December 17th, 2008 - Foster care beginnings
Just a quick note to let folks know that we’re about to officially begin the work to become a foster family. Our first appointment is Friday, at our house, with the licensing social workers. (Two because one’s in training.)
Plan: We’ll start in the spring doing respite care–temporary care for parents and foster parents who need a break or are going on vacation and can’t take the foster kids along. Sometimes it’s just because they need a break, other times because they are going out of state and can’t take the kids along, or want to go on a couples-only weekend (my in laws always went away for their anniversary weekend [they did foster care for over 37 years]), or having surgery, or a business trip, or whathaveyou. Could be overnight or for a couple weeks at a time. We’ll have a choice of when and what kid(s) we’re willing to take in.
Then, when Maggie goes off to 4K in September, we intend to become full time foster parents. We’re intending to only take kids younger than Maggie. And, if possible, only girls (or baby boys) so that they can share the bedroom. Otherwise, we have to move Maggie to the guest room–there’s no heating vent in there (just like our bedroom), and that’s not legal for foster kids. Some day, we intend to put in heating. So maybe we’ll do that this summer anyway and then it can be the foster kids room if we have boys. (Girls would share a bedroom–we fully support the idea of kids sharing bedrooms. Plus, I like my guest room!)
Process: Much like adopting, we have to go through a homestudy and make sure all sorts of things are okay with the house. (More intense than adopting a baby as they can’t get into stuff that an older kid can so we have to lock up medications, for instance. You have to have a certain amount of space per kid, so they check out the bedrooms. And all sorts of stuff.) There are also training seminars (some before we become licensed and a whole bunch more afterward). So some of it should be fairly easy since we’ve done the homestudy thing before. Some will be harder and may be expensive–at the very least we want to get a loft or bunk bed for the bedroom.
Cost: Theoretically, it costs nothing to become foster parents. Realistically, we will have to buy stuff to prepare for more kids. For respite, not as much as they should come with everything they need, except a bed. And we have a double bed that can come in the room and a crib and a pack n play. We’ve already bought extra waterproof mattress pads (white sale before Christmas!). We might buy more baby toys and a Boppy if we’ll have infants. And we got rid of our swing, trike, and highchair (to another foster family!) which may prove useful. For full time care, these and many more things will be necessary. Especially since I gave away so much stuff last spring when we said no more kids. (I thought we wouldn’t do foster care for at least 3 more years. If then.) We’ll also have to get a babysitter for Maggie for the training seminars (nights; maybe a friend will do it for free–but it’s a total of at least 30 hours).
We are going to reduce our charitable giving by one third (it was 3% of our income, down to 2%) since our lives will become full time giving. That 1% will instead become our foster care prep fund. And in the future, our foster care fund. In case you have heard that foster parents do it for the money, in WI, we have one of the lowest foster payments, around $350/month (for the least needy and youngest children). That’s right: about $10/day for 24 hour care. (If Eric and I both worked outside the home, the child could be put in day care for around $800-$1000/month paid by the state, and we’d be paid the same $350 for the rest of the day. But since we have a full time parent at home, we get $350 for 24 hours.) Anyway, just saying it’s not for the money and we should expect to spend more than that 1% (budget will be adjusted once we have kids in the house and some ideas of the extra expenses). [The highest paying states are in the $800-900 range, so don’t think that they do it for the money, either. A research project earlier this year estimated that the average cost of a foster child to the family was something like $800/month. Only a couple states paid that much.]
As it relates to living simply/frugally, I am likely to discuss foster care here. I don’t expect this to become a foster care blog but who knows? If it does, it will of necessity be vague as confidentiality is of great importance. If you have questions, let me know, happy to talk about how it all works here in WI. Some I already know and can answer, some will come with experience of course!
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