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Being a foster parent is a very rewarding
experience that helps your community, sets a wonderful example for
your family by teaching them charity and responsibility, and most
importantly, allows a neglected or abused child to experience
normal, stable, and caring family life.
Montague County has eight times more kids in
foster care than we have foster homes. This imbalance has required
that many of our children are placed in homes and facilities as much
as 150 miles away, making the weekly supervised visits with their
biological parents a hardship for both the kids and their social
workers.
Becoming a foster parent requires that you
attend a 1 ½ hour orientation meeting, often held locally, where the
program is outlined in detail, and your specific questions can be
answered. To proceed further you must consent to a background check
that would show all members living in the home to be free of felony
and child abuse convictions. The next step would be to attend ten 3
hour training sessions during which a home study would be conducted
by CPS or a qualified agency to verify that the home environment is
safe and healthy. As soon as this is completed and approved, you
become licensed to accept children.
You will then be contacted as children become
available, and after hearing the particulars of each case, you may
accept or decline as circumstances indicate. Most of our kids are
preschoolers and some are infants, so it is entirely appropriate to
establish guidelines that fit your situation, such as no infants, or
only kids younger than my own, etc. Most of our foster parents are
married couples with kids of their own, but qualifying single adults
are eligible also.
If this is something that appeals to you, call
the Montague County Child Welfare Board during normal office hours
at 894 3999 to get more information. You can change a child’s life
and add a wonderful dimension to your own! |
