[Withay]

Do you have professional portraits taken of your foster children to give to their families, or do you just do snapshots.

Are you required to do a 'lifebook' for each foster child in your home? What type of information are you required to record (either journal or spreadsheet or ???)?

If you have professional portraits taken of your family do you include the foster children in them? Do you hang portraits of your foster children on the walls the same as your bio/adopted child(ren)?

[daveandmina]

I don't know about straight foster but as a foster/adopt family I LOVED that my fs first fmom took professional shots of him as an infant. She does it for all her babies and I think it's wonderful.

[xxsurroundedbyxy]

Originally Posted by Withay

Do you have professional portraits taken of your foster children to give to their families, or do you just do snapshots.

Are you required to do a 'lifebook' for each foster child in your home? What type of information are you required to record (either journal or spreadsheet or ???)?

If you have professional portraits taken of your family do you include the foster children in them? Do you hang portraits of your foster children on the walls the same as your bio/adopted child(ren)?

Yes, we have professional portraits done and give a framed 5x7 to the bios. I have all the kids (my two bio and foster) pics done separately, together, and then my two bio alone. We have pics snapped of everyone together and then a family pic of just DH, I , and our two bios. I get some of each pic but often the one of all the kids and the WHOLE family I just get wallets and put in the lifebook. On the walls of our home I put just our family, just my two boys, and then one of the foster child by him/herself and/or with their bio siblings.

Now, we do not do it for every child because we typically go only a certain times of year (Christmas or Easter or birthday etc) but we do school pics and have home snapshots blown up to larger sizes if a pic turns out really good. So we don't really go out of our way as many of our placements were here less than a month and we are doing respite only for now.

We are required to do a lifebook. It is really a scrapbook and I put pics with captions in there so they can remember when and where and with whom the pic was taken. I also put special things from school in there. I keep a daily journal/diary but am not required to do so.

[kxl164]

Do you have professional portraits taken of your foster children to give to their families, or do you just do snapshots.
--We do both. If we having professional ones done I give them to everyone in the child's life, but I also make sure I send snapshots to the birthfamily more often.

Are you required to do a 'lifebook' for each foster child in your home? What type of information are you required to record (either journal or spreadsheet or ???)?
--We are not, although it is encouraged. I kept a log of all of the children's important events, activities, behaviors, appts., and kept pictures and documents with it. It is not the cute "life book" that I would think of, but a huge binder of papers.

If you have professional portraits taken of your family do you include the foster children in them? Do you hang portraits of your foster children on the walls the same as your bio/adopted child(ren)?
--We were told NOT to have a family portrait done with our foster children. We were told it could be confusing for them to be in a picture of this family, as if we were trying to replace the biological family. Therefore we haven't had a family portrait done for 3 years until we signed the adoption agreement!! (we did put snapshots of the entire family (bio and foster) around the frame of the existing family picture that was from 3 years ago to "get around" the DSS rule. We do display single pictures of our foster children (soon to be adopted) just like our biological children and have done that since the beginning. I didn't make the mistake of asking if that was OK, I just did it.

[EandDmom]

I have each childs picture framed and displayed but they aren't professional just cute ones we took ourselves.
I am planning on taking pictures of all foster kids and framing them and making a wall full with stenciling that says something like " A moment in our lives forever in our hearts" something like that. I from time to time do give biomom pictures of the kids doing fun things or if they are just cute photos. She seems to really enjoy getting them.

[NotAMomYet]

We've yet to get a foster-adopt placement, but we plan to have a professional family photo taken as soon as possible - even if we just had a professional photo done the month before. We don't have other children, so the adopted children will be our family.

We are not required to do a life book but will certainly do one for them - we are fans of keeping records and would want to make sure that our children didn't loose track of who they are and where they came from - those past connections are so important to remember (most of the time).

[sunsetsky]

We are foster/adopt family. We do professional group pictures of the whole famiy. I wonder if it was okay only after the strange reaction of the social workers that visit my home. They seem to get a puzzled look but never follow-up with a comment. I will continue to do this after my new son moves in. My new placement came with not one picture and he is 11 months. He was in care from birth. It breaks my heart. I am going to try to encourage her to give me some. I find it hard to beleive that she has no pictures of him.

[AmahMama]

Lifebooks are wonderful things!! It give the child a photo journal of the things that he/she did during the months that they were away from thier bio family. Even if they go on to adoption... it give the adoptive family something do bond over... discuss. I think it is a shame how many bio's try to pretend like the "foster show" never aired and like those months in the child's life never happened!! All good things and even a few not-so-great moments get put in the scrapbook - with Dr. reports, height and weight documents (from WIC or Dr. office), vacations, trips to the beach, park, a new dress, the sunday school class, important people in thier current life, etc.

