![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I guess I haven't mentioned that we're taking in a foster child. Not something I ever thought I would do, honestly. But this specific child, well, it just had to be.
I found out about him through someone at DHR who found me as a contact in this area for Asperger's. She'd been looking all over for a "placement" for this young man. His name is Shelby, He's 19 (In fact, his birthday is one day after Thomas's), and has Asperger's, and is over 6' tall, like Thomas. It seems that it's harder to find a placement for a big teenage boy. I sent the info and request out to my lists, and such.
Then I started thinking about how really, we were the perfect place for him to be. For various and sundry reasons. (our experience with AS, we knew what it was like to have to teenage boys, and one of those was completely out of the house now, so we had the room and all, etc) I approached Mark, and somewhat to my surprise, he was immediately on board. Then, of course, I asked Thomas how he felt (and if had had the least amount of negative feeling about it, of course it would have been a no go). He thought it was fine, might be fun, he could be the big brother, etc. Thomas is much more socially/emotionally advanced than Shelby, since Thomas has had intervention and training and support since he was a baby, while Shelby was undiagnosed until later, and then there has been all that being shuffled around in the system. so maybe he could be mentor. And since Shelby is the "talky" kind of AS, he might bring Thomas out a bit.
Yes, we've met him. All three of us went over there (the county next to ours) and we met at DHR. He's a really sweet kid. yes, quite tall, and big, and he has light red hair. He seemed to like us, and thought he'd like to be our foster child.
So now, we are in the process of 11 weeks of classes, having our fingerprints sent to the FBI and the ABI, and being checked out in the Child Abuse Network, and trying to get our house to the safety standards necessary to be foster parents [if everyone had to do this to be parents, there'd be alot fewer babies born, and no need for DHR], and filling out paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, and taking pictures of the house and all the pets and things, so that Shelby will have an idea of what he's getting into, and vaccinating all 4 house cats, and I'm going to have to replace my lost Social Security Card, so they can have a copy on file, and on and on. And I have to clear out the bedroom I'm giving him, which is not Mat's, I didn't want Mat to feel to replaced, but is that room where we put things we can't find a spot for, or are "temporarily" there for say the last five years... and get a bed/mattress/etc.
Since Shelby's still classified as a child, I have to make my home safe enough for a 5 year old. There's only one set of standards for children (another for infants), so that's what I have to go by. Things you wouldn't think to do for a teenager, like locking up all the cleaning chemicals. The minimun standards book is only 69 pages. In the end, all this cleanup and lock up won't be a bad thing, it'll give us an excuse to go through things we'd been avoiding in that extra room, and get stuff out of the garage and thrown away -- like maybe 15 cans of paint, each either completely dry or with an inch of paint in the bottom, and many of them moved from our previous house!
So, speaking of all that kind of stuff, I better get on with it. I promised myself I'd get a lot done this weekend.
I found out about him through someone at DHR who found me as a contact in this area for Asperger's. She'd been looking all over for a "placement" for this young man. His name is Shelby, He's 19 (In fact, his birthday is one day after Thomas's), and has Asperger's, and is over 6' tall, like Thomas. It seems that it's harder to find a placement for a big teenage boy. I sent the info and request out to my lists, and such.
Then I started thinking about how really, we were the perfect place for him to be. For various and sundry reasons. (our experience with AS, we knew what it was like to have to teenage boys, and one of those was completely out of the house now, so we had the room and all, etc) I approached Mark, and somewhat to my surprise, he was immediately on board. Then, of course, I asked Thomas how he felt (and if had had the least amount of negative feeling about it, of course it would have been a no go). He thought it was fine, might be fun, he could be the big brother, etc. Thomas is much more socially/emotionally advanced than Shelby, since Thomas has had intervention and training and support since he was a baby, while Shelby was undiagnosed until later, and then there has been all that being shuffled around in the system. so maybe he could be mentor. And since Shelby is the "talky" kind of AS, he might bring Thomas out a bit.
Yes, we've met him. All three of us went over there (the county next to ours) and we met at DHR. He's a really sweet kid. yes, quite tall, and big, and he has light red hair. He seemed to like us, and thought he'd like to be our foster child.
So now, we are in the process of 11 weeks of classes, having our fingerprints sent to the FBI and the ABI, and being checked out in the Child Abuse Network, and trying to get our house to the safety standards necessary to be foster parents [if everyone had to do this to be parents, there'd be alot fewer babies born, and no need for DHR], and filling out paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, and taking pictures of the house and all the pets and things, so that Shelby will have an idea of what he's getting into, and vaccinating all 4 house cats, and I'm going to have to replace my lost Social Security Card, so they can have a copy on file, and on and on. And I have to clear out the bedroom I'm giving him, which is not Mat's, I didn't want Mat to feel to replaced, but is that room where we put things we can't find a spot for, or are "temporarily" there for say the last five years... and get a bed/mattress/etc.
Since Shelby's still classified as a child, I have to make my home safe enough for a 5 year old. There's only one set of standards for children (another for infants), so that's what I have to go by. Things you wouldn't think to do for a teenager, like locking up all the cleaning chemicals. The minimun standards book is only 69 pages. In the end, all this cleanup and lock up won't be a bad thing, it'll give us an excuse to go through things we'd been avoiding in that extra room, and get stuff out of the garage and thrown away -- like maybe 15 cans of paint, each either completely dry or with an inch of paint in the bottom, and many of them moved from our previous house!
So, speaking of all that kind of stuff, I better get on with it. I promised myself I'd get a lot done this weekend.
