So about 2 years ago my wife and I decided that our insane life filled with fun, children, friends and gaming, and home ownership, was not nearly complicated enough. We decided to do foster care. Shortly after that we started a business, but that is another story.
There are many misconceptions about fostering, but this is not really what I want to talk about, so simply put, we are available to temporarily care for and house children whom for whatever reason are not able to be cared for by their own families. We are allowed to determine some parameters about these children, so we can for example determine that we do not want to have a child older than our oldest, thus not suddenly forcing him to make that adjustment. Then we take care of them as best we can, getting them to doctors appointments, their first day of school, counseling and visits with their parents or other family members. The end goal being to place them with a family that can care for them, be this their parents, extended family or adoption by us or some other family.
This was not easy, we underwent about a year of training, got CPR and first aid certified and underwent background checks as well as many interviews and home visits by social workers. We have a caseworker, the kids have a caseworker and a counselor, and someone is in our home 3 to 4 times a month just to check on us and the girls. Anyone who we might be able to leave them with (babysitters for example) must be at least 21 and undergo a background check and fill out paperwork for the agency to have on file. Basically its super complicated. We get compensated financially, but ask anyone who has done it, it is not really enough for what you are signing up for, and it is not why we do it.
We got our first placement on December 17th of last year. Two sisters ages 6 and 4 (they are now 7 and 5). Since then we have fed and clothed them, helped them learn and grow, talked, played, cried, gotten sick, watched movies, had birthdays, holidays and lived our lives with them. They have been amazing and sweet and thoughtful. They have been terrible screaming hellions. They have been disappointed in the people who were supposed to care for them (their parents) and met new family they did not know they had. We have, simply put, grown to love them.
Now they leave. They will be leaving our home in just a few short days to move on in their lives, we may see them again, but odds are that we will not be kept in the loop, we have no say in it, no rights, no reason to expect it. They will be moved and they take a piece of our hearts with them leaving an empty place that we must fill with well wishes and the knowledge that we did everything we could to help them, provide them with a model of a loving home and teach them a bit about how things should be. This is no easy thing, but we volunteered for it, we knowingly entered into this bargain knowing, but perhaps not fully understanding the price.
A bit wiser now, on the edge of losing two little people who mean so much to us, we are forced to look at a choice we will have to make soon. We are still licenced with our agency and they will call us asking us to go through this pain again. Will we do it?
Yes.
Our pain is real, but so is the plight of children in need. Children who are being abused, neglected, who are homeless, hurt, or broken in ways that most do not think about or care to consider. This is something we can help with and so we will.
writingwithcrayon 