What’s wrong with us?

Random people have been asking how the foster care stuff is going. Its not. 🙁

The way the system works is the state sends out a profile of a kid or a sibling group to all the agencies. There are probably 30 or so agencies in the Phoenix area. Then the agencies match up the profile with the families they have and if they have a match they call that family to make sure they are willing and able to take that child or group that day and give them any info they have. If the family says yes, the agency submits them as a potential placement. The state then collects all the potentials (up to one from each agency) and picks the “best” family. They don’t have the greatest criteria for matching, sometimes the family they pick isn’t really the best for the child. Right now the criteria that seems to have highest priority is zip code. Yes, they match children up with potential families based on location first then other things.

We have probably been called on an average of 3 children a week since mid-Jan. We have said yes to all of them except two when I was out of town for Grandma’s funeral. That means we have been submitted into the pot but haven’t been picked. My logical brain knows there are lots of reasons why. The primary reason being that most of the children we’ve been called on have been part of sibling groups. If the state gets a family that will take them all, they will prioritize them. Second being location. Our agency usually tells us the zip code the children are coming out of and most of them have not been very close to our area. Another thing we have been told is that overall it has been very slow compared to other years. But even knowing all of that, we still feel a bit rejected and not good enough.

Other thoughts start to come into the picture as well.
1) Does God have something else he wants us to be doing right now? I keep asking and I keep getting the feeling we’re doing what he wants us to. I don’t know if that means specifically in regards to foster care, we will get a placement or if what we are doing with our kids and our small groups right now is where we are supposed to be. I definitely felt that it was a blessing we didn’t have a foster placement when Grandma passed away because it was so nice to be free to go to the funeral. And Nate and the kids had a great trip to Tx at the same time. Recently I freaked out about maybe being pregnant again even though there wasn’t a high possibility. I don’t think I’m ready for that quite yet (would like a few more months to drink as much caffeine as I want), but another kiddo is a possibility in the future. School has been going well and hasn’t been that big of an adjustment time wise and planning wise.
2) Is our criteria wrong? We’re on the list for 5-10 yr old. Hoping for school age. We’re pretty wide open on all the behavioral problems and most of the medical conditions. We’re not certified for the children who need the real in-depth care so we don’t get called on them. I really thought we would get called more for the older kids, since it seems like there are less families willing to take them, and maybe we have been. One of the children this week was autistic. I said yes, but had to look it up after I got off the phone to see what I might have in store for me. Is there something we need to be preparing for? Should we open it up to taking two kids? This is a personal choice right now, we technically could take two per our license and probably do have the room for them if they are the same gender. We’ve had 5 kids for the weekend before and have done 4 fairly often. We know a lot of people who have 4 kids. Just not sure if that’s something we really want to do yet.

I’ve been attempting to keep the guest room available and we’ve been working on getting H and B to nap in the same room. That hasn’t been working great, but that is the subject of a different post. You know how the best way to get it to rain is to wash your car? Maybe I should get out a puzzle and try to work on it in that room.

So what’s wrong with us? Probably nothing (at least in this area), but if you are one of those who have been asking about our foster care situation, please give us a hug and remind us that God is in control and we’ll get the one He has chosen for us so we can make a difference in their life (and maybe so they can make a difference in ours). Or maybe writing this post will initiate the butterfly effect. 😉 I did just get a call, and said yes, but is unlikely for a lot of the above reasons.