Home Study

As scheduled, my home study began yesterday at 10am. I needn't have worried! We spent maybe 20-30 minutes walking around the house talking, and it was very reasonable. After that, the worker allowed me to ask questions as long as I liked-- we ended up chatting more than 3 hours!

This is just the start of the study, of course, and there will be many more visits; I also have a stack of papers to fill out as well as some self-evaluatory writing assignments. But before leaving, the worker expressed that he foresaw no issues with my opening the home to foster kids.

Woohoo!

And now, without further ado, some photos of my finally-finished boys' bedroom. As you can see, I've plastered the walls with posters, and I've got plenty more to choose from to match a particular kid's taste.


Here's the bunkbed I built and finally finished staining and sanding. I've currently got Transformers sheets on the bottom and Dragon sheets on the top, and of course I've also got some sets of plain blue sheets on-hand for the older boys. At this point, all I really have left to do in there is acquire a couple chairs for deskwork.

Finally, just because I think it's hilarious, here's another shot. Safety first!!

T-minus 24 hours... and counting!

That's right, a mere 24 hours away-- 10am tomorrow, Friday-- my homestudy will begin. A team of foster care professionals will arrive at my home for the white glove inspection, launch extensive background checks, and in general begin grading my value as a human being on a scale of 1 to 10.

Or at least, that's how it has sorta felt, as I anticipated tomorrow. In truth, it'll be just one guy, and we'll sit down and have a good talk about why I want to open my home... and whether I'm really prepared to do so. He'll be studying me, and he will in fact take a look at the place and make recommendations about necessary changes.

I'm excited and scared, but as the hour approaches, the "excited" is beginning to outweigh the "scared." God led me to this point, and even if they ultimately reject me as a candidate, I know I've done what God wants. Besides, I realize that they're not looking for a pristine palace. They're looking for a home.

Just a few things left to do. The bunk beds are done, and I promise I'll post photos later! Otherwise, I need to hang some fire extinguishers, frame and hang the fire escape plans, finish decorating the kids' room, and move out all of the home repair tools that tend to collect in my coat closet. It will be a busy day... but I took it off as a vacation day!

Training & Staining

So after a great deal of confusion, I and two church friends of mine managed to slip into the last three available slots for PRIDE training-- less than 24 hours before it was to begin, and less than 24 hours after we found out about it! Woohoo! Therefore, as of March 6th, I am on the books as a potential foster parent. And I mean "on the books" literally-- one of the first things they did was fingerprint me in order to start digging up my past. :-)

As I've mentioned before, PRIDE training is one of the required steps towards being approved. On the books, it's about 30 hours of training, which in our case is scheduled for 6 hours each Saturday. Having done a bit of reading on foster care and adoption prior to the class, I find that not much of what I'm hearing is new to me. That said, repetition is learning, and through it I think I'm becoming a bit more reasonable and less idealistic in my expectations. For example, I will never have a child enter my home excited about being there. No matter how bad their home situation, no matter how badly they've been abused, they've just been ripped from their home and their family... and now been unceremoniously dropped at my door. I should never expect them to be happy about this, or to view me automatically as a friend. Instead, I will have to commit to showing them unconditional love and patience, and helping them work through a lot of conflicting feelings... feelings that may well lead to misbehavior, no matter how "good" the kids are. With God's help, I think I can do that. After all, this whole venture isn't about me; it's about being there for kids that have very few allies.

More on the training in a future post. I have a few other things to report before this gets much longer.

The next step after the training is undergoing a homestudy, which is basically a protracted study of me, my home, and my habits, my life, etc. From what I originally understood, this is usually launched in the months following completion of PRIDE. However... I just got a call last week scheduling my first interview, here in my home, before PRIDE is even done! Exciting! And slightly scary!

Part of the "scary" is that I now have a little bit closer deadline for finishing a few lingering projects around the house. They're coming along nicely, though, and I think I'll be able to complete the important stuff before my first interview. I'm happy to report, for example, that my custom-built bunk beds are now fully fabricated, and I spent this evening puttying up all the cracks, knots, and screw holes. Tomorrow I hope to sand it down and, barring unanticipated issues, stain it to match the desk in the same room. I'll be sure to post photos when it's done!

Training Beginning!

So I received news yesterday that the PRIDE training will finally be kicking off in March! Foster parenthood, here I come!

I have a couple options, but my preference will be to do 6-hour sessions for five Saturdays so I can be done quicker... the issue is that I'm not clear whether the Saturday trainings begin on March 13th or March 20th (there was a typo in the announcement), and I've got a prior unbreakable commitment on the 13th in Morgantown (having a cavity filled before a live audience, to help a friend pass her dentistry boards).

