Countersign Foster Application Made Easy

Georgia SPCA Foster Application form

hey everybody and welcome back to my channel in today's video we are going to be talking about the process of becoming a licensed foster parent a little while ago I posted a video telling you guys why my husband and I decided to become foster parents and answered a few questions we've been getting from you guys and in that video I kind of threw out the idea of doing a video talking about the process with you guys and I got some good responses lots of people said please do it and I understand why whatever I was going through the process I did a lot of research and I couldn't really find videos that answer the kind of questions that I had about specific things so that's why I made it for you guys today I'm just gonna go through and tell you the timeline from beginning to end what we were required to do it each step and what I would have done differently so I hope you guys enjoyed this video also in the description box I will leave timestamps for different parts of the video because maybe you have a question about the home study but you don't really care about hearing about the application so you can jump to the part that interest you the most so let's go ahead and get into it also by the way it's gonna be different every where you live um if you live in a different state as me even if we lived in the same state move in different counties what you have to go through to become a foster parent is gonna be different the social worker you get assigned is going to be different so just remember that your experience might not be just like mine anyway first step is the fill out application so you just need to go online to your local Social Services website and you can find an application we filled out our application in February and funny story it's a very long application it's like 15 pages it's not something at least for us that you can sit down and just fill out in 30 minutes it took us days because we'd have to look up certain stuff because you would ask us stuff we didn't even know like certain amounts on my husband's insurance for work information about our parents and their past and things like that so it took us a few days to fill it out we filled it out we meld it in and we waited and we didn't hear back for a while so we decided to reach out and make sure it made it to the right person which it didn't it got lost somewhere along the way we don't know if it got lost in the mail or got put into the wrong persons desk either way they didn't get applications so we had to redo it um and this comes in with tip number one make a copy of everything you give them if we would have made a copy of our application we could have easily copied that copy and sent it to them but instead we had to refill the whole thing out which was annoying so like I said make a copy of everything you give them you are going to do so much paperwork so much paperwork I'm so big copy of everything stuff you should expect on your application it's just general stuff at first you know your name your age your address your birthday your occupation your job history those sorts of things they want to know about your finances so they want to know how much both of you make how much your mortgages how much you spend a month on phones what your utilities lonely are and then personal things how much do you spend on the entertainment how much are your groceries how much do you spend on gas I think because they want to make sure you're not spending more than you're making so that you can financially support a child but yeah the application process isn't that bad it's pretty lengthy but it's free to send an application you don't have to pay anything for it so just send it in and you should hear back pretty soon like I said we send in our application in February and we got a letter back in March inviting us to the classes now just because you're invited to the classes does not mean you're gonna be a licensed foster parent that's just the first step is the classes and we start our classes in June we had them two nights a week three hours each class for about a month I think it was four weeks maybe five weeks um and honestly I was not that excited about the classes I was like man three hours that sounds long and it was long but it was awesome I feel like I learned so much from the classes um so our classes were taught by a few different social workers and they would take turns teaching the classes sometimes would be one of them or two of them and I loved all of them so much they all had four different personalities and four different teaching methods which I felt like was really nice and beneficial um because they had different approaches to how we talked about things how they address things I feel like was important to mention and I just like we learned so much from them um just one as a basic basic parenting like my husband and I have never had kids before this is gonna be our first time being parents at all and I feel like anyone that's getting pregnant should have to take a class like that because it was just so helpful to kind of have them put these scenarios in your head and help you kind of walk through okay how would I handle that or how would I do this or who would I call for support in this situation and it was awesome um you know I'm kind of shy and so I was kind of nervous about the class about meeting new people and one thing I would say to you is one thing I wish I would have done more now is to connect with people in your class because they're going through the same thing you're going through we did connect with another couple who we stayed in contact with and it's just nice to check in with them how's your home study going where are you at in the process things like that because you need a support system and we're very lucky that we have a family that supports this really well at a church that supports us really well but it's also important to connect with people who know exactly what you're going through because they're going through it too so definitely use the class as your advantage to meet other people who want to