There’s a lot of talk out there about the laborious process of getting certified as a foster parent. While it’s not always easy, it is a bit simpler than you would think. The key is to take it one step at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Here are 5 major steps on the journey to becoming a foster parent: Commitment You’ve been interested in the idea of becoming a foster parent and are ready to take the next step. What you need now is commitment. The process can be fast or can feel like it’s dragging on for ages. It largely depends on the workload of who you will be working with and the training schedule available to you. Before you decide to commit, attend a Project 1.27 Info Night. You will learn what the commitment looks like and receive answers to your questions.
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Before becoming foster parents in 2014, Matt and Teresa took time to build their support team which includes Teresa’s dad, Tom and his wife, Anne. Currently, Matt and Teresa are caring for an 11-month-old baby boy, nicknamed Espresso, placed in their home last fall. Espresso is their 2nd placement. Espresso’s half-brother, who was safely reunified with his father, was their first. Matt and Teresa are now big brother’s very involved godparents and planning to adopt Espresso in the next few months.
Chances are if you’ve interacted with children from any walk of life you’ve experienced the short answer responses to your questions. How was school? Good. What did you learn? Nothing. Did you have fun? Sure. It sounds like they just don’t want to talk, and maybe they don’t, but maybe there’s a better way. Instead of giving up a few questions in, try a different approach. It can be hard to build a connection but don’t give up too quickly. Remember to be patient and let the child open up to you in his own time. Here are a few tips to help build a connection: Connect at eye level This tip is especially true for younger kids because they are much smaller than adults. Having an adult towering over them can feel scary and trigger a fight, flight or freeze response. To help a kid feel comfortable with you try squatting down to his level. This reduces the chance of a fear-based reaction and shows you care. Use safe touches
Safe and affectionate touch is important in a parent-child relationship. Unfortunately, many kids in foster care have experienced negative touch. Because of a child’s history, it’s important to ask permission before touching her, even if you are just resting your hand on a shoulder. This simple act helps to fully engage a child’s brain and build a connection. If your child says no, try using symbolic touch. This means you mime the touches without actually making contact to help a child understand that you are a safe person. Ask the right questions Closed ended questions, like the ones mentioned above, have easy answers and don’t open up conversation. Work on asking open-ended questions to start a conversation and show a child you want to learn more about them. Here are a few examples:
Match behavior In healthy families, matching behavior is naturally occurs between kids and parents. hen a baby coos, a parent coos back. When playing “so big” baby throws her hands in the air and daddy does the same. Kids from hard places may have missed out on this matching, a critical part of building connection with a kid. You can do this with older kids by matching their body position. If a boy sits at the table and leans on his elbows, you do the same. If a girl on the floor sits cross-legged, get down on the floor and sit cross-legged. These small moments help build trust between you and the child. Have kind eyes A critical part of connection is eye contact, but not the kind you might remember from your childhood when your parents ordered, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”. With kids from hard places, you need to be intentional about making eye contact with kind eyes. Your warm eyes will help tell him that he is beautiful and precious. Kind eyes also convey love and empathy. These are all feelings kids from hard places need to experience. Play! In case you’ve forgotten, kids love to play. You know what that means? To help build a connection you need to engage with them while they play. Get down and build Legos, dress dolls or play Old Maid. Playful interaction helps kids let go of fear and open up. Additionally, letting kids lead play time encourages leadership and imagination. Remember the rule of improv acting and just say yes (unless someone is likely to get hurt). Have fun. As you build relationships with kids keep these basic principles in mind. All of the tips in this article are based on Trust Based Relational Intervention training (TBRI). Learn more about TBRI’s connecting principles here. ![]() What was it like when Baby Girl first arrived? Exciting chaos! We received the call from our case worker at 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon and she arrived at 6 pm. With Baby Girl on the couch, we filled out a bunch of placement forms and reviewed the hospital discharge instructions. Then, after months of training, preparation and waiting, I (Katie) found myself sitting on the coach, staring at Baby Girl and a bag filled with formula, bottles and diapers. The enormity of what we were doing hit. I was happy to hold Baby Girl in my arms and terrified I would do something wrong. Baby girl is just working at taking those first steps. What are you working at as new foster parents? We’ve learned so much! One big thing is like all first-time parents, we’re learning to work together as parents, to be on the same page and communicate with each other about parenting Baby Girl. The second big thing, unique to being foster parents, is how to navigate the system and try to understand how things look from many differing points of view. How does foster care look for Baby Girl, for her birth parents, her caseworker, her Guardian ad Litem? I (Katie) was writing a summary of a typical day in Baby Girl’s life, all the things we’d work hard to create for Baby Girl like her schedule, what soothes her, what she likes and dislikes. The summary was created to help mom get to know Baby Girl. I know that’s important but I struggled with mom getting to take advantage of all our learning as parents. Adam reminded me to look at this from mom’s point of view and how she must feel only interacting with her daughter a few hours each week. Often, kids from hard places have unique sensory requirements. When children experience trauma at a young age, they may become hyper alert. This means they expect the world to feel unsafe and are on the lookout for warning signs.
