FINALLY :)

OK! After two weeks in a row of announcing that we were finally getting started with all the PRIDE orientation and meetings, just to have them being rescheduled for one reason or another, I really hesitated this week to say anything to anyone about them without actually meeting first Well, we finally met last night and now I’m not even sure where to start. There are so many things jumping out at me from it.

The meeting did go pretty good, I think, though I wasn’t expecting such a huge turnout. There were roughly about 30 people there and the room, even though it was a pretty large conference room, still felt packed. The main speaker let us know before the end of the meeting that there was a chance that we might have to split everyone up into two groups instead, just because we’re supposed to have a good bit of interaction throughout the sessions and get to know each other in our group pretty well and that is just a little hard to do in a group the size of what we had last night.

One of the things that surprised me was that there were at least three couples who stated, during our “introductions” time, that their partner was their boyfriend/girlfriend rather than a spouse. From my understanding, both single people and married couples qualify, and even gay couples, but even couples are supposed to have been either married or, for the last category, together, for a minimum of three years; it’s supposed to be to insure stability in the relationships before bringing other children into it. None of the three couples I’m referring to introduced their partner as a fiance/fiancee but boyfriend/girlfriend. To me, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships do have the potential to lead into more serious commitments like engagements and marriage, but they can also break up next week. Since only those living in the home with the foster child have to be approved, and since both halves of each couple were there to become licensed as foster parents, it leads me to assume that the couples plan on living together as boyfriend/girlfriend. My biggest questions on that, was how that one was going to work out and what happens if the guy and girl break up? Do they decide whose going to take responsibility for which kid or would it guarantee every child in the home being completely uprooted again and placed in new foster care homes? How does the state department look upon dating relationships among the foster parents, especially assuming that they’re living together, as was my assumption last night?

After the introductions we had a short break and then came back to take a 30 question multiple-choice pre-training test. For me it seemed easy but I’ve also taken college courses in child and adolescent development; raised two children for 7 and 9 years; read various baby, child, and adolescent materials for the last decade and a half; and researched numerous foster care and adoption subjects over the last couple years. I think I struggled on two questions out of the entire thing. I’m a research freak when it comes to subjects that really matter to me and this time it showed, I guess. There are two sides to almost everything in life.

After the test we took another short break, then came back in and received our PRIDE training notebooks; a good solid-inch thick, 297 page bundle of wealth that is going to be one of my guides in beginning this process. We weren’t required to read more than the info for the first and second sessions but I’ve had a hard time making myself stop and am over halfway through, though with plans to go back and reread the first two sessions worth just before the next session meeting to remind myself of where the class is supposed to actually be. But this binder is just so packed with information that I’ve had trouble putting it down! It probably also doesn’t help with it that I feel like I can finally start moving forward again and can’t wait to do so!

We also spent probably 20 minutes working out a schedule for the next eight sessions that the majority of the group were willing to agree on. It wasn’t the easiest task with that many people and that many schedules and a couple people seemed to have problems with no matter what we chose.

Finally, we ended with a half hour video called “Making a Difference.” It presented foster care and foster adoption from the time when possible problems within a family are first spotted, to the child’s being removed from the family and brought into the system, to including the possibilities of both reunification (returning the child to the biological family) and also foster adoption. It also included a few scenarios of what kind of emotional and behavioral problems the child may present to the foster family resulting from their sudden removal from the only family they’ve ever known and that may result as consequences from surviving different types of abuse and neglect. It was a little bit of a reality check on working with children that are in the system while also introducing how the program is supposed to work. My only regret was that we were pushing it on ending the meeting on time and I think a little bit of discussion time might of been beneficial following the video.

For the most part we’re going to be completing the rest of the sessions at roughly twice a week and have training session two scheduled for next Tuesday; January 27th, also from 6 to 9pm. It’s going to be about Teamwork Toward Permanence; learning about working as part of a team to bring about the best possible (hopefully permanent) solution for the children and their families that are being served by the foster care system.