Instructions

06 Mar 2011 2 Comments

by blackberrysmoothie in CAS, Childfree to parents, Update

It’s been a while since I posted… we spent every Wednesday night in February, plus another Wednesday, plus two whole Saturdays, getting instruction.  We were taking a course called PRIDE – Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education.  The Children’s Aid Society both provides this course and requires it for all prospective foster and adoptive parents, including those who are related to the child they will be looking after (referred to as “kin care”).

There were about 20 people in our class, which was split about half-and-half between foster parents and adoptive parents, as well as half-and-half between those who already knew the child they were going to take (some through kin, some were a family friend or a child’s friend or neighbour), and those, like us, who would be surprised.  There were people from all walks of life and levels of education.   There were parents and not-yet-parents.  There were mostly couples, (including a same-gender couple) but some single people, too.  Every person had a different journey to that classroom.

Before we started, I thought it was going to be really boring.  I had no idea what we would hear about for *thirty* hours!  But I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  It was not boring.  Kids in care are so different from kids who have grown up in a stable loving home.  I learned things I had no idea I was missing, and am so grateful to the trainers and the other people in the class for preparing me for this so well.

At some points it was really difficult.  On the weeks where we did two sessions on a Saturday, we had four sessions within eight days!  Added to the Wednesdays we were already doing…. hoo! It got overwhelming, and I procrastinated.  Peter had to tell me to do my reading and my homework. It was a lot of information, and a lot of sad, tough, discouraging-at-times information.

But we got through it with the help of our amazing instructors – Diane, who is a social worker with CAS, and Teri-Lynne, who is a foster and adoptive parent.  They were honest with us and made us understand that this is not about us, it is about the kids.  They showed us it was OK to make mistakes, and how to try to fix them.

Now we are really close to being “adoption-ready”.  We have one more meeting with our own social worker here at home on Tuesday, then we start looking at profiles of kids.  All our official papers are in order, and once our home study report is completed in the next few weeks, the adoption process could start at any moment.  It’s kind of like being on a roller coaster, with the added surprise of stopping at the top, then not knowing when you’ll be moving again.  My friend Joan, who is an adoptive mother, described it as hurry up and wait, then hurry up again.

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