Our Foster Care Journey

Hubby and I both have fostering in our family. My grandparents on both sides fostered, as did Hubby's grandma and aunt. Still, this was not something I've always dreamed of doing. I've always had selfish, idyllic visions of how my family should look. These visions included children who look like us and who were raised by us from birth: children without baggage.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8,9

God began stirring our hearts toward missions in the fall of 2009. While we would have loved to pack our bags and move across the globe, we knew the time was not right. A few months later, in January 2010, Hubby suggested fostering as a way of introducing the missions mindset to our family. Although my self-centered fantasies kept me from agreeing wholeheartedly in the beginning, I submitted to Hubby's leadership, and we attended an orientation. There we were given an over-view of the foster system in Arizona and a list of the private agencies that facilitate licensing.

In our state, licensing agencies train foster parents and submit their package for licensing. They also assist CPS in placing children, and monitoring the placements. There are 3 Christian agencies working in our area, so we researched each, and contacted them regarding their training schedule. In Arizona foster parents are required to attend 30 hours of PS-MAPP classes, broken into 10 3-hour weekly sessions. Two of the agencies offered week-night classes, and only one had classes on the weekend. Due to Hubby's school schedule, we had only one option. Unfortunately, they were 2 weeks into a new training session when we attended orientation; we had to wait another two and a half months before we could start training.

We finally started training in April 2010. In addition to the training, we began compiling the documents needed for licensing. This included birth certificates, background checks from every state we've lived in, shot records, medical clearances, our marriage license, a fingerprint clearance card (which the state pays for), character references, employment history, taxes--pretty much everything about us. We had to write letters to hypothetical birth parents, do some role-playing, get our CPR certification (which we had to pay for), and watch countless PowerPoint presentations. We built relationships with some of the other parents, and were partnered with our Family Specialist. The Family Specialist is the one who prepares and submits your package to CPS. He made sure that we had all of our training and paperwork completed, and visited our house several times. We graduated from our PS-MAPP class on June 26, 2010, two days before our 3rd baby arrived!

During our class we had the Office of Licensing, Certification and Regulation (OLCR) come out for a safety inspection of our house. Since we don't have a pool, we didn't have to deal with all of the requirements for that--I heard that can be a major pain. For us, they were basically checking to make sure we had a working fire extinguisher and smoke detectors, working appliances, and that our toxics (mainly bleach) and medications were locked up. We over-prepared and over-stressed about this inspection; it was not that big of a deal. Still, we ended up having an empty fire extinguisher (thanks, Home Depot!), so our Family Specialist had to come out for a supplemental inspection once that was remedied.

About this same time, our Family Specialist came out for a home study. This simply consisted of separate interviews in our home. Once classes were over, we just had to wait for our Family Specialist to submit our licensing application. It can take days to a month for your license to be approved once your package is submitted. Much of this depends on the thoroughness of your Family Specialist. Unfortunately for us, we had a brand new Family Specialist; we were his first family. So although he had all of our necessary documents when our class was over at the end of June, our package was not submitted until mid-September. Our license was approved October 4th. A friend who was in the class with us had a very experienced Family Specialist, and was licensed the third week in July!

We waited over a month for our first placement, but it has been a steady stream of children in and out since then. In Arizona foster parents are allowed to be licensed for two children their first year, and five after that. We were only licensed for one this first year, because our three biological kids are (currently) ages 1, 3, and 5, and the state only allows four children ages 5 and under to be in the care of one adult. Since hubby works and we chose to have children the same ages as our own, we were limited to one. We have decided to change a few things this coming licensing year. We are going to be taking three girls, ages 5 to 10. This will be uncharted territory for us, so I'm sure it will stretch our faith and our parenting ability!

Up until now, our oldest foster child had just turned three, but most of them were quite a bit younger. As a result, we haven't had to deal with too many extreme behaviors. We know that this is about to change, and that in a way we are putting our biological children at risk. Still, we see this as a family ministry, and we trust that God will protect us and help us in this endeavor. Foster care is not easy, there are struggles challenges, and we are confident that we are being sanctified in the process.