Being a New Foster Parent
What to Expect Once You've Been Licensed to Foster Children
An overview of the first few days of what may happen once you've been approved to care for a child in the foster care system.
Once you are officially licensed as a foster parent, you could have as little as an hour to prepare for your new life as a parent to a child whose background you have little to no information about.
The call could come from your case worker as an official placement opportunity or from someone else in their office as an emergency placement. Either way, the amount of time you have to prepare is no where near the nine months that a traditional parent has for the imminent arrival of a new member of their family.
The child welfare agency you are licensed with will have the generalities for the ages, sex, and disabilities you are willing to accept; be prepared that you may not actually be placed with a child that fits all these requests. Requests can come anytime day or night, and you will have to make the decision if you are ready to be placed with a child who could come to you with little more than the clothes on his or her back.
In preparation for this often immediate experience, some prospective foster parents will go out and get toys appropriate for the age range they have requested, but this could turn out to be an error in judgment if the call comes and you accept a placement of a child different from your original request. Fosters may want to wait until they have all the details of the child who is being placed in their care.
If your home is the child’s first placement, your local agency should provide for the child a voucher which should go towards providing the child with immediate necessities.
Children in the foster care system are also eligible for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (also known as the WIC Program), which provides formula and cereal for children under a year old, and milk, eggs, cheese, juice, cereal and peanut butter for those children over a year of age. This really helps to offset your grocery bill, especially if your placement is still an infant.
You could also end up with a group of siblings - which will of course bring a new dynamic to your home. If one of the children is significantly older than the other they may be have put themselves in the role of 'parent' to their younger sibling and could harbor resentment towards you for trying to take care of them. Be patient, calm and supportive in this instance.
On top of being a parent, you'll also need to be a councilor of sorts, taking the time to listen to what the child wants to tell you. Perhaps it will about their real family. It may be about the home they were in prior to yours. You need to have shoulders big enough for the child to lean on when they are missing their biological parents and don’t understand why they are to be in your home. Diplomacy is a necessity in that case, and you need to take care not to say anything that you will regret later if it is repeated to the parent on a supervised visit.
You also have to try andunderstand that they may be confused. If the foster child displays any anger one should remember that it's generally not directed at you, but at a parent who has failed them. Remember that they often come from a place where love may not always be in the forefront and they may not know how to react to it as first.
But when the child reaches a milestone, achieves something positive at school and starts to relax into his or her new, temporary home, you will notice a change in their manner and they will eventually open up to you. Then you will reap the rewards.
