[rmyoung]

Does anyone have experience with respite care?

My husband and I are considering doing this for Christmas- possibly 2 school-age kids to try to give them an awesome holiday.

Or would that be in bad taste? Like, "here ya go- this could be your life -but ooops, it's not! Bye now."

[sfbaymom2000]

I have never used respite care, although I really could use it . Personally, I don't think you should consider it for only two weeks (I don't even think you could), and just to "make" a child's Christmas. First of all, I may be wrong, but I believe the purpose of respite is to help the caregivers recoup some of their energy and get a break, not necessarily for the benefit of the kids.

Parening these kids is VERY draining and exhausting. I don't think it is to give kids a taste of the good life. Hopefully, they are being well cared for in their foster home (although sadly, some are not) and would already have a nice Christmas with their foster parents. If you are thinking kids would come to you for respite care directly from their birth families, I don't think it works that way. You would get kids (quite likely hard to handle kids) from their foster parents so their foster parents can get some rest and time for themselves. If anything, it would probably be a bit traumatic for the child (even though the foster parents need the break) to move to yet another home, even temporarily. Holidays can be really tough for these kids anyway. So don't imagine that they would be thrilled and greatful to have an "awsome Christmas".

I don't mean this in any way to be harsh. Poople new to all this aren't expected to know everything, and that is why we are all here...to learn and to share knowledge. As I said, I could be wrong, as I have not used or provided respite care. I will be curious to see other people's responses. Good luck.

[ALI143]

sfbaymom is right that respite is generally a babysitting duty for the hardworking foster parents and that they most likely wouldn't want to share "their" kids during the holidays, but Thanksgiving and New Years can be a busy season for respite providers because the foster families want to leave the state and/or country to be with loved ones and many can't get approval to take their little ones with them. It can be hard to decide to not take them, but if you put in the word now or soon you may have someone able to plan that the holiday be spent with you. Another form of respite (but it's really more like emergency placement) is when the worker calls you and has a child/siblings but not an appropriote home yet. Such as they have an aunt that they can stay with but she's out of town for the weekend or holidays so the social worker calls you instead to take them.

A good way is to go to a county foster parent support group and leave a couple flyers with your name, a little about you and maybe a picture. Explain that your home will be open to # of kids over the holidays for respite. That way the foster parents can make their plans guilt-free and give the child/ren plenty of time to get used to the idea of being at your house for that time.

[sfbaymom2000]

Again, I could be wrong, but I think you would have to go through foster parent training and certification before doing respite care - or at least be fingerprinted with the county. In our case, we could not leave M with anyone who was not fingerprinted (and thus had a background check on file) with the county.

[nursie]

We have used respite and we have provided respite.
We do have to be certified foster parents in our county.
We have appreciated the break when we needed to get away and someone took care of our foster children. On the other hand, we provided respite for other foster care providers who also needed an emotional /mental/physical break.
Ah, today is one of those days where putting everyone in respite for a day or two sounds really great!!! I wonder if they will take our bchildren too !!!