Foster Focused

Late August is when we will open up our home for a foster placement. God willing, Trey will be all finished with paramedic school and the national board exam mid July, we hope to take some vacation time and we have the wedding of a close friend mid-August. So, late August we should be back into our routine and ready to be parents. That sounds crazy! Is anyone ever "ready" to parents? You guys tell me! We feel ready and are incredibly excited but nervous at the same time.

Foster care in Texas goes a little bit like this...
     1. Incident reported to CPS   
     2. CPS shows up and decides if kids should be removed from the situation
     3. CPS calls agencies to report number of kids needing placement and their age(s)      
     4. Each agency finds a family to take the kid(s)  
     5. When a family says YES the agency calls CPS
     6. The first agency to call back "wins"

What that looks like on our side...
     1. Phone rings to Trey or Caroline any time of the day or night
     2. Covenant Kids says something like "we got called on 2 kids, 3 year old and 5 year old, can you take them in the next few hours?"
     3. Whoever answers says yes or no (no time to call the other if we aren't together)
     4. Covenant Kids calls back to say if and when a social worker will be bringing the kids to our home
     5. We freak out and head home from wherever we are!

We are will open our home for up to two kids (most likely siblings) between ages 2-6 years old, boys girls or one of each. Once they are placed in our home the parents will have court hearings at appointed intervals and the judge will decide first if foster care is necessary and then what the parent(s) must do to get them back. At any point in the process, family members can step up and say they can care for the children and a homestudy will be conducted to make sure they can provide a safe environment. The goal of the state is for family to raise family.

Adoption, which is our desire and long term goal, is far in the future. Parents whose children are in foster care have one year from the time children were placed to comply with the judge's orders and get their children back, before their parental rights are terminated. And they can request a 30-day extension. Also, family members can come forward at any point in the process to care for the kids. After 13 months in foster care, if the parents did not comply with the judge (and their parental rights are terminated) and no family wants to or is deemed safe to care for the children, THEN they will be considered waiting for adoption.

All that to say, we will be foster parents for 13 months at the very least before moving towards adoption. If at any point the children placed in our home are re-joined to their biological families we will start the process over.