dipping my toe in

[SquidgyBrain]

Hi

I have just posted off my interested in fostering form today - very excited and nervous!

Just wanted to say hi really and get my feet wet

good luck, hope it goes well

Good luck... before you get approved it can feel like forever but once its all done feels GREAT!

thanks guys,

well I got a lovely email yesterday from the social work department, telling me someone will be in contact after the new year to arrange to come and meet us all

and that the training is set for the beginning of Feb if they want us to go ahead and we still want to do it

I am so excited about it.

I have been reading through the threads on here and it has really given me a good feeling for how fostering works, the good bits and the bad.

hoping you all have a lovely holiday

Well done for taking the plunge come on in the waters lovely. Nothing beats that first phone call after you have been approved asking you have you got room to take a child, I still get a buzz after 18 years of it. It is an amazing privelidge to be able to make a difference to a child's life. Good Luck and God Bless. p.s. tried to do you a smiley face but failed miserably

well done you for doing this, I was in foster care as a teenager (because I was a brat to be honest) and I will NEVER forget her. she saved my life and my relationship with my mum, we are now very close, we needed that break of a few months from each other
Good luck to you x

Hi,

We are nearly at the end of our assesment. it does seem like forever since we first showed intrest, (back in June) but we are still so excited. We did our training in october.

I hope it all goes ok for you.

thanks ladies for all the kind words

Social worker called today and was trying to sort out coming tomorrow but with my DH in a different country this week thanfully that isn't possible!

So they are coming next Wednesday - which gives me a week to panic and clean and tidy like a mad thing!

Well 2 of the SW team came and met with our family today and we have been accepted on the prep course that is held the first wkend in Feb, the time scale they have given us (if it all goes well) is 6mths which is much shorter than we thought but still feel that it is the right time for us now

The meeting (for others in the same boat) was really informal, they came in I made coffee and we sat and chatted for a while and they chatted to the kids. They didn't ask to see the house - but I offered and they said they could do that today - but it really was a quick look round - they didn't inspect the skirting board as my mother warned me they would

so that is us on the first rung of the ladder

Glda it went well for you as remember reading this before Christmas - its the microwave they check !

LOL - SAY I cleaned there ;) I cleaned EVERYWHERE!

Well we had a residential prep course this weekend - and it was amazing and I got alot out of it and it was fun too

Next step is another 2 hour prep where the medical officer will be there - then another home visit - and if we cut it we will be invited to apply

feels nice to be started on the path

Hi there, I too am in the process of becoming a foster carer, we are in the middle of our comprehensive assessment at the moment, and doing a 'preparing to foster course'.

I can't wait to be all ready for the children. Our spare room has bunks in so we are happy to take in siblings, which we are told is a real plus.

Hi everyone

Well things never seem to go quite to plan do they lol.

We did the 2 hour prep with the medical officer, and had a follow up meeting with the social work team, who were lovely and said very lovely things about us as a family but they have told us that they think we would make great foster parents but they don't think that it is the right time to apply due to the ages of our children at the moment.

Both me and my husband feel that this is the right time to apply, and although we can understand where the team are coming from, we have always viewed our decission to apply to foster as one of a family not as indivuals and have thought long and hard about how it would affect our own kids (aged 6, almost 5 and 2.5)

they came our to tell us their decission last Friday, so we spent a lot of the weekend talking to our kid, talking to our parents, talking to friends and they all seemed to agree with us, so we called the social work team yesterday and they were more than happy to discuss things again. We decided that the best way forwards would be for us to send an email, and allow them some time to think about our points then get together again and have another chat.

Im not building my hopes up that they will change their minds but I feel we would be doing ourselves a dis-service if we didn't give it one more try

We contacted them and they have welcomed our appeal, the senior SW was on holiday so once she gets back they will discuss it and get back to us.

But if they are deffering us for a year or so that is ok too