Well, the first meeting definitely went better than I had anticipated. We met with Ms. Baptiste from Children's Home Society. She was great. She normally does post adoption work and educates. However due to a medical leave she is filling in this roll. For this I am glad. First we filled out a bunch of paperwork and then she conducted a thorough interview of Cris & I. We talked about our childhoods, our families and our relationship what we like to do ect.... We discussed what we were looking for and what we expected from this process. Ms. Baptiste was very helpful and I can tell that she is definately looking out for everyone's best interest. She spoke very candidly about issues that some children had but she was also positive about the good things. I can tell that things went well for us. She stated she really enjoyed spending time with us. She liked that we had the dogs as dogs are very theraputic for these children and she stated that homes with dogs have a much easier time adjusting.
She was also honest with us in saying that we need to be the ones to question everything and really do our research on any potential children. Talk to their foster parents, get their histories, if they have had multiple foster homes find out why. I am hoping she can stay with us. But there is a chance that we may get assigned to someone that does this all the time. I really like that she is the one that does the follow up and helps to get families to blend. I can tell that she is committed to this. She was telling us a story of how she stayed with one family for 4 years ( which is much longer than normal) I really like that about her.
From this meeting Cris & I decided that a girl between 3-8 would be preferred but we would be open to a boy.
I walked away feeling great about the first meeting. Next step we do finger printing and FBI/SBI background checks. Then we start our what they call M.A.P.P training. They teach you how to deal with the challenges that children in foster care have.
After that ends in May we will have our home study and then get matched.
She was also honest with us in saying that we need to be the ones to question everything and really do our research on any potential children. Talk to their foster parents, get their histories, if they have had multiple foster homes find out why. I am hoping she can stay with us. But there is a chance that we may get assigned to someone that does this all the time. I really like that she is the one that does the follow up and helps to get families to blend. I can tell that she is committed to this. She was telling us a story of how she stayed with one family for 4 years ( which is much longer than normal) I really like that about her.
From this meeting Cris & I decided that a girl between 3-8 would be preferred but we would be open to a boy.
I walked away feeling great about the first meeting. Next step we do finger printing and FBI/SBI background checks. Then we start our what they call M.A.P.P training. They teach you how to deal with the challenges that children in foster care have.
After that ends in May we will have our home study and then get matched.
Sounds like it went really well and you are heading in the right direction. May is so soon!!! What a very exciting time for you and Cris! YAY!
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