By providing your child with a variety of sensory input, you are helping him understand the world around them, feel safe in his body and accurately perceive his surroundings. Sensory projects address sensory needs in fun and creative ways. It’s important to appeal to each sense, and in this setting there aren’t just 5 senses, there are 7:
Here are 7 sensory activities you can do at home (one for each sense): About a year and a half ago, my boss called me to tell me this was my last day with the company. My position had been eliminated. This unexpected news was quite a shock, not just because it was unexpected and not just because I had worked there for 11 years. Getting laid off threatened a big piece of the core of my identity. Why? Because for the past 22 years, I've been a dad.
Dads are providers. We work our tails off, often at thankless jobs that steal away not just our health, but our dreams, and we do it willingly. Why? Because that is what dads do. After the shock of the news wore off, I realized that nothing had changed except my circumstances. I may be unemployed at the moment, but I will continue to provide for my family, even if I have to get 3 jobs to do it. This got me thinking about other attributes of my dad identity. Did you know the majority of new foster care cases have the goal of family reunification, not adoption? While this has long been the case, it is not widely known. Parents are often villainized and a child’s removal from the family is praised. We believe it’s important to spread word of the beauty, joy and importance of reunification. The initial role of a foster parent is to lovingly care for a child while rooting for the child’s parents to do the hard work to make reunification possible.
Here are three ways foster parents can be a part of making this goal a reality: Project 1.27 mom and foster parent, Rachel, took the time to share her thoughts with us. We wanted to pass along her wise and inspiring words. Enjoy!
-- Today we celebrate the babies living in our home for six months. What a six months it has been! To say it has been a challenge for our family would be true, but what would be more accurate is that it has unmistakably been the hardest time of my personal life. I wanted to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned during this time and what I saw was a very intimate relationship with Jesus form on new levels. I am positive anyone who has endured a trying time or taken a leap of faith into the unknown may be able to identify with any or all six of the following. His grace is sufficient And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 Over the past six months, I have seen how truly sufficient His grace is. When I wake up in the morning begging for energy to homeschool girls, run babies to visits, make all the meals, do the laundry, get groceries, touch base with hurting friends… His grace is sufficient. When I am feeling frustrated at the behaviors of hurting bio parents and the babies… His grace is sufficient. When I am lonely and feeling isolated… His grace is sufficient. When I am weary of living in limbo… His grace is sufficient. And, perhaps when I have felt His grace the most is when I feel like I am failing in relationships with precious people in my life. On my worst days, what more do I need than His grace that is abundant? Often when we are volunteering our time and resources to help others, we hold to our ideas of how we want to serve. With all of the information and recommendations that we provide monthly for support team members, our most important counsel is for you to ask your foster family what they specifically need. Each family is unique and each child they serve will have different needs. We hope that you and your foster family are in frequent and vulnerable conversation about ways to pray, praise, and discuss specific things that you and your team might do to help uphold and sustain the family.
For National Foster Care Month, we’re taking our own advice! We have asked a Project 1.27 foster and adoptive mom what she has needed from her support team as a foster parent. As we train our Project 1.27 families to become foster parents, we share with them the harsh realities of child abuse and neglect. It’s hard for many of us to imagine the horrific stories we hear on the news, in biographies, and as friends share their stories. There are others of us who have personally experienced the pain of abuse and/or neglect and strive to heal from the wounding.
You may or may not know the abuse or neglect story of the child for whom your foster/adoptive family is caring. You have, most likely, observed some of the effects of trauma that comes from abuse and neglect. Although children are incredibly resilient, it makes sense that they may continue to struggle with some of the following issues: |
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