do the same thing you want to do um now in the class each class they gave us well at the first class they gave us a binder and each class they would give us a handout to put in our binder and it would be pretty thick and we would go through part of it in class and the new part of it at home it would have articles worksheets rules things like that um and we would do what depend on the class so we would normally do most of it in the class but be prepared their goodness have you do the rest as homework most of it you're not gonna turn in it's just for you and your spouse to do together and I know when people hear that they're like oh that means I don't have to do it you should do it um we learned so much from doing our homework and I know that sounds so lame but it really did but it gave us all these scenarios we haven't talked about before because we've never thought about him and so it's nice to kind of with my husband be like Oh what would you do in this situation and kind of see where we're on the same page where we differ and talk through those things that was really helpful and it was nice um because I would include articles and things wrote by kids who have been in the system Bart's parents that had kids in the system adoptive parents and it was just so neat to hear their side of things and what it's like for them and I think it just makes it easier to have compassion on every single person in the process I mean it's easy for me to have compassion for the kids but the beginning of our classes I didn't have a whole lot of compassion for birth families and the classes totally change that about me it just gave me a totally different mindset I guess a different view of birth parents and then different views of social workers and it was just awesome so I would say do your homework do the reading um and in class they're gonna do a lot of things that are gonna help you um like one thing that we did that stuck out really really stood out to me is our social worker that was teaching that night she had us all close her eyes and she read this story until a sprain it was happening to us and basically it was a story of something that had happened to a foster child and it sounds silly and when she was like explaining it always like this sounds like kind of weird like why are we doing this like I don't like I'm gonna learn from this it was crazy by the end like so many people in the class were at the point of Tears like it was very emotional um and it was nice because it kind of made us realize what its gonna be like for these kids you know when they come into your home it's like the best day for you um but it's the worst day for them you know they've been ripped away from the only family they know and that's sad but so things like that were really helpful we do role play situations those were cool and it would put us in small groups and give the small groups like a situation like here's this foster child here's their history here's what happened how would you address this as blank and them you know maybe they would put us in the role of the adoptive parents or foster parents or things like that and that was really cool I enjoyed getting to do that and kind of learn what other people in the class thought about different situations that was really neat but as you're going through the class they are going to give you different like assignments or things that you need to get done to go towards you being licensed so things like getting your fingerprints done getting your physicals done and they'll give you these forms at least they did for us slowly it's like you know a couple weeks and they're like okay here's your form to take to get your fingerprints done you can do this as slow as you want you could turn all this in at your last class or way after the classes are done it's just gonna hinder you it's just gonna be longer until your paperwork is sent to the state to be approved so we got stuff done as soon as they would send it like they would give us something we would go get that thing done and like I said it was easy stuff like the fingerprints we just had to go and be fingerprinted the physicals we had to make an appointment for but now other stuff was simple like checklist to get your home ready for your home study um forms to fill out if you had firearms just different stuff like that but it was all pretty easy stuff lots of paperwork um but my best advice would be to turn in those things as you get them because if you let it pile up it's gonna become a lot of forms like the checklist at the end to make sure you've done it all is like I think 20 items or something crazy like that so just do them as they give them to you that's gonna make it a lot easier on you and make the process a lot quicker - you're not gonna be waiting on those things to get done if you're doing them as you're going through the classes after our classes ended the end of July we moved on to the home study process which is what I was most worried about and what I most googled and YouTube searched about so let me give you some good home study advice whatever you're thinking it's gonna be like it's gonna be way easier than that I watched so many videos and everyone said don't worry it's not that bad you don't have to clean your whole house don't stress it's not that long it's not that scary they don't go through every drawer and all I heard was I had to clean my whole house was there gonna go through every drawer please don't be me it's not that bad the social worker is not there to see how good of a cleaner you are where does he all organized your sock drawer is they are there to make sure you have adequate space and to make sure it's safe for a child it's okay it's gonna be okay we had three home visits well I guess three home study visit two we're here at our home where she came here and one was at her office so in order the first one she came to was the longest this is when she walked through our home she wanted to see the home the room the kid was gonna live in which is this room the nursery and in here she was making sure we had a bed a dresser in a closet for each child we wanted to be licensed