Assigned Our Case Manager / May Get a 3-Year-Old for Respite

Thursday, March 4, 2010


Certified!
Like we mentioned last Thursday, February 25th we got officially certified by Covenant Kids for Foster / Adoption on Friday the 26th.

Handbook Training
This Monday we had our Foster / Adoptive Parent Handbook training by Travis over the phone. This hour-long training covers just the highlights of the brand new 2 1/2" binder that we got in the mail on Monday. Melinda actually made it through the whole thing in one day. I got through about 80% of it before our meeting (can you say, 3:00 AM reading!). Fortunately, we have seen almost all of this during the months of training, so it was an easy read.

Case Manager Assigned
A few hours ago we were assigned our official case manager, Erin. She will get to know us VERY well since we will see her very often throughout the foster and adoption processes - at least once a month.

Respite Care
Cynthia, an acquaintance of ours that we have gotten to know well through e-mail and a mutual friend just got "placed" with a 3-year-old. That means she got a new foster child. It is one week away from Spring Break and she already had set plans before receiving the foster child. We, on the other hand, are staying here and rebuilding the entire fence in Cedar (one of last of our backyard projects).

Cynthia contacted us about possibly being a respite home for her for the week she is gone. We are working out all the arrangements between her licensing agency and ours. There are very real contractual agreements in these situations. Fortunately, CK and her agency think they can work it out.

What does this means for us?
1. We get to "test-flight" a week with a three-year-old (been there and done that 17 years ago, but it will be different with Melinda and hopefully the lessons we have learned).

2. We will quickly get to see if we really got everything we need to take care of / entertain an infant. (I can hardly wait to try out all the audio books, real books, puppets, games and Disney and Pixar DVD's).

3. Under a new rule, we are required to respite or foster care for a minimum of 30 hours before we can be placed with a "moderate level" child. This should provide us with that documented time.