I was going to pm this but then thought others may find it useful. I think it is wonderful that you are considering/have decided to foster. We have 2 foster children that we are hoping to soon adopt. These are our first (and probably last - pending the adoption) placements so I really can’t comment on anything more than this one experience. Everyone we have worked with at SMCDSS has been great. There is a process for everything that sometimes may seem backwards, very time consuming, and heart breaking for all involved but there are policies and laws that need to be followed to protect the children. There is a great network of foster parents in the county that meet monthly but you can contact anyone at any time for support. Each case is different but there are always people there to help.
You should go ahead and call social services to set up your training - they offer tri-county training on a scheduled basis - 240-895-7000. During your training you'll learn about different issues that can be facing the children you are opening your home to and how you can help these children and their families. In training you will also have projects to do that will become part of your application – researching your family tree, writing a narrative about yourself, and something else that I forget off the top of my head. Every adult – over age 18 – living in your home will have to take this training and become certified. Also as part of your application you will have to complete a long form type document, answer personal questions about your family life, provide credit information, submit a copy of your driving record, be fingerprinted (again anyone over 18), everyone in the house will need a current physical, have your well water tested, and have a fire marshal visit. I know it seems like a lot but trust me it wasn’t bad at all.
After that you’ll have a home study completed with a social worker coming to your home to interview everyone that lives there and then a simple inspection to basically just certify how many children you can/want to accept – every child needs to have their own bed and dresser, no bunk beds are allowed.
Once you have become certified you will be placed on a waiting list and when a child becomes available you will be notified – they will give you as much information as they have on the child – which most of the time is not much. You can request a certain age, sex, or race of a child but they will offer you anyone that is available, if you do not feel that you can properly care for the child they are offering you it is not bad or wrong to not accept any child into your home but please be open minded. We decided to foster b/c we always knew we wanted more children but the older our son grew the more we also knew that we didn't want a baby or any of the baby things such as diapers and formula, we decided we would like to have a 4-8 year old b/c we figured they would make a great playmate for our 9 y/o son, it didn't matter boy or girl but we only had one spare bedroom. We received an at the time 6 month old and her un-potty trained 2 year old brother – yes that would be double diaper duty. Looking back I'm thrilled we accepted them into our home - to our knowledge they were not abused, simply neglected and have no “issues” so to speak, in our case there is also very little parental involvement - we have the perfect placements for us. Speaking of “issues”, you can also choose to not accept certain types of cases - we knew we could not take on a troubled teen or a sexual abuse case because of having a younger child of our own - we prepared him for different scenarios but there were some things we didn't want to have to discuss with him at this time so we figured we just wouldn't expose him to them. We are also a 2 working parent family so we knew we could not take care of a medical/special needs child. You can also decide if you want to simply foster children or if you would like to be a foster/adoptive family - the goal of the foster care system is reunification of families but sometimes that is just not feasible.
There is a ton more information but I think this should be enough to get you started.
