TTF FIRST,
Thanks so much for telling me this, I was getting so worried that I was the only big family out there trying to foster... Can I ask if you know how old our your friends bio children and how old is there foster children..
We have been told we can only foster 0 to 2 at the start because my littlest is two.
Any other information would be lovely, did they had it hard to get excepted to foster ?
And we're there children young when they started to foster ?
Sorry about the loads of questions, I am just so excited to find out any information that might help me, I am also going to ask my children's school if I can help with story time or going in to help with a maths lesson.( I only get 2 mornings a week without LO )
Thanks so much and hope to speak to you soon.xx
Also if there is any more big family who foster I would love to hear from you..
It sounds like your agency subscribes to the theory of birth order. Some people believe that changing birth order can cause problems.
Keep in mind that all my information is about the Canadian system so I don't know if it works the same in other areas.
My friend was in a unique situation where she worked with kids before fostering so she had lots of experience.
When she started fostering she didn't have any kids. When we start fostering here we get to choose the age of the children we work with. I have never heard of anyone being limited to an age. She ended up having kids of her own (twins) while she was fostering 4 teens. She continued to foster teens. There was a relationship breakdown and eventually she married someone with their own three kids. At this time the kids are about 7 (twins) and the other three are teens and much older. They now choose to foster 6-8 year olds.
I would say defiantly don't stress over being "limited" to 0-2. We started with infants and since we had a crib and all our worker listed us 0-3 so we could get use of the baby stuff. 0-3 seems to be a wide range because we don't have any problem getting kids. Many people don't want that age because it's a lot of work. We get a lot of newborns from the hospital. You could get a lot of turn around at that age because I believe that workers are cautious about leaving young ones in a questionable situation so they may be taken quicker. Things get resolved and they go home. It's not always the case though.
We were only accepting 1 child at a time for a while and we had a child we received at 5 months. Once she was around 10 months we said we would take another child. Two weeks later we received a 2 week old. We haven't received kids over 9 months so we don't get close to 3 years.
We have a rule in Canada that a child under 6 is only supposed to stay in care 1 year. At the one year mark the child is supposed to either go home or go for adoption. This is why there is quicker turn over. But then it's the courts. My little one is 10 months and they don't know what the plan is for the 1 year mark.
I like taking infants because there are less behavioural issues and you don't experience the psychological damage that the older kids have experienced. You would be amazed/scared to see what you have to deal with when you get older than about 2. The kids that I get are just average infants and they don't know what is going on. Keep in mind that there are many infants that you could get that have extremely high needs ie. drug addicted, alcohol exposure, and delivered preterm. But I would imagine you would be able to decide if that is something that you are able to handle.
Another think that you have to remember about infants is that the parents get more visits. I have had kids get up to 3 visits per week. More visits are required with the younger children in order to retain the bond.
Well I think that should answer all your questions, I know I went on a bit. If you have any other questions about fostering I can answer based on my Canadian experience.