Thanks for your reply. I really do want to hear your "not-regular foster kid stories." My husband and I really want to go into this with as much information as possible. We want to adopt and know that fostering is a TOTALLY different animal, but feel we have/are preparing as much as possible. We don't feel that we will be the foster parents who take in more and more children for 15 plus years, like some we know from our support group. But we realize what we are doing may not make us "forever parents" with the first children brought to our house. I was very leery of how I would handle returning children to homes I feel aren't safe (or even ones I do), but we've talked about it a lot and although we know we can never be fully prepared until it happens to us, we think we will be able to handle it. Our agency calls us the Training Experts, because we take just about anything they offer. We each have 40 some hours of training, but that won't compare to the experience gained in just one night with a child in our home.
I'm glad to hear any stories, good and bad, that anyone has to offer. I think the more we know, the better prepared we can be. (A great example is the lice.)
What do your foster children call you while they are in the home, before it's ever been decided that your adopting or they are going home?
Do you have contact with the children you fostered but didn't adopt?
FYI - while we don't have any "forever" children in our house now, we do have a cat. We will be watchful.
We've already been told that the therapy and doctor visits will be our responsibility. I was wondering if the b-families would have our address/phone number, hoping for not. I know all mail goes through our agency and the child has to open it with a therapist or CW.
What is GAL? I know what CASA is, and have seen GAL before on these forums, but either forgot what it means or wasn't told. It doesn't ring a bell though.
Does school ever get easier for these kids? Do they get better when they've had a routine going for 3-6-9 months? Or is it a few years, or never? I agree that at the point that they enter care teaching personal hygiene and social/behavioral skills is most important, but would like them to get something acedemically too.
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to be good little scouts. Be prepared!
