This weekend I'm going through Resource and Adoptive Parent Training (RAPT) through the Children's Bureau in Indianapolis. I've been very impressed with the scheduling. As I've considered becoming a foster parent I've realized that there is a TON of work involved in just obtaining your licensure to become eligible for placement, which is a good thing. What a mess it would be if everyone who raised their hand was given a child to foster. It certainly shouldn't be an impulse decision - something you can enter into a month after it first crosses your mind. It shouldn't be easy to get yourself into financial, emotional, or logistical trouble either, which could easily happen if you didn't get told over and over again just how much of a commitment becoming a foster parent really is.
I've considered being a foster parent off and on for years, and have given it serious consideration since I purchased my home a year ago in March. I got as far as calling different agencies and requesting literature - even agreeing to take training - several times in the last year. But the mountain of paperwork, distance between the date I agreed to take the class and the date the class was scheduled, and my own mercurial nature didn't mix. And if that's a barrier, having a child under my sole care is just a bad idea.
So yeah, I know it serves a purpose. All of this, in the end, is to make the best possible next step for a child in need of services. This isn't about catering to a grown ups schedule, marketing it to appeal, or sugar coating anything. CB does a great job providing resources to help their foster parents help the children placed in their care, and that starts by speaking plain about what things are really like so placements aren't unsuccessful.
That is easily my biggest fear in undertaking this new page in my life. That I will mess it up. This isn't a new degree, move, or change in my career. This is another person's life. Their perception of self worth, safety, and security. I cannot imagine taking a child into my care and having to force them to experience rejection again. That's why I've waited - and am steeping myself in prayer as I take these first steps.
I am humbled to say that I am clear in my conviction after day one of this Rapt training. Real deal humbled. If your faith has holes in it, just work on listening to God more and your own voice less. When you actually feel clarity that comes from something greater than yourself, it will knock you over. I've balled most of today - in front of strangers in parking lots, as I got gas, sitting at stop lights. Yeah yeah I know - I cry at Foldger's commercials. But these tears aren't emo-empathy tears. These are holy crap God is real He's really real not just the real I "put on" and try to believe because I've always been told to. I feel Him, in my heart, warming me from the inside out, creating clarity and drive and fervor and joy within me as I consider fostering. And it leaves me shaking!
Enough of all that.
As I was SAYING, the Children's Bureau has exceeded my expectations with the speed in which they push you through your licensing - especially when you consider all that I've just shared about the normal expectation for this to take two days short of FOREVER to complete. Rather than have you come for three weekends in a row or two days a week for two weeks, this training will be finished Sunday - and I started Friday night! Once I complete the training I will attend CPR training next weekend, and then wait for my home study. Oh, and kill two trees turning in paperwork. But instead of considering placement sometime by January - I could seriously be considering placement within a month or two.
Holy frijoles batman!
I've enjoyed learning from more than the literature provided. Ghislene, our instructor and the placement manager at CB, has fostered over 40 children in 7 years of fostering and ended up adopting two of those children as her own. I've really enjoyed her candor, humor, and heart for these children. She's inspiring and I already feel like I have a friend or confidant to reach out to.
There have also been some wonderful families going through the licensing training with me. There's an older couple with an in-home-daycare and a 12 year old son who are ready to have another little person in their life who doesn't leave at 6pm each night like the rest of the kids. A great grandmother (I would not believe it - she looks like she's 50!) who wants to be a mentor for troubled teens. A single mother of a 14 and 18 year old girl who'd like to just do fostering (no plans to adopt) teenage girls. A married couple who have learned they can't safely have biological children and are solely looking for adoption. And a couple who brought their 8 year old son with them to experience the licensing as a family, as they tragically lost their 3 year old daughter a little over a year ago and didn't intend for their son to be an only child.
Sitting among them all, I feel weak. Underqualified. We are all as different as can be, with different strengths and I'm sure somewhere in them are weaknesses too. But almost all of them are already veterans at being parents. And the married couple who can't have kids -- well, they're married. And they're SO clear about they want. Down to age, gender, and type of placement. And then here's Heidi with her legal pad, three markers, and two highlighters, adding post-it notes to important pages, highlighting words and policy and questions-to-take-to-Lisa-or-Mom-or-Holli like it's a final exam and not a person I'm preparing for. I don't know what age. race. gender. disability. language. history of violence. respite care. temporary placement. foster placement. foster to adopt. SNAP adopt. I'm looking for. I'm the only one who's chewed off three of her finger nails in one day (and who never does that and thinks it's groady to do so).
They had one exercise to demonstrate the need for empathy regarding bio parents - to show that we're all one bad choice away from losing our children. They read this scenario about having a child who's been sick for a week and is growing increasingly listless every day. You have your elderly aunt as backup childcare but she's easy to get sick and the last time that you had her watch your child your aunt ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. You make 1300 a month, have already used your food stamps and are out of groceries, and have been getting eviction notices in the mail. You've got no leave available at work, and you've got to decide what to do.
The options? Well let's see. Option 1 - go to the clinic and waste an entire day off work trying to be seen so you can use medicaid for your daughter. Lose the wages and hope you don't lose your job, and decide to either go without food or get evicted. Or ooooh Option 2 - have your 9 year old niece stay home from school to watch your child while you work and hope she doesn't get too sick. There are other options with similarly bleak scenarios provided. I'm the only one looking around at the options placed around the room in this exercise going I HAVE NO CLUE while the rest of the group hops right up and stands in their respective corners.
It makes me frustrated to consider that among my friends, I am the old maid who somehow hasn't yet managed to procreate. NO I don't think people really think that. That's what I think when I look around me. And then I go to this fostering class and it's like "one of these things is not like the others". Like I don't fit.
I know from a heart place that these doubts are natural and in a way exciting. It means the devil isn't happy with this choice and is working overtime to disturb my progress. Still another thing to actually do the work to overcome those doubts. He knows my triggers.
As my brave little nephew Landon says, buried under the covers during thunderstorms, "God is bigger than the boogey man!" These doubts will not sway me. They will stand as testimony one day, when I finally hold a child in my arms and can whisper in his/her ear, "You're good now little one. Heidi's got you."
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