[1withopenarms]

I know that fostering is what I really want to do and feel that I'm truely being called to do in/with my life but how do I go one?

We stared this process back in April of last year when my cousin took on her first ( who turned out to be the last) foster children. She could not handdle them so being that I love kids, have spent the last 6 years working in child care, and have a 2yr. degree in Early Childhood Development (not to mention a mom of 2 little ones) I started going to her home to help out. After only 2 weeks she decided that it was to much for her and that after she recieved the first check that she would be haveing them placed somewhere else. Well that of course sent me into protector mode. These children had already been with 8 other families inculding my cousin and they were only 3 1/2 yrs. and 1 1/2 years old. I imediately started calling DSS and trying to get set up for emergency placement. We had not even started foster care training yet but everyone kept telling us it was possible. We started keeping the boy from thur. night after work till Sun. night just before bed to try to give my cousin a break while the paper work was processed. We switched our bedroom into the smaller bedroom giveing the children our master bedroom and haveing to youngest share our room. We started searching for a new house and even bought beds for the two boys. One day while the children are with us, my cousin gets a bug up her butt and decides that she can wait. Instead of calling us she immediatly calls the agency and gives them 5 days to get the kids out of her house. Needless to say the boys where then placed with a defferent pre-adoptive placement and we have not had contact with them since.

Now her it is January '09. We have continued on with I decision to foster and have completed the 30 hour training as well as our CPR and First Aid. We have been licensed by an agency whom does not recieve a lot of youger placements even tho we have specified that we only want children 0-6years. We have completed part one of our sex abuse training class which was 18 hours and will be starting Part Two next thurs. We have also completed to other training that we did not have to. So far we have had two respite care placements, one 15 yr Girl and one 16 yr girl. I have called the agency and been very up front about not minding the respote for older children but I feel like it's way out side of my league. They have informed me to "just be paitent, we only get 1-3 younger placements a year. But since you're a stay at home mom we would place with you first."

I have talked to two other families is this agency that feel the same way I do and the both have been with the agency 5+ years and still only have teen placements. I called my local County agency but they only get older placements as well. Technically I am on the edge of the county line so I also called the county that the my cousin's foster children where through and they say that it should be a problem for me to transfer to them. That was Friday.

Well I called today and guess what!!!!! Not they aren't sure and I need to talk to their supervision whom is refusing to return my calls.

I'm seriously thinking about just giving up at this point. I want to foster and it is ripping my heart into two to think about giving up but I'm not sure what else to do. Any help or words of wisdom would be great.

*sorry this is so long I felt like you needed to know the whole story to understand what I'm feeling

[Withay]

I'm sorry that this is such a hard time for you right now.

I would continue to contact the agency in the next county until someone returns your call. Another thing you could do is call the office and ask what the name of the person you need to talk to is and who their supervisor is. Once you have that information, go to your state website and look up the email address for both of them. Send an email to the contact with a cc to the supervisor. Explain that you have left multiple messages and haven't heard anything back so you are emailing. (This will give you a paper trail of contacts) When you send the email send it using "read receipt requested". This will let you know when they read it.

If you still don't get a reply keep going up the chain of command until someone responds.

Good luck.

[crystalp]

If you really feel that you want to foster, hang in there. Can you be with your agency and your county at the same time? If you can, then I would suggest doing that. If not, then still, hang in there. You have only been licensed for a short time, and you never know what will happen. We have been licensed for almost 6 months with no placements, also because we are only accepting young placements. It is hard to keep up hope, but hopefully you won't give up!

[fredalina]

i am *so* with you, sister!

We are going with the state agency, but boy do they stink! LOL We did our first application on 3/24/2008, weren't able to start class until August, did our physicals and everything in the next month before we graduated, then we had our home visits, interviews, fingerprints, background checks, etc etc in the next few weeks.

Exactly NOTHING has happened in the last 4 months, except a lot of unanswered phone calls and lies (caseworker saying she turned our home study in when she didn't, stuff like that).

It's extremely frustrating!

[lyly]

I also wanted to give up. It was very hard it took me about 2 yrs to get licensed. I always needed to be on my sw *** if not it would of taken longer. Just hang on!!!!!!!!!!

[rm2000hg]

lyly - did you go through DCF or a private agency?

[jayzable]

I agree it is so frustrating to wait, especially when you hear there are so many children in need of homes. I've been licensed for about 2 years now, and have had only a 5 month placement of sisters. Still waiting ...

[lyly]

Originally Posted by rm2000hg

lyly - did you go through DCF or a private agency?

through DCF

[1withopenarms]

Thanks everyone for the support! I tryed to call the supervisor twice today but she never answered. I talked to my cw at the agency I'm with and she said that she hadn't heard from them either. She did say that she was going to e-mail the supervisor about a meeting they are suppost to have tomarrow and would mention my case but her sever is currently down so she would have to wait for it to be fixed.
So instead of waiting around for her to send the e-mail I looked up the supervision's e-mail address at DSS. I e-mailed her myself as to why we wanted to switch agencies and what age group, number of children, ect. than we are licensed to take. I had a reciept sent to me of when she read the e-mail and after 2 hours I had an e-mail back saying that they had no problem with the transfer as long as my agency didn't and that they really need families for the youger children right now. That being said she had e-mailed my caseworker and was waiting to hear back from her so that my file could be transfered over ASAP and another homestudy could be done by her agency. YAY!!!! She even said she hope that I was willing to except siblings. Now I just need to get my current caseworkers butt in gear and make to transfer of my files. Thanks again everyone. I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one going through all this but pissed about the huddles them make us foster parents jump.

[crystalp]

That's great that you finally got to the supervisor, and that you can switch. Hopefully now you can do it quickly and get a placement!