The Process

We went to the DFCS office each Thursday night from 6:00 – 9:00 for 10 weeks. (Thursday night was our El Rio’s night.) We had homework that we had to complete each week. We always discussed it while we were eating so that it would be fresh on our mind. We listened to some horrid stories: foster parents threatening to put a snake it the bed with a foster child because they were wetting their bed every night; biological children loving their parents no matter what they did to them – even burning them with cigarettes. We had no idea that kind of world was out there. We had both been raised in loving homes with siblings and both parents. We went to church; we had extended family that loved us. Needless to say, it really was an eye opener. After going through the 10 weeks of training, we had to fill out oodles of paper work. We had to answer questions about our childhood; who lived with us in our homes, how discipline was handled, our educational background, etc. We had to fill out paperwork as to how we would handle certain situations in our home; discipline, dealing with biological parents, what type of child we were willing to take (meaning age, gender, race, etc.) They had to inspect our house. We had to provide birth certificates and marriage license proving our identity. We had to provide financial statements. We had to be finger printed and agree to have a criminal background check. You name it; we had to prove it to them. All this time we are thinking good grief – we have to do all of this to try to help a child and the biological parents can just pop them out and keep going with their cruddy lives. But we did it. Was it fun – no. Was it time consuming – yes. Was it inconvenient – sometimes we would have to be home early from work to meet with Ms. Stewart. Was it worth it – yes. Definitely yes. We have never questioned our decision to do this. We started our classes in March of 2004 and were officially certified as foster parents in June of 2004.