Foster Care Failure

Long since before we had my youngest child, I have had the heart to either provide foster care, or to adopt.  This desire was only fed more by people who would share in our church stories about poor children who needed homes, or by sharing how their family had grown due to adoption.  Finally, after many years, my husband consented, and I was on my way to providing foster care, or so I thought.

The preparation for becoming a licensed foster care family is long and tedious, and for us it truly began while we were searching for the next house in which we would live in.  As we looked at house after house online, we tried to decide if the home would be set up, or even big enough to allow for fostering one to two children at a time. Once we found a home that we saw fit, bought the house, and moved there it was time for the actual application process to begin.  I had already attended the mandatory orientation, and now it was time for classes, and a ton of paperwork. While completing the huge stack of paperwork, I was able to complete four full days of training, CPR certification for both my husband and I, fingerprint clearances, TB tests, doctor’s visits, getting three friends to fill out recommendations, and three whole home inspections.  After doing all of this along with buying and setting up beds, fire extinguishers, escape ladders, outlet covers, blind cord protectors, we found that becoming a foster family may just be out of reach.

As part of our last home inspection there was an interview that Rodney, and I both had to complete both separately and together.  This was after each of our children had been independently interviewed. We were honest, and open about our lives as that is how I try to be with everyone.  This is where we may have possibly made our mistake. After taking everything that we had done in order to provide a safe and loving home for a foster child, we were told that the board would only allow us to provide foster care if my husband and I each had individual counselling.  I had been in a domestic violence riddled marriage over fifteen years ago, and my husband had some issues while growing up (over 25 years ago) that they wanted to make sure would not be triggered by children in our care.

I wrote back to our licensor, who is part of a Christian foster care agency, explaining that requiring us to go to therapy is like saying that God cannot heal us enough from these past hurts enough that we could provide a home for a child in foster care.  I wrote this to them because this is the one thing that my husband will not do. He cared for the children while I was at training, he provided his fingerprint clearance, and TB test, and he got certified in CPR. He also had to fill out his huge stack of paperwork, and participate in the home inspection interviews.  He draws the line at getting the therapist clearance to do foster care, and that breaks my heart. Every time I look at the extra beds in my daughter’s room, I think about how we have a place in our home, and in our hearts for a child in need. I don’t know where this is going to lead me, and I pray that someday this will be different, but for right now, I try not to be angry that we had to go through so many steps, and so much work in order to be turned down when there are so many children in foster care that need a home today.