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Enjoy the Time You Have: Being present with your kiddo in the uncertainty of foster care

When you become a foster parent and open your home to a kiddo in need, you are welcoming a child into your home out of love and necessity. The reason you open your home to a child is because at your core you want to love and care for kiddos. The only reason you are able to accept kids into your home is because, unfortunately, there is a need.

When you say yes to a “placement”, you are saying yes to expanding your family. It is an incredible feeling that is very hard to explain. There is so much joy and excitement, there is no doubt that there is a tremendous amount of love, but there is also an underlying fear and anxiety.  The fear and anxiety, initially, is not overwhelming or overbearing. It might give you butterflies or make you a bit nervous, and feels a bit like “falling in love”. But overtime, this can change, and the anxiety and fear, especially around the future, and potential loss, can grow and become overwhelming.

This post will hopefully provide some perspective that helps foster parents, and those who know, love, support, and are allies of foster parents, understand that the fear and anxiety surrounding the duration or ultimate outcome of a placement is “ok”, but it is more important to focus on the present, and enjoy the time you have.

Continue reading “Enjoy the Time You Have: Being present with your kiddo in the uncertainty of foster care”

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Foster Parents at the Senate

On November 19, 2019, a grassroots non-profit organization that we are a part of, called Foster Parents Together, were given the opportunity to speak to the Oregon State Senate on Legislature Listening Days. The goal was to voice concerns, experiences, and recommendations to politicians who have the power and duty to improve the foster care system. Often, a missing voice in the conversations regarding fixing the foster care system is the voice of the foster families who live the struggle every day. This was our opportunity to speak.

Aaron, along with other foster parents and advocates from around the state gave over 20-minutes of statements to state senators, the head of DHS, and the director of child welfare, in hopes of working together to improve the system.

The following is the written statement Aaron prepared and the statement to the senate was based on*.

“Hello,

First, I would like to say “thank you” to all of you for giving us this opportunity to speak today on this very important topic.  My hope is that we can work together to improve the state of child welfare in Oregon to benefit the children in care, the foster parents trying to help, and bio-families who need support. Continue reading “Foster Parents at the Senate”

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10 Tips for Successful Foster Care Visits

Visits for Kids in Foster Care

As we write this post, our kiddos are on a visit. Visitation is an aspect of being a foster parent that is quite interesting, but honestly, not that unique in the world of parenting. If you were raised in a family that experienced a divorce, visitation in foster care can be compared to visitations or shared custody between divorced parents. This post is a guide to help foster parents navigate the intricacies of visitations, and hopefully set themselves, their kiddos, and the bio-family up for success.

See our previous post for a discussion on why visits are so important, Foster Care Visitation (Pt. 1)

Visitations can be very hard for kids. It can be difficult for them to understand and process all of the emotions they are feeling. The whole event can be very exhausting, overwhelming, exciting, anxiety inducing, amazing, disappointing, as well as a myriad of other emotions and feelings. All of this can make for a pretty difficult build up and come down for you and your family, if you are not properly prepared for visits.  Hopefully some of the suggestions in this post can help you navigate, survive, or even flourish during visitation days. Continue reading “10 Tips for Successful Foster Care Visits”

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Foster Care Visitation (Pt. 1)

Visitation

I want to spend some time talking about visitations. If you are new to foster care, or even if your own family is going through a separation or divorce, you may be getting introduced and familiarized with the idea of visitations. You might also find yourself experiencing and getting familiarized with emotions and behaviors surrounding visitations. Behaviors both from the kiddos, and the adults involved. I wrote this post with the hope to encourage you during these potentially difficult times. Hopefully, through this post, and others to follow, I can provide some insight on why the children and adults in your life act the way they do, why visits are important, and how to prepare yourself and your family for visits, and be as successful as possible.

Continue reading “Foster Care Visitation (Pt. 1)”
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We Have An Emergency – Foster Care

Emergency Foster Care

Emergency Foster Care Placements

This post is the first in a series of 6, that discusses what Foster Care Emergency Placements are, how and why we decided to open our home to Emergency Foster Care Placements, and our experience as an Emergency Placement Home.

We Have An Emergency

When Ariel left our home for her potential forever home, we needed time to process the change in our family, and reflect on our journey.  When a child leaves your home, even in the best of circumstances, it is a painful experience.  However, as we slowly processed the change in our home and came to terms with our new “normal”, we quickly remembered the State of the System  in Oregon, and the crisis that we are in.  Some people process loss and grief by carrying on with life, by returning to work, maintaining routines, and pushing forward. In the few short weeks after Ariel moved from our home, it became apparent that this is how our family processes change, copes, and continues on in this crazy world of foster care.

After much thought, reflection, and conversation, coupled with the knowledge that in Oregon, children in the foster care system spend nights, weeks, or even months in hotels due to a lack of available foster care providers and beds, we decided to open our home to emergency foster care placements.  We agreed that with only one child in the home, we did not want to sit by with a perfectly good empty bedroom in our home, while children, through no fault of their own, spent nights with strangers (DHS employees) in hotel rooms.

This was not a decision we made on our own though, we knew that just like the decision to become foster parents, the decision to take new placements needed to be a decision that the entire family agreed with. When we broached the conversation with Trevor*, about opening our home to “emergency” placements, to our surprise, he was fully on board. It was amazing to see his understanding of the struggle of other kids in foster care, and his desire to share his home and his family with them. We let him know that for every child DHS called us about, we would check with him first to make sure he was alright with them living with us.

And so, we began opening our home to “emergency” placements. We became emergency foster parents much the same way that we became foster parents. We had the resources, and there was a need.

