The Certification Process – Pt. 2

Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE) – Home Study

Completing the Foundations Training is a pre-requisite for becoming a foster parent, but DHS isn’t that naive, they still require that you jump through a few other hoops before they will let you care for children. The first is a background check and fingerprinting, and as long as you didn’t fail the requirements stated previously, you know, child molester, rapist, murderer, child abuser, you will probably move on to the next round.  The next round gets more personal, more in depth, and made us feel more confident about the vetting process.

DHS isn’t that naive, they still require that you jump through a few other hoops before they will let you care for children.

When you apply to be a foster parent, you are assigned a Certifier. From our classes, mainly the one where the actual Foster Parent came and talked to us, we learned that your Certifier is your ally, and you better hope you get a good one.  We were lucky and received an excellent Certifier who did her best to make the certification process go as smoothly as possible. Following the completion of the certification process, she has continued to be a resource to us for information, and an advocate for us within the system.

In the beginning, the main focus of the Certifier is to complete your Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE) Home Study¹. The basis of the Home Study is three interview sessions conducted by your Certifier.  The first two interviews typically take place at the DHS office that your Certifier is based at, and each of you do an individual interview with the Certifier.  The interview lasts about 1-hour, and is mainly questions regarding your past. This is so DHS can have a biographical view of your life.  After both of you have completed this interview, the third interview session typically takes place at your house.

The third interview is like a game of “The Newlyweds”, and has the potential to be pretty awkward. Basically, the Certifier interviews both of you separately, and then brings you both together so you can compare answers.  It is the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, you don’t know how honest your partner is going to be when they answer these awkward and uncomfortable questions. The Certifier then grills you on any discrepancies.  There are questions about your sex life, questions about your alcohol use, marijuana use, medications you take, religious beliefs, who does the most work around the house (good luck with that one), and why you want to be a Foster Parent. It is a lot of fun.

The third interview is like a game of “The Newlyweds”, and has the potential to be pretty awkward.

After the interviews are over, the Certifier takes a detailed look at everything on your property. You have to open every door, cabinet, chest, crawl space, shed, etc. that is big enough for you to hide a child.  It is unfortunate that they have to do this,  but they have to because they have found horrible things in all of the above mentioned places before. There are some other requirements as well, basically baby-proof your house, that they check for. These include:

• All medicine and drugs locked up
• All poisons locked up
• All guns locked up
• A fire Extinguisher on display (so aesthetically pleasing)
• An evacuation plan posted (we needed more art around the house)
  -Check out how we made ours below.
• Foster Children’s Bill of Rights posted in the child’s room
•  All smoke detectors and Carbon Monoxide detectors functioning

After all of that, your SAFE Home Study is completed, and it is now time for your Certifier to go write up their findings in a report.  The Certifier will probably call you with a few follow-up questions to fill in some gaps in their notes, or maybe to go over something they forgot to bring up, but theoretically they are feverishly typing up a report and recommendation for your family and your home.  If there are any health concerns, mental or physical, they may ask to contact your doctor to verify that you are healthy enough to raise children, but that is about it.

So after suffering through the Foundations Classes and completing your awkward interviews with your Certifier for the SAFE Home Study, you are a Certified Foster Care Provider… Right?  Not necessarily…

Final Approval or Emergency Certification

The typical protocol for final approval to be a Foster Care Provider would require that your Certifier take the information they attained through the interview process, use this information to develop the SAFE Home Study Report, and then submit the report to their supervisor for approval.  Depending on the competency of your Certifier, as well as the type of information uncovered during your interview, this process can take anywhere from a month, to 6-months or longer.  Our understanding is that this process typically takes about 4-months.

Depending on the competency of your Certifier… this process can take anywhere from a month, to 6-months or longer.

According to our Certifier, she was thoroughly impressed with us, and through the course of our interviews, there were no red flags in the information we provided. At the time when we were navigating the certification process, there was a Foster Care crisis in Oregon, with children spending nights in hotels with DHS staff, or in DHS offices with staff, because there were not enough beds in certified homes to house these children in need (read more about the crisis HERE).  This crisis, combined with the fact that Oregon DHS was ranked 2nd to last in the U.S for competency and effectiveness, and the lack of red flags presented in our initial home study, provided incentive for our Certifier to pursue a non-standard route for our certification.

Instead of having us wait until her report was finished, reviewed by her supervisor, approved, and signed by us, she suggested an emergency certification.  This step required approval from our Certifier’s supervisor, but essentially allowed us to be Certified 2-days after completing our last interview, and the certification is valid for 180-days.  We received our first placement about 18-hours after hearing that our emergency certification was approved…we received our SAFE Home Study Report for our review about 4-months after our emergency certification was approved, and after we have cared for four children.

More on how awful it is to read DHS’s findings on you in your SAFE Home Study Report in another post.

We received our first placement about 18-hours after hearing that our emergency certification was approved…we received our SAFE Home Study Report for our review about 4-months after our emergency certification was approved…

All in all, we began taking the steps to become Certified Foster Parents in early February. We had an emergency certification and our first placement by mid May.  This was about as fast as you could possibly navigate the process, based on the frequency the classes are offered, the length of time it takes for background checks and fingerprints to clear, and the number of interviews you have to do.  It was incredibly inconvenient, it required a lot of time, including taking time off work. The process was very uncomfortable, especially having to talk to strangers about every aspect of your personal life. In the end, we felt like the process provided us with very little actual support or education regarding the challenges we would be facing while raising children in our home, interacting with DHS, and navigating the system.  But hey, we have a piece of paper somewhere in our house that says we can have foster children in our home. Oh, and we also have a bright red fire extinguisher in our kitchen!