Home visits

I'm distracting myself from being 99% fed up with motherhood (not just the fostering aspects of it) by writing an informative post.


Home visits are done by caseworkers from our private agency.  We usually have one home visit per month.  Once per quarter, the caseworker is required to do an unscheduled home visit.  Different caseworkers have handled this differently.  Some have asked me my schedule for the next week, so they can semi-plan a time they're coming by.  Some have outright told me that they'll be coming by, which is probably not okay by agency policy.  Some have given me warning it's coming up the next month, but have fully surprised me with the visit.


But what do home visits usually involve?  For fostering young kids, we usually go over some of this list though not all every time:

• upcoming appointments for the child
• services needed for the child, like infant mental health programs or developmental programs
• our family needs, like permission for travel
• discussion of how parents are doing with their plans (can be specific or quite vague, sometimes not brought up)
• questions and discussions about the child's behavior
• discussion of sibling visits
• discussion of upcoming transitions
• seeing the child's room
• talking to the child by him or herself (only with Cricket, because she has been the only child verbal enough to do so)

Initial visits at the beginning of a placement involve a lot more paperwork including a clothing inventory and a dozen policies we've signed several times.


Caseworkers have a very difficult job, and I am very patient with home visits not being a completely convenient and ideal part of my fostering life.  I only got a "bad vibe" from one caseworker so far, and while others have made mistakes, I accept that that caseworkers and home visits will not be perfect.  Most of the issues we've had are not monumental.  One rushed the visits.  One rescheduled too often.  One showed bias against the parents that made me uncomfortable.  I will say that we have had one caseworker that was a rockstar for home visits, and I'll tell you why:

• She scheduled the visits well ahead of time.  One did need rescheduled, but she was flexible in rescheduling and did not wait until the end of the month, which leads me to:
• She avoided scheduling visits for the end of the month, which would cause problems if rescheduling was needed, pressuring me to say yes to home visit times that were not ideal.
• She arrived on time.
• She asked more than once if there was anything we needed from her.
• She took time to ask how things were going, how members of our family were adjusting, etc.
• She took time to make sure she knew enough about how the child was doing emotionally to know if more services were needed or not.

I should probably bake her some cookies.


What are your best and worst home visits?

Our role as advocates

I attended the first meeting of a foster parent advisory board for our agency.  It has me thinking again about how I can do more than just be a foster parent.  I started getting distracted by hopes of adoption during our first placement.  It's not to say that it's bad to hope for adoption.  I hope that children who are adopted are deeply wanted and hoped for.  But we realized we wanted to be "career foster parents," maybe not quite the 30-year type, but get a number of years and cases under our belts.  Be able to see more of what is going on as a whole and make a greater impact. I pray that instead of being run down by the system, we will have much more to give by hanging on and hanging in there.  I pray we will be able to consistently speak up for justice for kids, to get what we need to better care for kids.

The meeting was mainly about foster parent recruitment, support, and retention.  I'm very encouraged by the agency employee that is starting this group.  She is exactly who we need.  It was a small but good group to start things off, then the next meeting will invite any foster parents who want to be involved.  Should be interesting. I do feel a little silly about having two years of experience and being in an "advisory" role.  It's still really not that much experience.  It was a good meeting, though.*

There's also a statewide group of foster parents connecting to speak to legislature, to do more advocacy.  I've written my senator about one issue since becoming a foster parent.

What have you done advocacy-wise that wasn't about particular case, but the system?

*Bonus: I figured out one of the other foster parents at the meeting has Pterodactyl's younger siblings.  I got to chat with him and see a picture of the babies.  The one that looks quite a bit like Pterodactyl also has the same ultra-serious personality.  Love it.

Props to my agency

We foster through a private agency, and our experience has been overall quite positive.  It's especially the little gestures they do that make me feel that they recognize we are humans and parents going through this difficult experience, not just adults in a house with open beds, or glorified babysitters.  They've started to send us a card of appreciation after we take a new placement, just acknowledging how we open up our home to children.  Then today I received a card, just thanking us for the love we showed to Caterpillar and all these babies.  My love language is words, words, words, and it means so much to receive these little notes of encouragement.