First placement

Respite care provides parents and other caregivers with short-term child care services that offer temporary relief, improve family stability, and reduce the risk of abuse or neglect. Respite can be planned or offered during emergencies or times of crisis. Respite may be available to foster, kinship, and adoptive families, as well as birth families in need of support. [Definition of Respite care]

And its not what I expected! I got a call asking if I could do respite care for 2 (or just 1 if that was all I could mange) girls, ages 11 and 10 for later on this month.

Of course I said bring it on, one of my goals is to meet other foster parents and build connections so this not only gives me a chance to have an "easy" start to foster parenting but also start putting some links in my communication chain ;)

So expect updates of how that goes. This might delay me being able to accept an actual placement but I'm not worried. I know that down the road I will need respite care myself so I want to pay it forward while I have the time, space and opportunity.

I would encourage any family that can't foster to still go through the process and become certified homes that can offer respite care. Foster parents need a break for various reasons and because you have to have approval first by a judge, then the birth parents and then your case worker before you can take foster kids on a trip or out of state- it becomes a necessary evil that your kids can't join you for every trip.

Also of note- the RD who was trying to arrange the respite care asked me if I had gone to the event "last night" and when I said I hadn't heard anything was going on, he sheepishly told me that there was a foster parent appreciation night. I laughed and said it didn't matter to me since I was only approved a few weeks ago. But then he told me there was an association meeting coming up I could attend- so moral of this story is to ASK your contact person for any dates or resources that involve foster parent meetings. They may not think to offer a new person the inside scoop.