Taking our first step to foster-to-adopt | God’s Encouragement through a Divine Appointment

In all my research for the first steps to take in this journey, I felt confused. There is so much to consider. The more I researched, the more overwhelmed I felt by information. At the time, we were also looking to buy a house. Finding a house during 2020 completely took over and the adoption research came to a pause. But after we moved into our new home, we “coincidentally” bumped into a coffee guy who happen to have foster kids (who are now adopted). I don’t even remember how we got on the topic of foster-to-adopt, but he told us about how they were happy with their current agency. Instead of stressing about the mountain of information to continue research, we decided that we would contact his agency.

It might seem risky to some to not understand everything there is to know before jumping into something that is life changing. However, I honestly felt like this “coincidental” random meeting was God guiding us in this, and it helped us to move forward confidently. Before we met him we prayed that God would lead us to someone to encourage in the faith, but it was us who actually needed encouraged, to keep taking steps in the direction God was leading us.  With that being said, we took the next step.

When we started working with our agency it was a big help! They helped us to stay organized with all the lists within lists of things to do, in order to get our foster-to-adopt license.

Here’s a brief overview:

1. Application and acceptance into our agency 
   The application includes your basic information plus fingerprints, drug test, and background checks. Our agency wanted to be sure that they were a good fit for us, and that we would be a good fit for them. Our agency invests a lot in future foster parents. They paid for the classes and the cost of the home study. If you don’t go with an agency, you can get licensed through the state.)
2. Classes
   6 weeks of training, CPR, and first-aid certification
3. Prepare your home Locked medicine cabinets, fire extinguishers, fire and health inspections, create fire escape plan, etc.
4. A passing home study interview 
   For me, the most stressful part of getting certified.

I know this all seems like a lot, but I am happy that it does help filter out people who aren’t fully committed to fostering. Plus, I do believe all of these requirements are the state’s best effort to create a safe home. I figure, if they have all these regulations it is probably because there was some type of accidents in the past.

The most time consuming is definitely the classes. I’m honestly really happy we were required to take them. The classes our agency required of us were Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI). These classes equipped us to be trauma-informed for kids who have come from “hard places”. We learned about the different effects trauma has on children’s brains. This really helped us to better understand how to build connection with kids whose trust have been destroyed by their previous care givers. With these children being uniquely sensitive we also learned of helpful methods to correct children. There were even classes that inform you of different techniques to help resolve conflict. These different methods can be used for all children and even adults. Even people who already had bio kids said, “I wish I would have taken these classes before having kids. They should make you take these classes before you leave the hospital”. Another member, of our class said he started using some of the TBRI methods with his co-workers and noted that it was having a positive effect on his conversations with his co-workers.

I loved hearing other people’s perspective and experiences. Not having any children of my own, it was so encouraging to hear the parents in my class say that TBRI was working with their kids. It was also great meeting other people who were on similar journey. What I loved most about these classes was the conversations that were sparked between my husband and I. We thought and talked about things that never crossed our minds. Sometimes those things were about raising children in a practical way and sometimes it was about God as a Good Father and The Way He parents us as His children. It was a different way that my husband and I bonded together and I’m thankful for it!

Another blessing about TBRI is that it consisted of biblical principles. Although TBRI is based on years of attachment, sensory processing, and neuroscience research, there was shockingly a lot of scripture mentioned. I was surprised to see this because our agency isn’t a Christian agency. The agency is actually quite secular — but because TBRI is so effective, this is the training method used for their foster parents. When I realized this, I felt like God really was guiding us in all this. Like He was truly teaching us how to parent our future children based on what is seen in scripture.

Although we’ve found TBRI so so so helpful, we still aren’t perfect parents. Everyday we’re in a process of learning how to parent our little ones, just like our foster children are learning.  Also, I strongly believe that praying for our foster children in our home has also been hugely impactful to everyone in our family. Practical methods, as well as, God working in each of our individual hearts is helping us all grow in the unique ways that we each need.  

Some videos and articles I had to review from class:

https://empoweredtoconnect.org/resources/