Foster care questionaire question

cadgirl · September 2011

So I'm working on our 17 page (for each of us) questionaire from our licensing worker and came across this question... how would you answer it?

What characteristics and behaviors do you have in mind for a foster child coming into your home?

What characteristics and behaviors do you feel you could not accept?

*we are currently thinking age range 0-3 years old*

jenn5-26-07 · September 2011

1- be willing to be part of our family. If you have other kids in your house-be able to get along with other children.

2- we won't accept violence towards our animals. (with your age range I would probably add something about age appropriateness) Are you willing to take medically fragile? We would have a problem with a child with mobility chanllenges because of the layout of our house.

good luck!

cadgirl · September 2011

jenn5-26-07:
1- be willing to be part of our family. If you have other kids in your house-be able to get along with other children.

2- we won't accept violence towards our animals. (with your age range I would probably add something about age appropriateness) Are you willing to take medically fragile? We would have a problem with a child with mobility chanllenges because of the layout of our house.

good luck!

I hadn't thought about that, but I agree completely. We have 2 dogs and 3 cats.

Thanks for your input!

Cissi64 · September 2011

I know you said 0-3 but another thing to think about is sexualized behavior. A sexual abused 2 or 3yo may act out sexually because to them that is "normal". It is a tough thing to deal with and not everyone can handle it. You might also want to consider things like lying and stealing, bullying/physically agressive. you wouldn't think you would see it out of toddlers but you do. It is also helpful to include all the thing you cna't tolerate in case they call and pressure you to take older children ( You want us to take a 10 yo who sets fires? Don't you remember we said we didn't feel comfortable with that on our questionairre?) Not all agencies will do this but some do when they are desperate for a placement.

ctbride08 · September 2011

Even though you are thinking about 0-3, I would answer #2 contemplating any age.

So for us, it would include things like:

- violence towards animals

- fire starting

- severe encopresis/feces smearing

- certain medical complexities

cadgirl · September 2011

Thanks ladies! This has been very helpful!

pete2835 · October 2011

We had to consider our animals....and that we both work in schools...and we live near busy roads so we specified that we needed a kiddo who isn't violent toward animals, hasn't had sexualized behaviors towards other kiddos (since the child would come with us to work and we don't want any issues with our employers we figured this wasn't an ideal match) and kiddos who don't have a history of being "runners" (or bolting when upset, in trouble, etc). We also have narrow hallways in our home so we had to say no kiddos with wheelchairs, although we wish we wouldn't have had to put that parameter.

Mrs.Umm · October 2011

jenn5-26-07:
1- be willing to be part of our family. If you have other kids in your house-be able to get along with other children.

2- we won't accept violence towards our animals. (with your age range I would probably add something about age appropriateness) Are you willing to take medically fragile? We would have a problem with a child with mobility chanllenges because of the layout of our house.

good luck!

Violence towards animals and medical issues were our two main deal breakers. In a house with 5 pets, and 3 floors and no way to put in rams, we had to.

Ours was a checklist instead of an open-ended question, which made it a little easier. It included everything from swearing, lying, stealing, to violence, medical issues, sexualization, and visitation. Some of the kids already have set visitation with siblings/birth parents, and they wanted to make sure we were ok with maintaining those.

MrsSaltine · October 2011

Ours was a questionnaire that Mr Saltine and I had to fill out separately, but the general topics were:

Child Temperament (atypical reaction to newness, unusual hunger/eating/sleep patterns, uncooperative, etc)

Challenging Child Behaviors (frequent temper tantrums, overly agressive, vandalizing/destroying property, cruel treatment of animals, etc)

Medical/Emotional Conditions (allergies/asthma/nebulizer, diabetes, Hearing/Visually impaired, feeding tubes, FAS/FAE, developmental delayed, genetic predisposition for medical/psychiatric disorders, etc)

Learning/School Issues

Attachment Issues

Stress Related Behaviors (hoards food, eating disorder, stool smearing, day/nighttime wetting/soiling ages 5-18, etc)

Child Sexual Behaviors

Other (contact with siblings/extended family/birth parents/significant non-family members, acceptance of homosexuality, acceptance of behaviors associated with gender confusion, non-english speaking, etc)

Hope this helps

mattkati · October 2011

jenn5-26-07:

1- be willing to be part of our family. If you have other kids in your house-be able to get along with other children.

2- we won't accept violence towards our animals. (with your age range I would probably add something about age appropriateness)

We are also fostering/foster-adopting 0-3. I think what she said is perfect, and what we also stated.

EratMama · October 2011

ctbride08:
Even though you are thinking about 0-3, I would answer #2 contemplating any age.

So for us, it would include things like:

- violence towards animals

- fire starting

- severe encopresis/feces smearing

- certain medical complexities

Those were pretty much ours. And we put on there somewhere about known allergies to animals (dogs).

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