Prospective Foster Parents - Could this disqualify us?

As long as he is stable this is unlikely to impact you. If he is impacted in a way that is likely to negatively affect a child, that would be different. The social worker will likely want to discuss with him ways he thinks parenting a child who has been impacted by trauma may affect him and how he plans to manage that.

I urge you to discuss this with your agency directly, but I wanted to reassure you that both my husband and I struggle with depression and are on daily mediation for this, and this was not considered a problem for licensing in any way. Our agency had ample proof that we were fully-functioning, responsible adults with a stable, loving home, so our depression and medication for same were never an issue. Hope this helps! :)

I think it really depends on the individual approving you. I was fostering a child through a child specific placement while the home study was completed. The child's social worker thought things were great and the social worker doing my home study said everything was positive. However, when my home study went to the supervisor for approval, she denied it because of a history of depression. I have heard many others get approved & many others in the department thought I should have been approved so it is definitely possible.

I personally know families and know of others who live with this type of thing and it did not affect them fostering OR adopting.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences! I feel much more confident and less nervous about sharing this aspect of our lives. I'm very very hopeful hub's anxiety won't be a fostering obstacle. :)

i can really relate to being afraid of existing "conditions" being reason for disqualification...hubby and i have lots of them lol! (diabetes, autoimmune disorders, anxiety, OCD, to name a few :rolleyes: ) seriously, though, we were so afraid of even trying for fear of being rejected, but we decided we would rather try and be told no than never try because we were afraid. so we took the leap, called a couple of agencies, and chose one that seemed like a good fit for us. the best advice i can give is to be up front about whatever "issues" you have - after all, everyone has them! ;) we have been very open about our lives with our agency, including medical/psych history, current status, management, medications, etc, and it hasn't affected the process. i guess we do have some extra requirements and hoops to jump through because of it (for example, we had to get signed letters from all our doctors stating that we are stable and able to care for children before we could start classes, plus there is extra paperwork for us to fill out, and we have a lot more lockboxes for meds in fridge and cabinets than most people need lol) but it is worth the extra effort in my opinion. :) plus, kind of a cool perspective, when we were first interviewed by our agency as a potential family and we told them about our history and diagnoses, they said how great it is that we have been through so much ourselves because we will be able to understand and help the kiddos in different ways than if we hadn't ever had any problems. i found this very encouraging and a great way to look at it. best of luck to you!!!

My hubby also has anxiety (agoraphobia) and is on medication. Although it was discussed, it was not considered a reason for disqualification. If possible, I would ask the agency before you officially sign up with them. I imagine different agencies have different rules for that sort of thing. Finding out before you commit lets you move to another agency if your agency does have an issue with it.

I have an anxiety and panic disorder and all our SW cared about was psychiatric hospitalizations, and she said even those were looked at on a case by case basis. Treated, managed anxiety shouldn't be a problem.