Four months since last post so what have I been doing ...
I am deeply troubled by the political landscape of this 2016 election year. I do not make voting decisions strictly along a party line or a specific candidate or a list of narrowly defined issues. My voting decisions blur into the grey areas that are defined based on the multitude of complicated factors each election year. This year's election was causing me great anxiety. I had to figure out how to reconcile the craziness in my head.
First I considered how can I personally impact change. Only stating my position along with the requisite talking, whining and blustering is not for me. Doing nothing is also NOT an option. This post will now take a dramatic turn that seems unrelated but it is not ...
We are working our way towards becoming foster parents. When I say WORKING our way through then I am not exaggerating. The process from that first thought to actually having a child in our home is daunting.
To say Husband was surprised when I suggested this route is an understatement of ginormous proportions. It took us a month to agree to start and we have mutually agreed to consciously use each step to test movement forward. I first had to choose a non-profit agency to sponsor our certification. I did not realize it would not be with CPS and the State of Texas directly. I found Jonathan's Place fairly quickly and turns out Oldest Son donated his birthday presents there several years ago and we had toured it at the time. I took that as a sign!
Husband and I spent an entire weekend in July doing PRIDE training, August completing paperwork and homework and September completing the in-person training. In-person training includes:
July 2016
· July Foster/Adopt Parent Orientation - 1 hour and PRIDE - Saturday and Sunday 9am-6pm, 9am-6pm
September 2016
· September 10 Behavior Intervention Techniques 9am –5pm
· September 17 CPR/First Aid 9am – 12pm
· September 17 CAIPR Training – 12:30pm – 1:30pm
· September 17 Medication Administration (instructor led) 1:30pm –3:30pm
· September 17 JP Policies and Procedures/Introduction to KaleidaCare 3:30pm – 5:30pm
· September 24 Trauma Informed Care 9am-5 pm
In September, Commuter Husband shared with me that perhaps we MIGHT be able to pull this off and he was feeling more comfortable. So we kept moving on to the next step. This coming Saturday (October 22), we are scheduled to complete background checks including fingerprinting for all four members of our family.
We are approaching one task at a time hoping to complete certification requirements next February or so. We are seeking to provide foster care or respite care only - no adoption. For now, we are only considering an elementary age child with basic level needs.
Now back to those first two paragraphs ... to the part where I need to DO something to change the swirl of truly disturbing happenings worldwide that show up on my news feed every single depressing day. So, I choose the approximately 500,000 children in foster care who have suffered trauma. Read that number over and over and over and over ... and note it does not appear on any election platform.
Obviously this story has much more to say. This is only a beginning.
Obviously this story has much more to say. This is only a beginning.
