A week and a half ago we went to the second class of the Foster Parent training: Policies and Procedures.  It was four hours on what you can and can't do as a foster parent, as well as a lot of emphasis on things you have to do that you don't normally do.

Let me start all of this by saying that every one of these policies has been put in place to ensure the safety and well being of foster kids.  Most of us have heard of foster kids being neglected, abused, and exploited.  We've heard of kids being shipped from home to home and never having the opportunity to build stability or a trusting, loving relationship.

The policies are obviously meant to prevent that and make sure that the kids are safe.  However, they are so complicated and prohibitive we felt they would be nearly impossible for us to do while maintaining our other responsibilities, would significantly reduce the time we would have for our own children, and might even subject us to scary things such as AIDS, allegations of abuse (more foster parents are accused of abuse, with no proof, than any other segment of the population), and our own children may be abused by the foster child. 

For example:

• We would need to seek permission from the child's parents to cut the child's hair or to drive 3 hours over the state line to visit my sister.  If they didn't like us and wanted to manipulate us, here's their perfect opportunity.
• My daughter's bedroom is 11 sq. feet too small for a second person, according to the foster parent regulations.  So we would have had the kids share the master bedroom and my husband and I would have shared my daughter's bedroom.
• Every time the child was injured while playing, even just a scrape on the knee, we would have to document it and contact the child's case worker.
• The state has no law or policy requiring a background check on the child before they are placed in your home, and frequently, children are placed within a couple of hours after being taken from their parents.  This means that we would have to agree to take a child and keep it for as much as 15 months or more with no psychiatric evaluation, physical, or anything else.  The child may have a history of abusing other children or even AIDS, and we wouldn't know.
• Obviously, no corporal punishment is allowed.  That's just fine.  But they've also made a rule that you can't isolate a child--this includes sending a child to its room if it needs time to cool down.  In our home, one of the ways we motivate our kids is by allowing them the priviledge of watching a family movie or doing something else fun.  If they don't earn it, they must read in their room while those who did earn it participate.  We would not be allowed to do this with a foster child.  Frankly, neither my husband nor I knew how to discipline a child with no time outs and no discipline if they didn't earn something the other kids did.
• If the child didn't want to go to church with us, we cannot force it to.  Now, I understand that it isn't right to force someone to practice a religion they don't want to, but this would mean that one of us would have to miss church as well.

This is just a sampling of the rules.  Again, I want to stress that I understand they are in place to protect the child, and the child certainly does need protection.  But it all ended up being much more restrictive than we ever imagined, and we were terribly disappointed, not to mention downright frightened.

The trainer talked about kids trying to stab their foster parents, sexually abusing other children in the home, and falsely alleging abuse to try to manipulate or punish foster parents.

I guess we were naive.  We were just imagining a child coming to stay with us, and we would be its guardians while its parents recovered or got to the point they could again care for the child.  But it is the case worker that is the guardian, and the case worker has all say in everything--despite the fact that they may have spent little or no time with the child, have hundreds of other children on their caseload, and may be too busy or too overwhelmed to address our concerns.

We anticipated that a child would likely have issues, but that we would know what most of them were ahead of time.  Again, I guess we were naive.

So it gets down to the fact that while we feel we could provide a foster child with a safe, loving home, support, encouragement, positive discipline, etc. we are too overwhelmed by the system to feel we can care for the child, fulfil the requirements of the system, and continue to work and care for our own children (and protect them.)

And so, that is the end of our becoming foster parents, and least for now.  We are terribly disappointed.