So, last week Michael and I began taking foster parenting classes again, this time with CSI. We've basically been without an agency for a year since we resigned from our last one. Our license was set to expire in December, so CSI requested that we take the classes again, especially to learn their way of doing things.
Despite the time commitment (30 hours over ten weeks), we were happy to do it. Our last class was hurried and shortened, and we never thought we got enough out of it. Especially once we had a placement.
Already last week we felt better about this agency and this class. The instructors are very experienced and were very good. They were also more straightforward about the challenges than what I remember hearing before. I especially liked this statement from one of them,
Every child in foster care is uncomfortable every day. I'm going to make you uncomfortable every week.
Last week's class was an overview and introduction, so not a lot that was new for us in the actual material.
We enjoyed meeting the other parents, including another couple who came originally from Oklahoma.
Today I spent a few hours filling out paperwork. Again. Counting the adoption agency, this is now the third time in two years that we've filled out oodles of documents--background checks, personal profiles, statements of agreement with policies, etc. I'm resigned to it.
But my contrary nature emerges. For instance, my answer to the question "What was the biggest disappointmen or loss you have had in your life and how did you cope with it?" I wrote
("Cope" is a stupid word, by the way.) In three lines [the amount of space provided] I can't answer what it means, has meant, and might in the future mean that my father died in 1990.
-- Scott