First Question
Hope4future asks:
Ha - where do I start??? We're just dipping our toes in to fostering - just finished PRIDE training and should have our homestudy completed soon.
My greatest concerns as a newbie are proper record keeping (as it was drilled in to us over and over how important that is) - and what to ask when someone calls and has a placement possibility. I'm thinking maybe we can avoid a mismatched placement if we ask the right questions when we have the opportunity. Maybe that's idealistic.
Any tips/tricks/insight??
Gawdessness has a great list of questions to ask, but the real issue whether you will be given a chance to ask any questions.
Have you talked to other foster parents in your system? They will be better able to tell you what information social workers are willing to give out and how often they actually match.
So often social workers have a kid for whom they need to find a bed -- tonight.
I work for an agency that does permanent placement, so it is different. I wish I could be more helpful. I think you will like Gawdessness's list though.
For all our county's talk about matching kids, very little of that goes on. Most of the calls we've received haven't been because we were the best match for the kid. We got called simply because we had an open bed.
ReplyDeleteGood tips - my husband has been wanting to talk to some families in the area about what actually happens, since our training is over. We did bring up some issues we've read about across some of the fostering blogs and they somewhat brushed over our concerns. They did admit to placing kids based on space when time constraints limited their ability to find the best match.
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