[blendergirl7]

Good afternoon all, I haven't posted much, but my husband and I went through PRIDE classes at the beginning of the summer. We have done some of our home visits, but we still have a few more to go. Have any of the rest of you been asked to write a paper for your licensing worker? My husband and I each have to write one about what we are looking for in a child and how our life experiences will contribute to how we will raise a child. Then we have to write one together about our understanding of the competencies we learned in class, and how we think we meet those competencies. I guess I am just wondering if this is a standard practice? Or possibly they are just having us write a paper because we don't have any children of our own and we don't have a bunch of experience with children. We have been procrastinating on our paper for about a month - but it doesn’t help that the weekend we were going to finish it my mom went into the hospital for twelve days. If anyone has written a paper and has any tips for ours, we would appreciate them!


Heidi & Jeremy

[sunsetsky]

no we didn't have to write a paper as part of MAPP training.

[CaddoRose]

We didn't have to write a paper, but we did have to fill out a ream of paper with questions that ranged from our childhood, through teen years, up to adulthood and included everything you can imagine about realtionships with parents, family, etc. There was also a huge section about how we would discipline, how we would react to situations, treat bio-family, attitudes about abuse and abusive parents, etc. I think they got everything they needed from that.

Just answer the questions they want as much or as best as you can as I don't think there would be a right or wrong answer for some of it. I think they would expect the paper to be very personal and not a clincial. It sounds like it may help them find the child that is right for you.

[evillemomndad]

I had to fill out several questions. Mine was 12 pages long when I was done. I learned alot about myself doing that!

[Sam-N-Tony]

I didn't have to write a paper but they did ask us to write a letter to the birth parents about our intentions. Even though we did end up fostering, it was something that the CW liked to see. We also did do a scrap book about us.

I think its great that they are requesting that you write a paper/letter.

[finallyamom0310]

We are not part of the state foster or adoption program but I found this interesting as we had to do that for our Home Study. It took me forever to get it done. My husband wrote his and I had to type it up after to make sure it was legible.

[Biblemom]

We did not have to write a paper and went through the state of Ky, but my brother-in-law and his wife who are currently going through Oh do.

[SydneyGirl]

we had to do one ... we went out for coffee one night ... dh talked to me about the questions they asked and i wrote his then i talked while he wrote mine ... it worked well, it was much easier then writing our own. for our blurb we had to write for adoption i just kind of wrote a stream of consiousness about my memories of the kids we had fostered and what they meant to us ... the workers at our panel interview liked it ...

[onhazier]

We didn't have to write a paper. However, we had tons of sheets with room for detailed, paragraphy style responses which covered all the topics you mentioned. I think the essay vs. worksheet approach just varies by region.

[mommytomykids]

We had to provide a family inventory which was just answering 2 pages worth of questions... mine turned into five pages typed and my husband's was three. Needless to say our homestudy went excellent and quick!!

[NotAMomYet]

Like most of the others said, we didn't have to write a paper (Washington State). We did, however, have to answer short-essay style questions about our childhoods, beliefs, morals/values, and thoughts on discipline. By the time we were done, we had more pages than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey!!

Then, the home licenser asked us all the same questions when she did our first home visit ...

[ALfostermom]

we had to write our life story. mine ended up being 5 typed pages. she gave us a list of questions that had to be answered in our life story such as: what schools you attended, church history, the way you were disciplined as a child, the way you discipline your own children, relationships with your extended family and immediate family,work , hopes and dreams and so on...we will just say dhr knows more about me than my own family does. we also had to do the letter to the parents, and a scrapbook of our home, family, pets and whatnots to show to the child while they are waiting on you to pick them up. They keep all of this in your permanent file.

[DoYaReallyThink]

We had to do an autobiography and list our strengths. Talk about hard!