[meki]

My husband and are applying to become foster parents along with our two children and for the last 6 years we have been self-employed. And every now and then our income changes, so do they require us to show our changes as they happen.

[westernmom]

In my experience, I'd say no.

My dh has been self employed for 10 years & we've had our share of "feast & famine". Granted, my dh's income has been fairly stable over the past few years. The only time we've had to provide tax returns was during the original homestudy and then when we negotiated the adoption subsidy. (Although our income didn't play any role in the amount of subsidy, so I don't know why we had to provide it.)

Are you with the county or an agency? We've found agencies to be a bit more picky with the details. (With our first fost/adoption we were with an agency, now we're straight county.) I know they just want to make sure you can pay your bills without the foster care payments.

[meki]

Thanks westernmom for the reply

I believe it's through the county and it's specialized foster care. I understand the ups and down of self-employment trust me. So obviously they check in the beginning and not any other time. That's funny how one agency told me I could work part-time because their rates were so high that you could make the difference with fostering. And other agencies said they wanted you to be able to pay your own bills. Also westernmom do they check your credit report?

[stevenstwin]

[quote=meki]That's funny how one agency told me I could work part-time because their rates were so high that you could make the difference with fostering. And other agencies said they wanted you to be able to pay your own bills. QUOTE]

That is interesting! I'm in Alberta, and we were told "don't depend on fostering as an income, but it definitely can make enough of a difference to help a working parent become a stay-at-home parent if they wish". MIND YOU - I get about $800 a month for a growing-like-crazy 15 year old, so I'm really not seeing any extra cash here! LOL

[westernmom]

Meki-

I'm not sure about the agency checking our credit. I don't remember them saying they did. I'm almost 100% certain that the county didn't check our credit. I've never heard of anyone being turned down to foster because of bad credit.

[PAmomof1]

They did check my income once in the begining. They might have did it one other time.. but I'm not too sure.

My income changes a lot also as I work from home babysitting children.

I remember when I got my first placement a preemie with the highest board rate due to her medical condition, the director telling me that being as though her board rate was so high, that should "help me out" a bit and help me to continue to stay at home basically.

I thought that was very strange.................

[DianeS]

Here they repeat all the income checks at every relicencing (every 2 years I think), plus again if you're randomly picked for the oversight people to check.

We had to sign a paper allowing them to check our credit. But bad credit wouldn't keep us from fostering, it would only cause a problem if it looked like we wanted foster care money to get us out of a hole because we didn't make enough to cover our own bills.

Remember - even if foster care leaves you with enough money left over that you can downgrade the type of job or hours of work that you do, remember you can't guarantee you'll have foster kids all the time. You'll still need to cover your bills for the times your home is empty!

[hotspice58]

In NY, they check income every 2 years when re-certification occurs. They don't check our credit but we have to be able to pay bills without foster money. Foster money wouldn't allow me to stay home. With 2 growing boys, I'm still broke!!