for and to make sure we had opening windows that were easy to open in this room and that the door shut that was awesome is looking for she didn't want to see my super organized clothing that I had taken time to do she didn't want to see you know the how many diapers we had or all these things she's want to make sure we had space for a child and we do um she wanted to see where guns were kept where medicine was kept because all those things had to be locked up separately she wanted to see all exits like the front door and the back door she want to see the backyard um she want to see where our knifes were and where our cleaners were she will make sure our cleaners were either walked away or put somewhere high which they were that was it it was very quick it was very simple there wasn't a whole lot to it she went to the bathroom and make sure the bathroom also had a window in it but other than that super simple super easy also while she was here she walked through to tell us anything she thought the fire marshal would look at she walked out of the fire marshal come out as well to inspect your home super easy too and we had her come before he came so she could tell us what he'd look for so she had a couple things she was like oh he probably won't like that I would fix it and so that was helpful to have her show us so we didn't have to waste a visit with the fire marshal and make him come out more than once but when she walked through the house she sat down on her couch and she interviewed us it was a long interview I think she was here like I don't know like hour and a half to two hours maybe including the walkthrough and get in her laptop setup and all that stuff but we talked about a lot of things um just be prepared they're gonna ask you things that most people that sell your couch do not ask you about um simple stuff you know they wouldn't about your childhood and your siblings but I also want to know about the deepest losses you've experienced in your sex life and all these different things your relationship and it's gonna get personal my best advice would be just be ready for it don't let anything shock you know it's gonna happen and be honest I don't even know why you would lie about anything to your social worker in the first place because they're only asking to make sure your safe place for a kid but also if you become licensed people are coming in and out of your home from DSS all the time so if you lie about something they're probably gonna figure it out so just be honest just tell them how you feel about things what you're okay taking what you're not okay taking they're gonna understand you know there was stuff that we told her that I'm sure wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear but we were honest and you should be honest too Sam um that was the first visit and then the next visit she came shouldn't have to walk through again she just interviewed us and this was really short maybe 45 minutes it was about like job history and marriage history like we've been married before and kids which we don't have kids with oh I got married once and we're young so we have more many jobs so that was really short for us it was like a 35 minute visit and then the last one was at the office so we went to her office and she interviewed us individually me alone then Jackson won and this was basically asking you know she asked me like do I think Jack's right be a parent do I have any fears about Jackson as a parent has he ever you know been physically or mentally emotionally abusive have I ever abused any substances have I ever been sexually abused just different things like that kind of personal questions I guess they think that you might would lie about in front of your spouse I don't know but that was really easy I was in her room for like five minutes and he was in there for like five minutes and that was it between those home visits like I said we have a fire marshal came out um where you live is going to greatly affect what he's looking for here he checked to make sure the windows opened in the nursery um he wanted to see all our barracks excuse me all our smoke detectors are common oxide protector and then oh we wanted to see our fire extinguisher and then we have to have a fire safety plan and emergency contact numbers posted on the fridge so he checked those he was super nice he was such a nice guy um and that was super easy so once all that was done late August mid to late August I guess our paperwork was sent off to the state they send them all the stuff from your interviews the fire marshal all your homework you had to turn in any assignment you did during their classes so they send all that in and you wait for the state to get back to you guys they might get back to you with a no which I doubt is gonna happen if your social worker took the time to do all that they wouldn't send it unless they thought you were gonna be approved and then they could also say yes and a preview or I come back with questions for your social worker they came back with one question for our social worker it's just a misunderstanding about some paperwork um and so she fixed it right away I went up and signed it and we sent it back and then on September 7th we found out we were approved to be licensed foster parents so we are super excited now we are just waiting for a placement so yeah just to review the timeline Gabby where'd we send in our application March we got invited to the classes June we took the classes um July we finished up our classes August we did three home studies and a fire marshal check and then in September we were afraid to be foster parents so it was very short timeline but I hope I answered kind of the questions that you guys might have had if you have any questions about any of those specific kind of um steps then we leave a comment down below or go find me on instagram at the lifestyle 14 I would love to message you and tell you more about the process or anything more in-depth that you want to know I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did a thumbs up and if you do don't forget to subscribe I will see you guys on Thursday bye