Foster Parenting

As if regular parenting weren't enough for us, we've decided to go down the road of being foster parents. Essentially, here is the process:

Contact the DFS Agency
Receive a visit from them as they drop off all of the paperwork
Bring the house up to the necessary standards (post emergency numbers, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, etc., etc.)
Fill out all kinds of background paperwork, get references
Go to nine weeks worth of classes and do the homework assigned as part of that.
Do 5 home studies with a case worker (about 2 hours apiece)
Wait to get a call that you have a kid coming.
Open your home for the next couple of years.

I think this is going to be a really cool experience for us, although I'm hoping it doesn't age us too fast. Looking forward to seeing how I / we respond to the challenges presented with these kids as they, in many cases, have gone through all kinds of different abuses (those of which I can only imagine).

Wrote about 12 pages worth of stuff for the assessment process recently. You can see my Foster Parent Assessment Guide here.

I'm thinking that I'll post more information about our kids (the good, bad, and ugly) as we move forward. Really want to document this because there are a lot of hurting kids out there that could use Christian parents to give them a hand up.