“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:2-8, NIV)
Taylor Making a Toast
Milano
The evening began at Union Station with a reception, moved through the link to Crown Center where they attended the play Our Town and then headed to the Milano Cafe for drinks and dessert. They ended the evening with pictures at the waterfall in the Hyatt Regency.
Claire Longabaugh and Taylor Campbell
Outside in Kansas City~It is a cloudy day, currently 67 degrees, but everything is very green and lush from all the rain.
I am thinking~That it has been so long since I updated my blog that I don’t know quite how to start.
I am thankful for~My family and for God’s character which is unchanging.
In my kitchen~All is quiet, clean dishes in the dishwasher need to be put away, unfortunately meals are not planned and I am consistently flying by the seat of my pants. Many times the question of what is for dinner is answered with well I am making it up as I go along.
I am wearing~Turquoise t-shirt, jeans, no shoes.
Last creative endeavor~ Planting flowers in the yard!
I am going~To try to get as much work as possible done around my house before I go back to work on June 28th.
Can’t wait for~Saturday’s Luau Birthday Party for our 13 year old foster daughter to be over. I can then relax about all that is involved in that! I just pray the weather holds, guests can make it, and all have a good time.
Family News~We are enjoying having Nicholas home for the summer, Taylor just completed his first summer baseball tournament and they were the Champions, both boys have special young ladies coming to visit us from out of state. The grandkids are doing great!
Current Read~ Get Outta My Face by Rick Horne, Can This Child Be Saved? by Foster Cline, M.D. & Cathy Helding, listening to The Associate by John Grisham
I am hearing~The Martha Stewart Show
I am hoping~To enjoy a quiet weekend at Lake of the Ozarks with the ladies in my family over Father’s Day weekend, yeah, I know it is terrible timing but it is what was available.
Around the house~Taylor started staining our deck last week and it is looking so much better, the plants are all thriving, even the weeds. Lots of work to do!
Simple pleasure~Summer bible study with the teen girls, they are amazingly open and I’m wondering if I was ever that dramatic and giggly.
Plans for the weekend~Staci Kok, Nicholas’ girlfriend is coming to stay, baseball tournament in Warrensburg, MO starts Thursday and lasts through Sunday for Taylor, both the foster kids have flag football games on Saturday then the big luau on Saturday night!!
I was tagged here to give 25 random facts about myself and then tag four friends, I have put off starting because I can’t think of that many interesting things to say about myself:
- I love movies, I grew up watching old movies late at night with my mom and have fond memories of those times. I watched two good movies this weekend: Gifted Hands the Ben Carson Story and Second Chance with Michael W. Smith.
- I love my four children and regret that I did not have more.
- My first job at age 14 was at a local restaurant “Maxwell Pancake House” that no longer exists. I waited tables and even did dishes, lots and lots of syrupy dishes.
- I was once a video store assistant manager, way back when Beta was being sold.
- I homeschooled my kids for over 10 years.
- I dreamed of restoring a big old home.
- I had a dog named Happy.
- I had a cat named WitchiePoo.
- As a preteen/teen I loved poetry.
- I guess I have always been a masochist- I tried out for a part in the school play my first year in a new city, new school, I had no idea what I was doing and I stunk. I tried out to be an Enid High School Aquaette and stunk, I’m sure there were more but I cannot for the life of me figure out why I tried. I sampled the piano, violin, french horn…
- I hate talking on the phone.
- I hate cold weather…life begins at 70 degrees.
- I love, love, love to read and always have but my reading choices have not always been the best. When Elizabeth George says to keep moving from good, to better, then best, let’s just say that I started pretty much on the really bad rung and am still working up.
- I love to be at home or traveling in a foreign country. Can you be more extreme?
- So far I have traveled to Canada; The Bahamas; Mali, West Africa; Germany; France; Italy; and Greece.
- The place I would most like to go back to is Paris. I went on a quick President’s Day Weekend visit and just got a taste, it left me wanting more.
- In seven years I will have been married twice as long as I wasn’t. You asked for random!
- I like to embroidery, cross stitch, sew, etc… but cannot knit or crochet.
- I started this list over a month ago…
- I am a new foster mom to a 10 year old and 13 year old!
- According to MissusSmartyPants I am a body shape B and a spring color season type.
- I am blessed with wonderful friends and family.
- Blogging is a new and neglected part of my life. Maybe I will get better at it eventually.
- I am very excited that our good friends Josh and Missi are expecting a new baby!!
- I am relieved I can take this list of random facts off my to do list!!! And am tagging Ginny, Missi,April,and Deanna, hopefully they have not already been tagged since I am behind reading their blogs.
Brent and I spent Saturday morning in training at MBCH:
Mandatory Reporting and Foster Parent Hotlines – To remind foster parents of their role in mandatory reporting and that they too can be hotlined 9:00 -10:00 AM (1) We have been told several times that it is not a matter of if we will ever get “hotlined” called in to the child abuse and neglect hotline but when we will get “hotlined.” Whether it is a disgruntled parent, someone who sees one of the kids in our care tantruming or a child making allegations of mistreatment.
