How Camelot Care Centers Help Kids In Foster Care
June 21, 2019
What To Expect With Your First Foster Care Placement
July 19, 2019
Taking the leap to commit to foster parenting is a big decision. Inviting a new person into your home means your current life will change, and your foster child will need your attention just as much as the other commitments already in your life. Here are five ways to know when you’re ready to be a foster parent.
You Practice What You Preach
Perhaps you have supported foster families and the cause to help children your entire adult life. While support is one thing, choosing to parent is a whole other ballpark. If you are able to envision a new life where you actively help to care for a child in need, then foster parenting may be for you. If you examine your situation and you realistically know that you are too busy for any more commitments, then foster parenting may not be the right choice for now.
You Have A Stable Foundation
Knowing whom you are and having your life aligned with your own goals is important before committing to foster parenting. Having a stable career that you enjoy as well as hobbies that fulfill your life is important, too. Fostering a child should not completely take over. By committing to fostering, you are also committing to staying true to yourself and maintaining your stable foundation.
You Do Well With Change
Adopting flexibility is important when taking on a foster child. In some cases, a foster child’s situation may change quickly. Your foster child may also have unpredictable mood-swings due to their background and having been uprooted. You may also be dealing with a child who comes from a home of abuse or a place of trauma. Learning to be flexible is important, since you never know when you will have to change up your current schedule to accommodate the needs of your foster child.
You Have A Sense Of Responsibility
While fostering is a selfless undertaking, you must look at the bigger picture beyond helping a child in need. Deciding whether to foster or not means examining yourself and your own actions. Are you responsible as far as attending appointments? Are you great at showing up on time and giving it your all? While none of us are perfect, it is important that you maintain a sense of responsibility as a foster parent. Your foster child will look up to you as a role model, so you must set a good example.
You Are Determined To Persevere.
Like traditional parenting, you can never be as prepared as you would like to be when foster parenting. You can have the guest bedroom perfectly setup and your schedule cleared and still run into bumps down the road. A willingness to persevere is important when foster parenting. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, but you get back up each time and teach your foster child the same.
Foster parents are needed. If you feel that you would make a good fit as a foster parent, consider reaching out to Camelot Care Centers in Illinois (or a foster agency in your state) today.
Every child needs and deserves to grow up safe and protected from abuse and neglect, and caring foster parents offer children support and stability when they need it most. At Camelot Care Centers, we specialize in higher-level foster care for children and adolescents that need extra support. We partner with our foster parents/homes to provide trauma informed care and additional services, including in-home counseling, parent support and training, tele-psychiatry, and therapeutic mentoring, to maintain children at the least restrictive, yet most appropriate level of care. Camelot Care Centers (“Camelot”) is a Child Welfare Agency licensed by the State of Illinois, a member of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY), and is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA).
