[Tunay4754]

We have our foster son's two half siblings for a week and our caseworker is telling us we won't get respite care funds but instead can receive up to $100 in reimbursable expenses if we turn in receipts because the case plan is still reunification. Actually, our foster son's case plan is not reunification as he is in process of being adopted by us but the 1/2 siblings plan is still technically reunification.

Anyone have thoughts on this and could tell me the rate they receive for respite care? My husband took a week off work so we could manage it and do fun stuff with them every day and I don't think I could do it without him as this gives me a 9 year old girl & 36 mo old girl in addition to our own 24 mo old and 18 mo old boys.

Tunay

[Tunay4754]

Also, we have already spent over the $100 in activities we have done with them like Chuck E Cheese, Children's Museum, movie, etc.

Tunay

[vegaschristina]

I think the CW's full of it. There is no way I'd accept 2 additional foster children for 7 days without a better rate than $7.14 per day per child. That wouldn't even begin to cover the food they ate, much less any activities.

[michsm]

This is one of those situations that I don't understand either. I have my ff placement that has a sister. When she comes for visits either my ffk have to stay with me or she does. I inquired about this the other day (receiving respite for her). My argument is when she comes to stay with me I am required to take on all my normal responsibilities as a fp, to report everything back to her CW, transportation, meds, line of sight care. They will not give respite for her. If it wasn't for my home she would not be able to have visits.

I just dont understand why they are willing to give you spending money but not respite. Have you inquired up the line yet? You are probably in a situation like mine where they know you are going to continue to do it whether you receive the respite or not.

[Biblemom]

Are the siblings in foster care? When we had to put our fc in respite for a week we had to pay the family the amount we recieved for the children for that week. It was our responsibility and the respite family just had to trust we would fulfill our word (bit scary).

[Tunay4754]

vegaschristina, yes i am wondering if the agency is just trying to get out of paying what they should, that would be very like them, IMO.

michsm, i sent an e-mail to my caseworker's supervisor this morning asking to be paid for 7 days of respite care.

biblemom, all 5 kids from the bio-home are in foster care. my son's bio-parents have signed consents since they know us and since he was only 5 mo when he came into care and because of other factors as well. the three middle aged children (3, 4.5 and 9) who are all 1/2 sibs to my son are in 2 different foster homes and the oldest one who is a half sibling to the middle three is about to age out of foster care. i don't know whose responsibility it is to pay for respite care but here I think it is the agency's responsibility (could be wrong as I can't find any info about it). i don't want to ask their foster family to pay us after the fact as that was not discussed prior to them coming. we have a good relationship with the ff and i don't want anything to go wrong with it as they plan to adopt these siblings if needed and we all plan to keep in touch if that happens.

Tunay

[greenrobin]

Where we are, the daily rate for respite is the same as the rate for full-time placement. We've only used respite once, but the agency we are with prefers that we work out the money between the families--too much paper work is involved for our little agency. Seems to me that someone doesn't want to do the required paperwork in your case! Good for you, standing up for yourself. They may pay you for your days and they might even reimburse expenses. Either way, they'll hesitate to try to give you the short end next time!

[Tunay4754]

We'll see what happens. We don't have confidence in our agency and our worker is leaving again which means we will be on our 4th caseworker in the 19 months the case has been open.

Tunay

[Mystik]

We have the option of either having the respite reimbursement go through the agency or just between foster families. If the agency does it they take the total care rate and divide it by the number of days in the month to get the daily rate and then multiply that by the number of days in respite and technically that's what the foster family requiring respite should do too if they would rather pay it right away then to go through the agency. Unfortunately I have a friend who recently did respite care for a fellow foster family that had 3 kids and the respite was for 4 days.... the foster family only gave my friend a total of $40.00 and some juice boxes and seriously expected that it would be sufficient. So based on that knowledge, I think it is quite important to communicate your expectations. There is absolutely no reason that the reimbursement for respite care should be any less then the regular daily foster care rate that the requiring foster family is receiving.

[jbee]

if we do respite it is for only families in our agency (per agency rules). the people who have the kid fill out a sheet for the kid and get paid the rate that the regular fp get. the fp have a spot on their sheet to check off that the kid was in respite and they get 0 for those days. so i guess the agency takes care of the money issues.

[my2guats]

i just did respite for 10 days and the baby came with everything. i spent 7 bucks buying more baby food and that was it. when the ffamily came to get him they gave us a check for the 10 days he was with us. i didn't even know i would get a check.

[athikers]

My2guats makes a good point, sometimes respite kiddos come with everything they need and in that case I could see not getting the FULL amount, but I see the other side too. If you are providing the care in leiu of the fparents, you should be compensated if that is agreed upon.

[Tunay4754]

I am not trying to get anything out of the other family but if the agency is supposed to take care of it then I want to hold them to doing their job.

Tunay

[Tunay4754]

I did speak with my caseworker's supervisor and he said he would check into it. He said that either the two families make an agreement between themselves to trade services or the agency can reduce the foster parents board check by the amount that needs to go to the respite care provider. However in our case the caseworker dropped the ball by not addressing the matter with anyone before the visit occured even though I had asked about it.

I e-mailed the supervisor a couple days later and he wrote back that he had spoken with his supervisor about it and that they had agreed to pay us the full respite rate and not to take it out of the other family's board check. I am very happy with this and was pleasantly surprised by his response.

Tunay

[marigold]

Hi, I saw you are from Il. I am to. Feel lucky that they are giving you the full respite rate! Here in my region if you have siblings they call it a visit and it is a $100 cap. But if it is a non related kid you get a minnimum of about $25 a day! There is also only one agency in my area that takes it directly out of the family getting respite's check for the rest of them both families recieve their due. I also know what you mean about the changing workers the last time I was at court the judge asked if they had installed revolving doors at the entrance of all the agencies!!