Building Relationships through Communication – Reminding foster parents of the importance of clear communications to build relationships 10:00 – 11:00 AM (1) Different strategies for building relationships and communication like ways to be express empathy, genuineness, consistency, etc…
Confidentiality – To better understand how foster parents can ensure the confidentiality of information for children in their care 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM (1) As resource parents we will not be able to share any information about the children in our homes except on as as needed basis. We may not discuss their backgrounds, parent’s issues, current challenges, etc… even with our family members.
We received a call Thursday about a possible placement. In God’s sovereignty I did not receive the call and did not notice it until 5:00 that night. I called back and left a message. The next morning I was contacted and they found a possible foster family for these kids. There will be a preplacement visit Friday evening and if it goes well that that is that. If for some reason the family does not accept them then we are next in line for attempted placement. Please pray for this sibling group that the placement will work out for them.
During our PRIDE classes which are required by the state of Missouri we discussed many required topics. There were definitely times when we were given the opportunity to ask questions but you don’t really know what you don’t know. In hindsight I wish I had communicated what my hopes were for when we finished the class so I could have gotten feedback.
In a rather unorganized way here are some of the minor but time consuming glitches that have happened as we have been trying to finish up our requirements:
- Our case study worker was a contractor and therefore very busy working another full-time job.
- When our case study was sent from the worker to the offices there were additional questions they wanted answered as well as additional information that I had to gather and turn in. I think this is probably always going to be the case to some extent.
- The paperwork went to the licensing worker and it was discovered that the child abuse and neglect checks had not been done on Brent and I for Oklahoma where we formerly resided or on Nicholas in Iowa where he lives while he is going to school. They immediately requested ours and I had to send the paperwork to Nicholas at school to fill his request forms out. He then received the forms and didn’t get them filled out but brought them home with him days later, I filled them out and had him sign off so I could mail them. We were told that Oklahoma had given a possible four week time span for the paperwork to come back so that definitely blew having children by the holidays which was disappointing but fine. We received Nicholas’ results a couple of weeks later and then found out that Oklahoma doesn’t even have a registry so it was noted in our case study and that part was complete. What could we have done differently: keep track of all forms filled out and make sure that you see that the results were received by the licensing agency. Our agency gave us a list regularly of what was still outstanding but I did not do any comparisons to make sure nothing had slipped through the cracks. Make copies of every single thing you turn in to the agency and keep it all organized. We were asked for our first aid cards just this week. They had been copied way back when we took the classes but there was an inside portion that was not copied and is critical to showing what training we received. Thinking we would not need them again I have misplaced them so I had to call and request duplicate cards. This could have been avoided in two ways: I could have made sure that I provided complete copy in the first place instead of just bringing the cards and having the office copy them and I definitely should have done a better job of keeping track of the cards just in case.
- We got together on January 15th a month later than we expected to sign all our paperwork. This included contracts with both Missouri Baptist Children’s Home and Cornerstones of Care. The paperwork for COC was actually an application, which surprised me. I had no idea before that that there was anything but signatures required.
- I had been scoping out photolistings for months and had my list of children I wanted to get information on or submit my case study for possible matching for adoption. I contacted our licensing worker after we signed the paperwork and asked (silly me) about when we would receive a copy of our case study. She basically replied that we don’t receive a copy and that our case study was not an “adoption” case study it was just a foster care case study. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed, frustrated, etc.. . It seems that we do need to take the required Spaulding classes and have that information (maybe more) added to our case study to bring it to that point. I believe we could, and have, receive information on children within the state of Missouri but not out of state. I decided to take this as an indication that we should just go ahead and start to foster and see what children God sends our way. It may be that we only foster and it could be for the next two years or ten. One step at a time.
- If I had it to do over again I would definitely emphasize more that I wanted an adoption home study if that was my goal. I would also have put less of a limitation on my range of ages for children accepted. I kept hearing that sibling groups could be placed even outside your listed range, ours is ages 6-12 but my licensing worker has already told me that she prefers that the full acceptable range should be listed from the beginning. This is an area I have definitely flip flopped on throughout the process. My thoughts were initially that I should only accept school aged children because I work outside the home but it sounds like most of the time children would be in child care situations anyway so they would not suffer undulybecause I had to take advantage of the same system.
I am learning more every day and I am sure just as my perspective has changed many, many times during this process it will continue to do so. We are signed up for all the training we can find including the Spaulding classes and are praying for wisdom and strength for the challenges to come. We covet your prayers and appreciate so much all the support that has been given.
Even though we had all our paperwork turned in and contracts signed we really cannot receive cases without a DVN. According to our Licensing Worker ‘The DVN is your vendor number and means you are State approved.” I am learning as much since our classes ended as I was before just in a different way. You just don’t know what to ask, there is so much information. It reminds me of an extremely stupid/dangerous/painful stunt that I pulled when new on the police force. It is hard to imagine once you know more that you could have ever been so stupid or viewed a situation in the way that you did. As a reminder one of my goals was to record our foster care journey on this blog. That is why I have been rather detailed as to requirements etc…lately I have been discouraged so I did not want to discourage others from following this path. That is the last thing I would want to do. I have not been documenting some of the bumps in the road because of that. Now that I am seeing things more clearly I will try to catch up so to speak and will let you know the gory (not really) details so stay tuned.
We signed our homestudy and contracts tonight. We are officially foster parents with Cornerstones of Care/Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. We are signed up for Traditional Foster Care, Respite, and Emergency Care.
