by Ashley Bennett, Director of Trauma-Informed Care
If you’re reading this resource, you might be looking for ways to prepare your children to become a foster family. Or you might have already said YES and a new child’s entrance into your family may have shaken the foundation a bit.
Each member of your family might be experiencing a range of emotions from excitement to nerves to grief to anger. Welcoming a child into your home through foster care is a transition for everyone. Your new child may be grieving the loss of familiar things. He may feel uncomfortable in your home. He might be angry, struggling to give words to what he has experienced, unable to fully trust you yet. His history of neglect and abuse might leave him with needs you don’t feel prepared for, a history of survival strategies that while no longer needed in your home, kept him alive before he came to you.
But it’s not just your new child who might be struggling. Your forever children might wonder where they fit into this new family dynamic or be struggling in their relationship with this new sibling. They may be doubting your decision to foster and wonder if you’ve just made a terrible mistake.
These different feelings-they all make sense to me and it’s going to take time for everyone to adjust to one another. You are a new family. And with this new family is going to come a lot of growing pains.
There are certain things we can do to prepare our children for becoming a foster family. And there is a way we can show up with them when the realities of foster care don’t meet their expectations of foster care. This resource helps guide us through that process.
Access resource here.