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Our first class didn't really give me any information that I didn't know. Nothing scary or intimidating. Did it make me want to foster more? No. I didn't really care to foster since I was just there for the adoption portion. It makes me want to help the system less because they treated us like we were not important - because everything is targeted towards fostering. Everything they do and said is based on goals for reunification. Everything they talked about revolved around how to not do things to completely integrate the child into your life - because of course they will be leaving.
We have been identified as an adoptive family for a child already TPR'd. I don't want to waste my time (8+ hours including 2 hours of travel each way, and 4 hours of class time) for 10 weeks to learn about fostering children when my stated goal is adoption. It frustrated me so much that I have no intent on working with them to change my stated goal and becoming a certified foster parent. Had they pushed the fostering concept a little less, maybe I'd be more open. Better yet, had the class been designed around the goals of the participants, maybe we would have had such a positive experience that we'd consider taking additional classes to become foster parents.
I was surprised that our class had 4 couples and 8 single parent families looking to foster or adopt. Wow, that's a lot of single moms... they are much more brave than I would be!
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