We also do portraits of the children. Walmart has a wonderful pkg for fosters. 1 pose instead of a whole series of poses. and they let me pick whether or not I like it before they save it!!! I do family poses because "for right now we are your family - until your Mommy/Daddy/Auntie (etc) are able to keep you safe again". I feel that it helps a child feel included - not on the outside looking in. We also have our own portrait taken seperate at the same time.

I have a board that I put a fav photo on of each fc that has come into my home - names are on the back so they do not show - and this is usually a fun topic to show new fc's as they like to know that they are not "alone". There were more before that we kept "safe" and there will be more after. It seems to give them the confidence that we can do it.

Good luck. I hope I didn't step on any toes - but I don't always agree with the pros' that have never had a foster child in their home (nor really been in a home with one).

[greenrobin]

I take pictures, but don't often go to a professional. Whatever we do, we try to share.

Lifebooks are required here. Except my kiddos generally have a LifeBox with their keepsakes. We don't have to write anything, although I'm sure some do.

I have framed pictures of all of the kids I've ever had, bio, in-law and foster. My current kids talk about them like they knew them--Oh, that's Queenie and this one is Mermaid. I suppose it's because we were so crazy about them, the kids think they should be too!

[Mystik]

I have only done my own digital snapshots so far, but after we have them adopted I plan to take us for a professional family portrait. I can't really explain why I don't do the professional ones now, but something inside me just wants to wait until everything is final before doing that.

I give snapshots to *A's* bios that have only *A* in the picture, never DH, myself or *B*.

We are supposed to do a lifebook, but I haven't for either as of yet, but I do have over 5000 pictures of them all neatly organized by their months of age.

The only pictures I have on my walls are of these girls or our professional wedding photos.

[ALfostermom]

i do both. one wall in my hallway is covered of professional pics of all my kids. i have had a total of twelve fc come and go the ony one i do not have a professional pic of is a baby that was only with me a day. the kids are excited about having their pic made and seeing it hanging up. wal-mart and olan mills in k-mart you can usually get a good pkg pretty cheap, esp if the photographer knows they are a fc. i keep the pics i want, put some up for the child ( in case the child is not ru with birth family), and give some to the birth family then. I have just recently had a birth mom break down in tears when i gave her pics of the baby. the women i used to think of as being cold, actually cried and hugged my neck and couldn't thank me enough. come to find out she didn't have a single pic of her baby other than the ones on her cell phone, he came into care at 8 weeks old and is now 6 months old.

i also take alot of snapshots and put them in a photo album with journal entries beside each pic. the child gets to take the album home with them whether it is back to birthparent or family or adoptive home. after all these are the child's memories. of course i have all the pics saved on cd and usually make a scrapbook/photoalbum for myself on snapfish.com...great website you should check it out...

[AmyAnne]

My kiddo's BMom was TPR-ed long before I had kiddo. I do send her snapshots, routed through DSS, about every other year.

[vegaschristina]

We have professional portraits done regularly of us and the foster kids, because even before TPR happened, the foster kids are my adaughter's bio siblings. I wanted them portraits for her, but I always gave their bmom copies. I also don't have a "lifebook" for any of my kids, but I'm a digital scrapbooker, and I have SO SO many layouts (12 x 12 pages) of my kids in various activities, poses, and once a year, I get them printed into a book by Shutterfly. I get 2 books printed, one of all of the layouts with the entire family, and one with just the kids and that one is given to the bmom as part of our OA. I have a link to some of my scrapbook pages if anyone is interested, PM me and I'll give you the link. My foster kids faces are all blurred, but my adaughter's face isn't but you'd at least be able to see what I'm talking about.

[wahinekehau]

I take my foster daughter for professional photos every six months, and provide one to both birth parents. My husband and i have always included our foster children in out photos, as they are part of our family at that time.

I have photos of my FD in up in my house...and professional pictures of her with out BioSon. This is her house too while she's here and she should be able to see that.

[Kat-L]

Originally Posted by Withay

Do you have professional portraits taken of your foster children to give to their families, or do you just do snapshots.

Are you required to do a 'lifebook' for each foster child in your home? What type of information are you required to record (either journal or spreadsheet or ???)?

If you have professional portraits taken of your family do you include the foster children in them? Do you hang portraits of your foster children on the walls the same as your bio/adopted child(ren)?

I haven't done professional pictures-but I take lots of pictures and give copies to the biomom.

I don't hang pictures of foster children on the wall-but I don't have pictures of my own kids on the wall. I have them in frames on the end tables & shelves.

I don't have to do a life book or journal. However, B-mom gave me some early pictures of "Brandon" when she was considering relinquishing. It includes the only known picture of his father. Some hospital pictures..etc. I put them in a small album and labeled the backs of the pictures. I add special photos to it throughout the year so when he goes to his new guardians they will have lots of photos showing his first two years.

With "Georgia", I put some framed pictures of her bio-sibs & mom/dad in her room. I also did a similar photo album that she could take with her.