are clear about why you want to provide foster care. Check your motives. Are you doing this for the child or for yourself?
evaluate the skills that qualify you to provide foster care.
can maintain an attitude that is more professional than maternal. View foster care as a job to establish safe boundaries and create a secure environment.
can allow plenty of transition time. A newcomer to a home does not adapt overnight.
have realistic and reasonable expectations for the foster child.
take the word of support workers when they tell you that a child might be extremely hard to handle.
ask the necessary questions to truly learn what the child’s needs are.
readily ask their support worker for help and advice.
have an abundance of patience and compassion.
are realistic about the time you can give.
Unsuccessful foster parents …
are impatient. It takes a great deal of patience to be a foster parent.
are inflexible or expect perfection. Each foster child brings their own perceptions of family life and values. Resistance to rules and "family ways" is the likely result of a history of abuse and neglect, not a result of stubbornness.
want a second income. The compensation is small in comparison to the job.
are looking for religious converts.
are bored and just want something to do.
are looking to compensate for feelings of inadequacy or crave a distraction to an unhappy or unstable personal life.
regard all foster children as dysfunctional and untrustworthy.
Successful foster parents …