasn't been completed. Hopefully our end of it will be done by the end of next week - the proper paperwork is in the mail - and then we have to redo the fire inspection. Last time it took him a month to get here, so we'll see how this works.
In the meantime, there has been a bit of a change in the general situation. The last time I posted, we had about 24 inquiries outstanding. This means that we'd submitted our homestudy for these children and had not yet heard any result from their individual social workers. Then, suddenly (for us), the Federal and State budgets changed in the area of Children and Family Services, cutting social worker hours, laying off a lot of folks, and making it much more difficult for states to pay private agencies or deal with the ICPC (Interstate Compact).
The result for us is that the last time I posted here was approximately the last time we heard anything from anyone out of state, except for one child in February (whose worker chose a family closer to home) and another child I inquired on a couple of weeks ago, whose worker emailed me that the children on that website are no longer available for out-of-state placements. None of the other 24 inquiries followed up... in fact, no one even returned our social worker's multiple phone calls to verify they received our study. Inter-state adoptions, while still possible for extremely hard-to-place children, seems to have become nearly impossible, and the program we're in is completely dependent on inter-state inquiries due to other restrictions on Agency/DSS in-state interactions.
The arrival of our homestudy renewal puts us in an ideal position to make a change in our program. However, we've been experiencing a lot of different emotions and thoughts, we're doing a LOT of praying, and every time we discuss we come out with something different. Oddly, we've thus far been in agreement each time, but none of it is leading us to a solid conclusion.
We're proceeding with the renewal of the homestudy as it is, but we've also received paperwork for the domestic infant program, as well as having contact information for a local DSS person if we choose to switch to foster adopt. (As an aside, we had hoped to do local foster care while seeking a child out-of-state, but we've been chasing that option down for a definitive NO from DSS. They don't like the idea of working from more than one angle.) We've also seriously discussed the possibility of changing to a local agency so that we can be more actively engaged in the situation.
Please join us as we pray for clarity on which direction we need to go. Please also pray for our social worker, Bert, who just received some discouraging news about her health and is feeling the pressure of the work time that will be lost in dealing with it.
Thanks.
In the meantime, there has been a bit of a change in the general situation. The last time I posted, we had about 24 inquiries outstanding. This means that we'd submitted our homestudy for these children and had not yet heard any result from their individual social workers. Then, suddenly (for us), the Federal and State budgets changed in the area of Children and Family Services, cutting social worker hours, laying off a lot of folks, and making it much more difficult for states to pay private agencies or deal with the ICPC (Interstate Compact).
The result for us is that the last time I posted here was approximately the last time we heard anything from anyone out of state, except for one child in February (whose worker chose a family closer to home) and another child I inquired on a couple of weeks ago, whose worker emailed me that the children on that website are no longer available for out-of-state placements. None of the other 24 inquiries followed up... in fact, no one even returned our social worker's multiple phone calls to verify they received our study. Inter-state adoptions, while still possible for extremely hard-to-place children, seems to have become nearly impossible, and the program we're in is completely dependent on inter-state inquiries due to other restrictions on Agency/DSS in-state interactions.
The arrival of our homestudy renewal puts us in an ideal position to make a change in our program. However, we've been experiencing a lot of different emotions and thoughts, we're doing a LOT of praying, and every time we discuss we come out with something different. Oddly, we've thus far been in agreement each time, but none of it is leading us to a solid conclusion.
We're proceeding with the renewal of the homestudy as it is, but we've also received paperwork for the domestic infant program, as well as having contact information for a local DSS person if we choose to switch to foster adopt. (As an aside, we had hoped to do local foster care while seeking a child out-of-state, but we've been chasing that option down for a definitive NO from DSS. They don't like the idea of working from more than one angle.) We've also seriously discussed the possibility of changing to a local agency so that we can be more actively engaged in the situation.
Please join us as we pray for clarity on which direction we need to go. Please also pray for our social worker, Bert, who just received some discouraging news about her health and is feeling the pressure of the work time that will be lost in dealing with it.
Thanks.
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