Pre-Service Foster Care Training {Day 1}

Today was long to say the least. I'll start there and back up.

Brian came home yesterday! What a wonderful surprise! Addy was home with an ear infection, and we were snuggled on the couch reading books when he walked in the front door. It was a huge surprise and turned out to be a great day! He wasn't supposed to come home until tonight, so we were all thrilled.

Brian's early arrival home allowed him to enroll in a three day expedited pre-service foster care training class. It's twenty-seven hours of training in three days. The three day classes are a pilot training program that is being tried out in Oklahoma county. It was a huge blessing for us because two days a week for four weeks or numerous Saturdays in a row would have been extremely hard for us.

Our experience with DHS so far has just been average...not awful but not great either. Yesterday I realized that after I scheduled our training with our Certification Specialist, we never discussed where it was being held. I called yesterday. I emailed yesterday, and I never found out where we were supposed to be.

I finally got a guy on the phone early this morning who could tell me where we were supposed to be (three transfers later) and still no word from my certification specialist. I heard she was sick. I'm going with that.

The day was long {to reiterate what I said earlier}. We went through sessions 1-3 of nine total sessions from 9:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Our teachers were great (sisters even), and the material wasn't too boring or too graphic, but honestly, some of the people in the room wore me out.

It was an interesting group. Everyone in the room except for two couples (Brian and I and another couple from Life Church NW) were there for kinship placements...meaning that they already have children in their care from someone they know or from relatives or even from their own grown children.

Some are bitter. Some are tired. Some believe they're too old to raise their grandchildren. Others were grateful that the children they know whose parents aren't capable of caring for them can come into their homes instead of the home of a stranger. They feel grateful for the experience to pour into the lives of these kids.

But this is definitely a process. Too much for one day. The whole entire process will ensure that you really are ready to care for someone else's kids temporarily. Not an easy idea to process in one day for sure.

There you have it. Day 1. More tomorrow.

.....day 69 of a year of writing..... 

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