How to Become a Foster Parent - Weekend Wisdom

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome, everyone to weekend wisdom by creating a family. Weekend wisdom is our opportunity to answer your questions. We have another podcast, which is a long form interview with an expert that's every week. And we needed an opportunity to give a little variety here. We wanted it to be shorter. And so we can wisdom is probably what about 10 minutes there abouts. And it's just me answering your questions. So let's jump right in to this week's weekend wisdom. This is about becoming a foster parent. Here's the question. Now that our youngest is in high school, we want to become foster parents, but we don't even know where to begin. That is a great question. So the process of choosing a foster care agency can feel overwhelming. That's probably the understatement of the year. Your first step honestly should be to contact your county child welfare, foster agency, whatever that is, they go by different names in different states, you contact them and you're going to ask for information on how to become a foster parent. You should also ask at the same time, if your state has a contract with private foster care agencies to place foster children. Many, many states have that now. So some county agencies work in relationship with private agencies to train foster parents and place children. And some counties do not allow private agency involvement at all. But most now do. So you need to find out what's happening in your state. The Child Welfare Information Gateway, which is a service of the US Department of Health and Human Services, they maintain the national foster care and adoption directory, it is on their website, just type in a Child Welfare Information Gateway. And that will come up and the National foster care and adoption directory is a great tool for finding your local contacts. Another way to do it is the state website for your child welfare agency, it could be called the Department of Health and Human Services, it could be whatever it's called in your state. That website will also have a list of contacts for each county agency in your state. And this list is usually the most up to date so that maybe what you that would start there perhaps, and also the adoption program managers for each state are listed on the child Information Gateway site. So you can also find out information through them about becoming foster parents. So once you've gathered information on your county, and or state options for becoming a foster parent, you can begin asking yourself other questions to help you choose the best foster care agency that fits your families. And again, this is only provided that your county and state allows us to have a choice. If they allow you to choose between a private agency and the public agency, then this is the step you need to do. Some of the important questions you'll need to consider when choosing an agency includes the age and type of needs of the children. The agency typically places the support and training have these specific ages and needs, how much training they're going to give you, and the level of support and communication you feel you're going to need during the placement when the child is living with you. All of that is really important. And many agencies, both public and private, offer free informational meetings to answer some of these big questions. So you should attend those. But it's also quite helpful to schedule an appointment to talk more personally with either the county agency or the private foster care agency you are considering. So you need to ask questions and see what process and who you'd be working with and what type of services, all of that what would be the best fit for you. And creating a family offers a comprehensive list of questions to ask in your meetings or your interviews. And we find this in a really great multimedia guy called choosing an agency or attorney. It's an older guide, but it's just chock full of information. And you can get that at Bitly bi T dot L y Bitly slash adoption agency guide. It has information both for adoption but it also has information for questions to ask the foster care agency. So in particular, that's where I would tell you to focus if you go get that guide, scroll down to the part that's talking specifically about how to choose a foster care agency. And the questions are listed there. I hope this helps. Before you leave. Let me talk to you quickly about the training and support curriculum that creating a family has. It is a resource that we have for helping train foster adoptive kinship families or to run support groups for those families. If you are either a trainer or a support group facilitator or if you would attend a support group or you want your agency to start a support group, or you want your agency to do a better job of training, you can bring this to their attention. It's a turn key resource, it is super easy to use. You can find it at creating a family.org. Hover over the training and the horizontal menu and click on curriculum. And thank you for listening to this week's weekend wisdom. If you like it, please tell a friend to subscribe to the creating a family.org podcast.