{"id":9683,"date":"2021-08-05T21:15:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T21:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.childrensbureau.org\/?p=9683"},"modified":"2025-02-25T12:05:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T17:05:52","slug":"considering-foster-care-placement-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyin.org\/cnh\/resources\/news-library\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Considering Foster Care Placement Options"},"content":{"rendered":"

So\u00a0some of you out there who are new\u00a0to\u00a0foster care,\u00a0or even just\u00a0considering it,\u00a0might be wondering how you decide what kind of placement to take. Honestly, it\u00a0often\u00a0depends on your comfort zone, your experience\u00a0and\u00a0your\u00a0available space.\u00a0But there is so much more that can play into a decision\u2026things that you never anticipated and that which may lead to a better fit than you ever imagined.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, when we began our foster care journey, we wanted to foster teens. We had both worked in high school ministry and knew what a joy and delight teens could be.\u00a0Often,\u00a0they get a bad rap, but they are lots of fun\u2026plus we knew there was a huge need\u00a0for homes to take in teenagers; by the way,\u00a0in case anyone is curious,\u00a0there\u00a0is<\/span>\u00a0STILL\u00a0<\/span>a huge need for homes willing to take in teenagers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0personally,\u00a0we knew that our\u00a0biological\u00a0boys were just entering the\u00a0teen\u00a0years,\u00a0and\u00a0we did not want to bring\u00a0in\u00a0kids\u00a0that would change the\u00a0birth\u00a0order.\u00a0I know to some of you that seems silly, and many people\u00a0mix up the birth order\u00a0and it\u2019s not a problem, but that was our personal preference.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, at the same time, I had had seven years of experience working in preschool and felt very comfortable with that age range\u00a0as well.\u00a0So,\u00a0when we initially said we would take two\u00a0children\u00a0that were\u00a0between\u00a02 to 4 years old, that was going to be my\u00a0jam for sure<\/span>. Plus\u00a0<\/span>this also guaranteed that we\u00a0wouldn\u2019t have to worry about dealing with\u00a0taking them to\u00a0school, at least initially, and it seemed the best fit for our family.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was how we kind of set our parameters at the outset. For a variety of reasons, other families would never ever want a preschooler\u2026they\u2019d\u00a0only want school-age. Or only want an infant.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As an aside,<\/span>\u00a0we knew for a fact we did\u00a0NOT\u00a0want an infant.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u00a0kind of\u00a0like our sleep so we did wave to introduce that\u00a0kind of\u00a0crazy train into the house. However, once we saw how long we were waiting and decided to open up our\u00a0parameters a\u00a0little bit, instead of going older, we went younger\u2026and\u00a0ended up with a three-month-old.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Much to our delight he slept through the night, but since he was failure to thrive and\u00a0needed to eat\u00a0every three hours, we had to set alarms so that we would wake up and feed him on schedule\u2026feedings which took an hour each and which he slept through. So at least HE was well-rested.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I jest (kind of), b<\/span>ut\u00a0seriously\u2026even though we could not see\u00a0it\u00a0at the time, once we got into a routine, he was a really great fit into our family\u2026and\u00a0that was completely unexpected. My older boys were homeschooling,\u00a0and\u00a0were old enough to be given their work and the opportunity to work independently; very little spoon-feeding of the work on my part, if for no other reason because I did not have time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it ended up being a blessing for all of us, because the\u00a0older boys\u00a0were so much better prepared for high school and college than they may have been otherwise.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So,\u00a0my point in telling you all this is that you can have it in your head what would be a great fit, and you might very well be right. But there are other possibilities that might fit really well also, especially ones you would never even consider.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On paper, a medically fragile, failure-to-thrive\u00a0infant did not look like he would mesh well into our family. But little did we know that we were completely wrong.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So have your parameters, have your vision,\u00a0your goal,\u00a0and your idea of\u00a0what the\u00a0perfect placement\u00a0would be, but when presented with\u00a0something\u00a0outside of that,\u00a0try to not\u00a0immediately dismiss it. Consider giving it a go, because you just never know where it could lead you.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kris<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So\u00a0some of you out there who are new\u00a0to\u00a0foster care,\u00a0or even just\u00a0considering it,\u00a0might be wondering how you decide what kind of placement to take. Honestly, it\u00a0often\u00a0depends on your comfort zone, your experience\u00a0and\u00a0your\u00a0available space.\u00a0But there is so much more that can play into a decision\u2026things that you never anticipated and that which may lead to a better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kriss-corner"],"yoast_head":"\nConsidering Foster Care Placement Options - Firefly Children and Family Alliance<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fireflyin.org\/cnh\/resources\/news-library\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Considering Foster Care Placement Options - Firefly Children and Family Alliance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So\u00a0some of you out there who are new\u00a0to\u00a0foster care,\u00a0or even just\u00a0considering it,\u00a0might be wondering how you decide what kind of placement to take. Honestly, it\u00a0often\u00a0depends on your comfort zone, your experience\u00a0and\u00a0your\u00a0available space.\u00a0But there is so much more that can play into a decision\u2026things that you never anticipated and that which may lead to a better […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fireflyin.org\/cnh\/resources\/news-library\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Firefly Children and Family Alliance\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-08-05T21:15:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-02-25T17:05:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Firefly Children and Family Alliance\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Firefly Children and Family Alliance\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/resources\\\/news-library\\\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/resources\\\/news-library\\\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Firefly Children and Family Alliance\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/4a0a717d05ab7bca77c74ce89ec295bf\"},\"headline\":\"Considering Foster Care Placement Options\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-05T21:15:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-02-25T17:05:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/resources\\\/news-library\\\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":686,\"articleSection\":[\"Kris' Corner\"],\"inLanguage\":\"cnh\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/resources\\\/news-library\\\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/fireflyin.org\\\/resources\\\/news-library\\\/considering-foster-care-placement-options\\\/\",\"name\":\"Considering Foster Care Placement Options - 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