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Hello everyone! I've been lurking for a few months and with our first orientation (group engagement session) tomorrow I thought I'd do an intro!
My husband and I have been married nearly 5 years and have two wonderful children by birth in our home. My son is 7 and is from a previous relationship (hubby has been in his life since he was 1) and our daughter is recently 5! My son spends his summer vacation with his bio dad though we have him the remainder of the year and full placement - Something like this wouldn't affect our chances right?
We started talking last year about the possibility of fostering, we moved to a new state 1 year ago and are at a place in life where we want to take the next step which is to have another child however we both agreed that we feel called to foster versus just having another..
I know that tomorrow we will find out more information and all the posts here have been amazing as far as the surprises and trials that come with this journey - as a total newcomer though Do any of you know what to expect with orientation? I can't seem to find much information on what is needed to be brought with ect. ect.
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Hi I'm new as well! My husband and I recently attended orientation and are about to go to our next training.
Orientation was 3 hours for us. We watched some videos about what foster care is and is not, listened to the policies of our agency and state, and then had a question and answer period. Many then took some time to fill out the applications and scheduled finger printing. But not everyone was ready for that yet.
I brought a notebook and pen but didn't need to because they had folders, pencils, and all that for us. And they served pizza and sodas which was great for husband who came straight from work without dinner!
Good luck!
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Welcome! We have done all of our pre-service training and are waiting for our license. In our area there is an agency that does recruiting for the state, and they follow up with new and prospective foster parents along the way and is who I direct a lot of questions to (and now my licensor, now that we have one. She's awesome!), they would be the best person to ask about the trainings. Or find someone you may know in your area that knows about orientation and trainings. We are going through the state and I will tell you that despite ALL of the trainings being during lunch or dinner time they did not serve ANY food. So while they supplied us with all the application papers we had to have pens and bring food/drink with us.
I will also point out that if you have been doing extensive research on foster parenting online, orientation will be pretty underwhelming as far as getting info is concerned.
Best of luck!:flowergift:
Hello and welcome!
Orientation for us was literally just an open forum where they discussed a few key things and answered questions- it was considered the first "class" of our pre-service training- which was a joke. I am sure you already know more about what you are doing than you will learn- but it is a good place to ask questions, so maybe have a list ready?
Things vary GREATLY by area- our classes were not very good or helpful. I knew they wouldn't be going in- so I had low expectations because a friend had gone through licensing before me and adopted 2 kids from foster care. I have read where others found their pre-service training to be very helpful.
As for your son from a previous marriage and other child- that should not affect placement unless your area has rules about square footage or living space- depending on the ages you are opening for. My area has kids over a certain age fill out a questionnaire as part of your home study and they want to meet them too- but again, I imagine that depends on your area.
Either way welcome and good luck! You will find a lot more response on the Foster Parent Support page for some reason- the others don't get much action.
We are newbies too! We have completed our pre service classes, have done a bunch of paper work, and are waiting for our first home study to be scheduled. We have bio boys as well, ages 3,5 and 7. Because our kids are so young, we will be open only for a child 0-2 . We are hoping to adopt.
Orientation will be by brief. And , if you have hung out on this board for a any length of time, you probably will not hear anything too new or surprising! ;)
The paperwork and clearance/training process seems pretty daunting, but I am sure it will be worth it all! Looking forward to hearing more about your journey!
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Thank you so much to everyone for the replies! Our orientation was about 2 hours and was full of great information (nearly all of it I had learned already from these boards!) and really got me motivated to continue on with the process! Applications and paperwork is the name of the game right now and hopefully classes will soon follow!