While adoption can be an exciting, learning experience, raising a foster child is different. It’s for the short term, so you have to be ready to let this child go to his or her birth parents or permanent parents. What does it take to be a foster parent? What help can you get? Let’s find out.

Are you ready?
Fostering is not easy. This may put an immense strain on your family. Yet there are rewards for parents who help a child along in his or her journey.

The important thing is to not go into fostering blind. Be prepared for situations, for stress, and to ask for help when needed. You should always have a strong support system in place to help and protect the foster child. For example, if you or your spouse are gone on a regular basis for a job, how will the foster child handle one parent being gone? Who can watch over the child when both foster parents are incapable – a family member or friend? Plan for these eventualities. An agency can ensure you have a professional support system, but you do need help from loved ones.

Can you support this child?
Instead of support via money, you may consider how you support this child emotionally. In many cases foster children are past their toddler years, have had both good and bad experiences, and will need you to be patient, to show love, to teach, and to listen.

What attitude does the child have?
By emotionally supporting the child, you may have to address previous issues. For example, an older child who’s been in and out of the system may have abandonment issues (which is much more complex than we can go over). The child may treat you, initially, in a mean way, or be the opposite – start out as happy as can be and then turn resentful. There are as many situations as children on the world. How you learn to handle this child’s attitude toward you is crucial.

How do the rest of the family feel?
If you already have children, how do they feel about you bringing in a foster child? Before you even get into this process, you should of course discuss the issue with any others who live in the home. If you have children, you need their opinions and concerns. If your spouse is unsure of fostering a child, you need to sit down and discuss it. As this child needs to be treated fairly, it’s important to remember everyone else in the family too.

Are you considering adopting?
Some foster parents end up wanting to adopt a child instead of fostering them. You can find many children in the foster system open to adoption. You have other means of adoption too. If you are ready for a more permanent addition to the family, consider adopting. But fostering a child is unique in how you help in the short term, remembering you have to eventually say goodbye.

In Texas, and across the country, there is a great need for more foster care families to care for the growing number of children in the foster care system. It may seem intimidating to go through the process, but the benefits for you and the child are immeasurable. Below are some of the things you need to know if you are interested in becoming a foster parent in Texas.

The foster care parent need not be married, they can be single. However, they must also meet other requirements, such as being at least 21 years old, a responsible mature adult and financially stable.

There are so many children in the foster care system in the state of Texas and more and more foster care families are needed every day. Once the decision is made to become a foster care parent an application is to be filled out and the prospective foster care parents are asked to provide proof of marriage and/or divorce, share their personal backgrounds and lifestyles, and provide relative and non-relative references on their behalf.

The applicant(s) must also agree to a home study where a staff member from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services comes to their home and visits with them and all other household members. This enables the staff to know if these are appropriate living situations for the foster children placed in their homes.

The state’s main concern is the safety of the children placed in foster homes. All adults in the prospective home must complete an abuse and/or neglect check along with a complete criminal history background check. The prospective foster parents need to attend free training also to learn about issues of neglected and abused children, CPR/First Aid Certification and agree to 20 hours or more of continuing education every year. The training they receive will assist them with the various issues that will arise once a foster child is placed in their home.

Foster parents must agree to a nonphysical discipline policy in their homes at all times. They must also allow no more than six children in the home at one time, and this does include their own children. They also must provide adequate sleeping space for each child.

All pets residing in the home must also have all vaccinations. Foster care parents are also required to submit to health, fire, and safety inspections of their homes on a regular basis. The safety and health of the children is always the utmost concern for the state when they place these children in foster homes. The state agency is charged with making sure that the children are placed in very competent, trained and loving hands.

Foster care parents are instrumental in the nurturing and loving care of these children who are placed in their homes. They become the child’s advocate in their communities and their schools. They protect and care for these children as if they were their own. This means taking care to see that these children receive proper medical care, have help adjusting to life’s many situations and providing these children a positive role model that will helps them later on in life.

Before being placed in a foster home most of these children have never known a positive, healthy, loving home structure, with rules and guidelines for living a productive life. Foster homes play a very big part in educating these children about the many important life lessons, social etiquette, social graces and opportunities that are available to them.

These children often arrive in foster homes with no hope and no desire to strive to be better. Without hope, they are doomed. The foster families, that so loving take in these children, teach them that there is hope and there are better solutions to life’s problems than they currently have available. These foster care homes teach them life skills that they can use throughout their lives.