Reply to Fostering - give it to me straight

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You simply can’t do this with two working parents. It isn’t fair to the child. [/quote]

I am a teacher who has taught many foster kids, and also an adoptive parent.

I have kids who have been in institutional care, or sent to foster homes so far away that they had to give up their school and community too, and kids who were separated from siblings because the only home had one bed.  Those things are unfair.  A loving foster family and aftercare?  That is not a problem for the kid.  [/quote]

The issue is these kids need mental health treatment generally and often have SN that need therapy plus family visits.  It’s far more work to do it right.  If you do the absolute minimum ok but with that many kids under 6 and working how much time do they have. [/quote]

As I said, I have walked this path (although I am a single working parent).  Was it hard for me?  Yes, it was.  Did my career look different than it might otherwise have?  Of course.  Did I sometimes have to make compromises in my kid’s care?  Yes of course.  I might have chosen the speech therapist who could come to daycare, over the one who was the best, and to only see the psychologist on the weeks we didn’t see the psychiatrist because I couldn’t handle another appointment in a week.  Yes.  I did.  But the idea that somehow it was unfair for my kid for me to try, when the other option for him was an institutional placement?  That is absurd.

OP needs to think about what she can give and what she can handle, but if she decides to do foster care the fact that she won’t do it perfectly should not be a worry.  Kids need parents.  Not perfect parents.  Foster kids or bio kids.[/quote]

You don't have the same flexibility or control or decision making authority when it is a foster child. You are he caregiver but CPS is the legal guardian and try set the expectations and requirements. [/quote]

I know, I am a former special needs foster parent (now adoptive parent), and a special ed teacher who has worked with many foster children.  The idea that somehow it's "unfair" to foster kids to place them with single parents or dual income couples, when the other option is institutionalization, is absurd.  That doesn't mean I think that it's easy.  Or that OP should or shouldn't do it, but she shouldn't decide not to foster because she worries that it would be unfair. [/quote]

Kids in the US are not institutionalized except for severe behavioral or mental health reasons.  [/quote]

Ding dong, you're wrong.

Here, familiarize yourself with an aspect of COMAR: http://dhr.maryland.gov/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Specialized-Standards-COMAR-14-31-07.pdf[/quote]

I worked in foster care for many years.  Specialized care is very different and those kid have much more needs.  Very few kids get that.  [/quote]

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