Truth, lies, and sabotage. These are the three words that come to my mind when I think about the process that my ex-husband and I went through to become certified foster parents. As I shared in my previous post: https://strengthinmystory.com/when-support-is-not-what-you-receive/, my ex-husband and I had decided that we wanted to become foster parents. When we made this decision we knew we would have to go through an approval and training process to make sure that we were ready and a good fit. This approval process requires three different home study appointments, referrals, and completion of training. The home study appointments include:
- A family interview- Where they interview all the adults in the home together. The goal is to determine what your family’s priorities are and why you want to become foster parents.
- Separate interviews: Where they individually interview all the adults in the home. The goal is to determine whether you are all on the same page and if you are aware of anything that your spouse or other adults in your home may be lying about or forgetting about.
- Safety Walkthrough- Where they assess your home to make sure everything is up to code. (i.e. do you have enough rooms/beds, hazardous items locked, outlet plugs covered, etc.). The goal of this is make sure that your physical home environment is safe for the foster children who will be coming into your home.
Lies & Sabotage
Throughout this process my ex-husband found ways to try to sabotage us. I did not recognize these things as sabotage at the time, but with the help of my therapists, this is something that I have learned.
One of the ways that he tried to sabotage us was through the referral process. We each had to have a family member and a friend/co-worker referral. The family referral for him, was supposed to be from his brother. He had given me the information for his brother. I received a call from the agency saying that they had been trying for weeks to get ahold of his brother, but couldn’t. Turns out, he gave me the wrong phone number.
The other big way that he tried to sabotage us was during the separate interview process. We both talked after our separate interviews and shared our answers with each other and it seemed like we were on the same page. Then I received the paperwork from the interview process revealing that he smoked weed before we met. I called him when I read this because I thought it was a mistake. We talked about everything, why would he hide that from me, but tell the foster agency? Especially because he revealed that no one who was still alive knew that he ever smoked weed. If he hadn’t done it since, and no one knew, why share about it to our foster agency?
Truth
The truth of it is, he never wanted to be a foster parent. He never wanted kids. He wanted me to think that he did because building a family and taking care of kids is important to me. If I thought that he wanted the same thing, than I would be more likely to stay in the relationship with him. However, he was trying to find ways to manipulate the system, so that he would never have to parent. He thought if we didn’t have the referral from his brother or if the agency knew that he had used drugs, that we wouldn’t be approved. From sabotage in the approval process to later refusing to hear or accept referrals for children whom we could have accepted into our home, it is clear that he didn’t truly want to build a family with me.
How You Can Become a Foster Parent
In the future, once I have overcome the traumas that I have experienced, I would like to become a foster parent again. There is such a great need for foster parents and safe homes for children to be in, even if it is just for a brief amount of time. If you are interested in starting this process you can look into a variety of agencies, but here are two in the state of Kentucky that you can explore:
- NECCO Private Therapeutic Agency- https://www.necco.org/
- Kentucky State Foster Agency- https://prd.webapps.chfs.ky.gov/kyfaces
Even if fostering is not for you, there are still so many ways that you can be impactful, from showing support to families who are going through this process, to donating to foster closets, and even being an advocate for children in the court system.
If you have questions about the foster care process that I went through, leave them in the comments and I am happy to share more.