Continue reading “We Have An Emergency – Foster Care”

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How Would You Rate Your Pain?

Emergency Mamas

We are very excited to share a guest post from Emergency Mamas. It is wonderful to find like minded Foster Parents who also share honest glimpses into their world and the hard work we do as foster parents. Although we are on the same journey, it is very interesting and informative for us read the experiences and perspectives of others, and see the similarities and differences. We hope you enjoy their post and blog as much as we do!

How Would You Rate Your Pain?

You know when you go to the doctor and they ask you to rate your pain, using some numbers and smiling/frowning faces on a little chart?

Typically, people rank much higher than they actually are feeling because the vast majority of us only know moderate pain. If you can sit up, talk to the doctor, and you drove yourself to the office…your pain is not an 8. It might  be a 5. Continue reading “How Would You Rate Your Pain?”

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We Have An Emergency – Pt. 2

Emergency Placement

Brit, 16

Our first call for an emergency placement was for Brit. She was 16, and the Placement Desk could not give us a lot of initial information about who she is or what the circumstances were for her needing a placement immediately, but stated that it does not sound like their were any behaviors or major issues that would make it a difficult placement. It was a Friday, we were off for the weekend, and we felt that we could swing it. We asked Trevor what he thought about having a 16-year old girl live with us for a few days, and before we could finish asking, he said “say yes”.  We did. Then the Placement Desk called back to see what our final decision was, and provide some additional information about Brit and her circumstances.

According to DHS, Brit was a run away who had run from numerous placements, has been homeless for the past few months, smokes cigarettes and uses marijuana. The Placement Desk seemed shocked about the cigarettes and marijuana use, and gave us every opportunity to back out. Those “behaviors” were not what we were worried about… we were petrified about her tendency to run away.  What would we do if she bolted during the night? They suggested “let her run and call the police”.  Not exactly a comforting response. We said yes, for the weekend.

Continue reading “We Have An Emergency – Pt. 2”

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We Have An(other) Emergency – Pt. 3

Foster Care

Carlton, 8

After Brit left, DHS quickly realized that our home was open to all children, not just infants and babies.  The older you are, the harder it is for DHS to find a placement for your, long term or short term.  So after Brit left, we very quickly received a call about an 8-year old boy who needed a home, after being removed from his parents and spending the weekend in a hotel.  We talked to Trevor, and he was more than eager to have a boy the same age as him over for a night or seven.

Carlton came to us confused. In his eyes, his parents were perfect. They loved him and he loved them. He missed them dearly. From what we gleaned from the the news, his story, and DHS, his parents fell into the grips of addiction and made some very poor choices. In his mind, his parent were being framed. In the eyes of the law, his dad may have been robbing banks and convenience stores, and the apartment they lived in might have had needles and drug paraphernalia laying around. Whatever the truth is, we know we had a child in our home who was scared, confused, and worried.

Continue reading “We Have An(other) Emergency – Pt. 3”

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Dear Foster Curious

Interested in becoming a foster parent?

We didn’t come out as potential foster parents until we took in our first kiddo. We didn’t tell anyone we were taking classes to become certified as foster parents, because we wanted to give ourselves the ability to back out. Becoming a foster parent is a very big and very personal decision, that for better or worse, tends to define a part of you. For us, we went into the first foster parent orientation class as a curious couple, not sure if foster care was for us or not. We left, feeling like it was something we were interested in pursuing… but we didn’t tell anyone.  As we got farther into the process, and closer and closer to being certified, we told a few family members, a few coworkers so we could adjust our work schedules, and some of our closest friends. Most of our family and friends had no idea that becoming a foster parent was something we were interested in doing until we posted on Facebook the night Ava (4-hours) was sleeping soundly in her crib the first night she was placed in our home.

Continue reading “Dear Foster Curious”

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Foster Care Wishlist

*If you have kids over five, please see our updated post, “wishlist part 2.”

No matter how much you prepare yourself to be a foster parent (or parent in general), you will never be fully prepared.  Being a foster parent throws some additional curveballs in the preparation process for becoming a parent, and honestly, with each placement the only thing that gets easier is that you are more prepared to be unprepared.  As many of you probably know, during our certification process we anticipated being foster parents to school-age children, but our first placement was Ava*, an infant, who arrived at our home 4-hours after the initial placement phone call.

When becoming a parent, you often have 9ish-months to prepare.  You can use this time to freak out, paint the bedroom, clean the house, stock-up on necessary and unnecessary supplies, over-analyze, host a baby-shower, spread out expenses over months, and yes, freak out.  To become a foster parent, it took us a little bit less than 6-months from the start of our journey to our first placement.  During that time, we prepared our home to pass the DHS Home Inspection (fire extinguisher = check!), and emptied the room that our future kiddo would occupy, save for a twin bed.  Beyond that, we had no idea if we should get toys, clothes, and decorations for a 5-year old boy, or an 18-year old girl, or anyone in between.  And it turns out, we should have ditched the bed, set-up a crib, and prepared for an 11-month old little girl!

All we are trying to say is, “preparing for a placement is very difficult”. Our first placement was just as difficult as preparing for our 5th and 6th.  These are little humans, all with their own needs, and the amount of time you have between when you know they are coming, and when they arrive can be measured in minutes or hours, not months. Many of the items you purchase for your kiddos need to be and should be sent with them when reunification occurs (clothes, toys you bought them, hygiene products, etc.), but some things you buy, are considered items for the house, and you can keep for the next placement.  This phenomenon explains why we have a double jogger and single jogger as well as a pack-n-play taking up valuable storage space while there are no toddlers currently in our home. Continue reading “Foster Care Wishlist”