How do you become a foster parents?

Question

I would really like to become a foster parent. I love children and have 2 of my own.. do you know how hard it is in Indiana to become one and what steps you have to go through?? I also live in an apartment and I am in college. When I get out of college I am buying a house... I have my mind set... Any suggestions... Only helpful ones please!!

Answer 1

Well, I am not sure about Indiana, you could call your local Social Services (in the phone book) and find out.  I am from South Dakota and we have a program here called PRIDE (Parents Resources and Information for Development and Education).  The class hours were about 30, and the homework hours were about the same.  I know that many states use the PRIDE class...Indiana might be one of them.  It really was not hard to do, the hard part was waiting to get through with the class so we could start loving on the children that need it hte most!  Living in an apartment will not hinder your fostering, unless you do not have enough beds/bedrooms for your two and the other children you take in.  

Good luck!

Answer 2

contact your local children services or your church. Some Churches have foster care situation and or children's homes

Answer 3

Foster parenting is wonderful!  I have done it for over a year and it is the most rewarding thing that I have done.  I will tell you, it is difficult to do while taking college classes, as I finished my last two semesters while fostering.  Luckily I have a great husband who helped out a great deal with baths, cooking, cleaning, laundry, anyway, you get the point.  It isn't clear whether you are planning to wait until you are finished with classes, but if you are close, I would.  It is difficult to schedule appointments and visits between classes.

I live in Pa, so I am not completely sure what your requirements are.  We had to get a home study, reference letters, write a personal life history (for the home study), take training classes.  However, our agency licenses their families for foster parenting and adoption all at once, so we may have had to do more than some foster parents.  While some of the trainings we went through seemed sort of silly (like very common sense stuff, even for someone who has never had experience with a child), most of it was very helpful.  Of course, you will likely here some scary stories about what you may experience as a foster parent.  If your heart is set on doing it, don't let the stories scare you out of it.  Instead, ask your agency for names of current foster parents you can talk with to see what their experiences have been.  So far, my husband and I have never had a child we felt we couldn't handle in our home.

Hope this helps some.  Best of luck to you!  The world needs more good foster parents!

Answer 4

OK, you first have to graduate, if you are under the age of 25, in most states.  Then you contact the fostering agency, most likely the state children's services office where you live, or an agency they contract with for foster care.

You apply, get a homestudy done, go through training and home inspections, and if you are approved, you foster!  Most likely they will want a stay at home mom for an infant, and you do not have to own a home.  You just have to make one -- whether it is a house, apartment, etc.

Stability in work and life, healthy lifestyle, love and time!  The key ingredients!

Great aspiration!  Good luck, and expect your heart to be broken a time or two.

Answer 5

Well my mom & dad have been foster parents for 8 1/2 years. they just found and agency near where we live and walked in and began talkin to the FCC's, DHHR workers, and so on. they will explain there agency and tell you how everything works. The workers are called different things from state to state and agency to agency. You will have to take CPR and restraint classes and have inservice classes where you learn how to restrain kids when they go off (trust me sometimes kids really go off cause of all they've been through). Then they'll do the home study and stuff like that. Good luck and I hope your ready for a wild ride. Trust me, I know, I'm not a foster kid, but have lived in a home with foster kids since I was 5 and have had from ages 2 daysold until 17 old.

Answer 6

Contact your states local social services they are always needing help

Answer 7

A good place for you to start your journey is:

http://www.in.gov/dcs/foster/index.html

You don't have to own your own house, renting a house or an apartment is fine.  Friends of ours are college students and they do foster care.  We went through the classes with them & became licensed, too.

There are many options for foster parenting.  You can do it with an eye toward adoption, you can become a long term foster home, or you can do emergency or respite care.

We do emergency & respite care.  Most of the time children stay with us for less than a week.  The longest we've had a child in our home was a week, the shortest was overnight.  

We developed relationships with two of the teens we've had in our home & have become a visiting resource for them so they can take a break from the group home sometimes and visit with us.

It's a very rewarding thing to do & I can't imagine my life without having done it.

Btw, we have four kids of our own...two biological & two adopted internationally.  The kids all love having foster kids, too.

Each state has their own training & requirements, but generally as long as you're over the age of 19 or 20 and can be a good place for the kid(s) to be, you're fine!  Definitely call your state and check into it.

SG