FAQ's about Foster Care/Adoption

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about foster care and adoption. 

So when will you get a baby??

The foster care to adoption process is not a quick way to adopt.  We want you to know that although we desire to have a child of our own, the goal of FOSTER CARE is reunification.  Therefore, our goal for the children who enter our home will be to first provide a safe, nurturing place for them and secondly, to reunify them to their birth parents. As difficult as it WILL be, our goal is to minister to the birth parents about the love of Christ and how He can help them to be the best parent possible to their child. When looking back on our life and the experiences we’ve had, we now realize that God has been steadily equipping us for this ministry all along.

That seems hard to do?  Don’t you want a baby of your own?

Yes, it will not be easy and we do expect to get our hearts broken.   We do want a child of our own. But the goal is not to “profit” from someone else’s loss.  It is hard to celebrate when a child has suffered neglect or abuse and has to be removed from his home and placed into ours. The fact is that adoption is created through loss. Without loss, there would be no adoption.

Now we see that there was a purpose behind our infertility pain. God has trained us to put our hope in Him. We have faith that God will use us for His purpose in a child’s life at the right time and we believe that He will bring our child to us, to adopt at the right time. Until then, with God’s help, we will provide a safe and Godly home to a child in need while offering help, hope and assistance in reunifying a family torn apart through drugs, neglect or abuse.

So how many children will you foster before you can adopt?

God hasn’t told us that yet…if He tells you, let us know!

Are you fostering older children or babies?

Our age range is 0-2 years old. 
 

But foster kids come to you with a lot of emotional problems, right? Even if you get an infant, won’t they be trouble down the road?

Children are removed from their homes due to neglect, abuse and loss. These losses are very traumatic and many children will come into their adoptive placement with unresolved loss issues. There is a possibility that an infant in our home could be suffering from the effects of prenatal alcohol and drug exposure.  This will require lots of prayer, patience and care. However, even with biological children, there are never any guarantees to producing a “perfect” kid. God does not expect perfection and neither should we. Yes, it very well may be more difficult than we can even imagine.  We have to put on our big boy/big girl pants and fully rely on God to get us through. Each time we feel a sense of fear, we take those fears to the Lord and each time He says, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” (1 Cor 12:9)

So now that you’ve begun the process, what happens next? 

The road to adoption is long and requires a ton of faith, perseverance, patience and hope. For the past month, we have been taking parenting classes through a Christian foster care/adoption agency. These classes are part of the certification process. The process is as follows :

a. Pre-Service Training , which consists of about 30 hours of parenting classes which we attend at the agency – This is what we’ve been working on this month!

b. Background check and fingerprinting

c. LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of paperwork! 

d. Homestudy interview, held at our home (we get to tell them our life story!)

e.  Safety inspection of our home

f.  Licensing

g.  Foster placement (this is when the child is actually placed in our home).

h.  CPS process (1 year +) - This is the time given to the parent to do the required work in  order to be reunified with their child.

i. Termination  - If the birth family is not able to successfully complete their birth plan within the 12-18 months granted by the court, and appropriate relatives are not identified to take custody of the child, the parental rights will most likely be terminated.

j.  Appeal Period – The parent has 90 days to appeal

k. Once the 90 day appeal period has passed, the child is considered to be legally free for adoption.

l. We (being the foster parents) will (hopefully) receive the first option to adopt the child.

m.We go to court and the adoption is legally finalized.

How can we help? 

1) Pray! We will update the blog regularly as things arise and add prayer requests. We plan on being very real and transparent throughout this entire process and we covet your prayers!

2) Check on us. Right now, we are in the beginning stages and are preparing to get done with our classes, submit the rest of our paperwork and prepare for the home study. So if we don’t have a lot of free time, please have patience with us and know that we still love you – and please check in on us sometimes because we will need a break from all of this!!

3) Help us to prepare.  Since we would like to foster infants-2 year olds, we have quite a list of requirements to make our home safe and provide the necessary things a baby would need. Our nursery was already painted and we have all the major furniture items (crib, drawers, changing table, rocker, bookshelves). We also have the required car seat and two bases. We’re not sure what age the baby (or babies…) will be but if you have baby items that you’d like to donate, just let us know!