Foster kids/Parents

[Artermis]

Any of you have any experience with this?

Me and the wife are getting ready to be foster parents. We did all the work and classes just waiting to get the final approval.

Anyone that was a foster kid have any tips for making things easier on the transition?



Art

[Gecko]

Just curious Art, did you include this in your application as reference material?

Fuck off and suck a dick. How is that for immature.

How do you know they were first hand? Where you there. Were you a fly on the wall? If not then how do you know he is not making shit up. I mean I have never heard of a writer having their own agenda.


Telling someone to grow up on a message board and this one in particular...LMAO.


Art

Just kidding. Congrats to you and the wife. It's not something a lot of people do. Good luck and god bless in your helping these kids out.

[Artermis]

I do believe I did add this to the material I sent them.

They asked if we had any contact with retarded kids and I made sure to include this forum.

Thanks for the kind words.


Art

[Train Wreck]

I do believe I did add this to the material I sent them.

They asked if we had any contact with retarded kids and I made sure to include this forum.

Thanks for the kind words.


Art

LMAO!

Seriously though. Good Luck. Hopefully someone has some advice for you.

[Pharaoh]

I do believe I did add this to the material I sent them.

They asked if we had any contact with retarded kids and I made sure to include this forum.

Thanks for the kind words.


Art

LMFAO - that's probably the funniest thing I've seen you post Art.

Good luck with the foster kids - don't know if anyone here has experience with this though.

[UncleCliffy]

Are you adopting an infant?

[JS]

I do believe I did add this to the material I sent them.

They asked if we had any contact with retarded kids and I made sure to include this forum.

Thanks for the kind words.


Art

LMAO.

However on a serious note it depends on how many kids you are willing to take in and their ages. Young kids are easy to deal with if easy can even be applied to children.

However a good friend of mine and my ex finance families have/has foster children. The only problems they really have are with preteen to 17 y/o foster kids. Most of the problems resulted from false allegations, made against foster parents. Usually the allegations follow a time when the child had their mind set on somthing and the foster parents say no.

For example in one case the teenager wanted to go away unsupervised with a girlfriend to a cottage. The foster parents said no, and the kid had his buddy beat him up, they the went to the police and said the child was beaten by his foster parents. Social services took all the foster kids away for over two weeks while they looked into the allegations. After all the interviews were complete they found inconsistencies in the versions the kid told different people. After comparing notes they called the kid out. He then admitted he was just mad and made up the story. By then the damage was done, they kept a few kids with new foster parents not because of the allegations but because they didn't want to keep moving the younger kids. Plus despite the fact everything was a lie, they kept the allegations in the file even though they had swore affidavits saying everything was made up.

Every time they got a new social worker or kid they had to keep explaining.

I think what you are doing is very noble and you should be commended for opening your heart and open to be foster parents. It is a huge responsibilty, that is challenging. You just have to be patient and realize in some cases you may be their only hope for a normal childhood.

Don't get me wrong more than not things are good but it can be trying. A lot of the foster kids take the word no as you saying you don't love then. Also older kids try to use that whole your not my real parents guilt trip.

Good luck, and thanks for being such a stand up person, same for Mrs. Art.

[Artermis]

We are only taking boys between the ages of 5-10 right now. We have a 6 year old boy and one of the reasons we doing this so he can have other kids around.

We heard some stories, but from what we understand something like that is very, very rare as you described above. I am also not worrying about anyone beating the crap out of anyone in this household.

In Kentucky you are only allowed 5 kids per household and that includes any of your own kids or others living with you.

The wife and I both grew up in different kind of households where my dad was Army and hardcore beat the shit out of you for looking at him wrong, while my wife was an only child who never got touched. We favor the nonphysical type of punishment, which works well since you are not allow to touch these kids. Hugging is fine or shuolder to cry on, but you have to be super careful about that sort of stuff.

One reason we not taking girls is our house is not set up for little girls. We only want 1 or 2 kids at a time. If my wife ever decided to pull back work, we might go with more or if there is a 2-3 kids then we probably wouldnt break them up.

Thanks for the feed back and no we are not adopting an infant.

Found out some really cool shit about adopting kids in Kentucky. They get free medical, dental and eye care even if you adopt these kids out of the foster program, plus they get free college tution in any public school in KY and you still get the same money you get if you were not adopting, around 600 dollars per kid. The difference is that the kid is yours to keep and you dont have to hassel with the state over visitations and crap.

I could go on forever, but just seeing if anyone had anything.


Art

[Pharaoh]

I wish you and your wife good luck Art.

Like J said you should be commended for taking those less fortunate into your home. It's a tough job but one that needs doing.

Is it possible for you to keep us updated on this?

I know it's really personal and you might not want to give out a lot of details but I'd like to hear if you guys end up fostering a kid.

[Artermis]

I can keep things updated as we go along.

Right now we have taken the 10 week worth of classes. 30 hours total.

Plus there is about 10 hours worth of paperwork, which includes background check, finncial, criminal and personal. 2 financial references, 3 personal references and so forth. Like 30-50 pages of asking us about our childhood, and just general what our outlook on relationship, raising kids and so forth.

We have completed that portion. Our social worker has been over to the house twice, first time to get to know us and the 2nd time to make sure that we have beds for how ever many kids we are going to take. We have enough to go up to 5 kids if we wanted.

Then the social worker writes up a report about everything, which has been done and it is forwarded to her boss who makes the final decision. We are at the boss making final decision right now. It has been around 2 weeks, so we are hoping within the next week or two we know for sure.

We are confident that we are going to get it. You have to have income outside of what you will get for taking the kids and we both work at home, plus neither of us have anything criminal. Not to sound high and mighty, but we think we are ideal candidates and could see no reason whatsoever for not giving us the go ahead.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. Each state has different requirements. We heard that one state up north (We think Michigan) requires that you have no carpet in the house older than 3 years old.


Art