If the Saturday option doesn't work out, it'll mean 10 weeks of 3-hour sessions on Tuesday nights... definitely not something I would look forward to, especially since they wouldn't begin until April. Still, if that's what it comes to, that's what it comes to. I'm committed to this. I already have the mattresses, after all!

The Mattresses are Here!

I got the email this afternoon from FedEx: two 36lb packages had been left at my door. And when I got home tonight, sure enough. My mattresses had arrived.

I think I've mentioned that one of my exciting plans is to build bunk beds for my foster kid(s). Although I don't intend to launch into multi-kid parenting at first, I want to be open to future expansion. :-) I spent weeks shopping for bunk beds, and across the board was unimpressed with both price and design. I finally decided I was being stupid-- I love building things, and seriously... bunk beds? Talk about exciting possibilities. Well, the first step was to acquire the proper mattresses, and after some searching, I found a great deal online for the right size mattresses in vinyl, which will be harder to damage and easier to keep clean as kids potentially come and go.

But I can't express how excited I am! I think it's because this is the first tangible evidence of my foster care adventure. Thus, in honor of the occasion, I've got one mattress lying on the floor in my living room-- and that's where I'm camping out tonight!

Here's looking forward to Saturday, when I begin bunk bed frame design...

The Latest

Look at this... only a few weeks into my blogging adventure, and already doing poorly at keeping it updated! I fully intend to come back soon and record the rest of my thoughts on "Why Foster Care?" but for right now, I just want to share what's coming up in the very near future.

In short: nothing. :-) I'm in a bit of a holding pattern at present as the agency I will be working with has not yet set a date for training to begin. This training (called PRIDE) is my next step in the process, and it sounds like that will take 2-3 months. Hopefully they'll get it scheduled soon, and when they do, I'll share it here.

Meanwhile, it gives me time to tie up other loose ends... those things that make a home unfit for habitation by anyone but a bachelor! I've got to finish recaulking the tub, and I'm actually within sight of finishing all the painting I began over four years ago. I'm also eagerly awaiting delivery of the mattresses for the bunk bed I'm building. No worries, I have no plans to take more than one child at a time to start with... but I like the idea of being open in the future. And besides, bunk beds are still cool even if you're the only one in the room!

So Why Foster Care? (part 1 of 2)

The germination of the idea occurred years ago, when I first emerged from college and reentered society. I found that I loved children, in general. I also noticed, as I spent more time out in the world, doing things like shopping for groceries, that a lot of parents don't seem terribly enthusiastic about having kids. Some seem downright put out by it. I don't mean to be judgmental of people after observing them only 10 seconds in a grocery store. My point is that it kept me thinking about the fact that there are kids out there who aren't wanted, who aren't loved, and that's just sad. So as early as my first year out of college, I'd decided that if and when I got married, I would be very open to adopting children.

In early 2008, almost two years ago now, I met a young woman--younger than me even--who was a foster parent along with her husband. She spoke passionately about providing a home, even just temporarily, for kids who have been ripped from their own families. She acknowledged that the foster care system catches a lot of flak, and that some of it's probably valid. And yet, she pointed out, whatever one thinks about the system, there's a very clear need for loving people to open not just their homes but their lives to these kids, to be a good influence in their lives for as long as possible. That was the first time I'd ever met someone who fostered, at least as far as I could remember; since that time, it seems like people have come out of the woodwork. Regardless, I've been actively thinking--and praying--about doing so myself, ever since that conversation.

My First Blog!

I've always found it rather amusing that, for someone with a degree in computer science (and now a job in software development), I usually stay a ways behind my friends and family on the technology adoption curve. I was a latecomer to cell phones, text messaging, and Facebook, and I have no intention of ever buying into iPhone or Blu-ray. And here I am, finally, starting my own blog. But I maintain the excuse that I never had anything worth talking about on a frequent basis. That has now changed.

If you haven't yet heard, I've begun the process of becoming a foster parent here in West Virginia. Since I love to write, Kelly Thompson at Frameworks (who has been a great source of information on foster care and adoption) has suggested I maintain a blog about my experiences. Obviously I've decided to take her up on that.

I'll leave it at that for now. One of my great weaknesses is extreme verbosity, and for this venture I'm going to strive hard to keep my posts short (short by Bob-standards, at least). Over the next couple weeks, I will share more about what God's been doing in my life that led me to this decision, about my excitement and fears, and of course about what I've learned in my reading and discussions with professionals working in this arena. I hope you'll follow along and share your thoughts too!