Today was our annual foster care license inspection. In Michigan, a foster care license is valid for two years. However, an inspection, as well as all of the paperwork required for a renewal, is required every year. Although we have been licensed foster parents with the same agency for 14 years, the annual license inspection still stresses me out. Fortunately, all of my children pitch in to get the house in order when necessary. It is a family project with siblings picking up their bedrooms, putting their laundry away, and whatever else needs to be done. With two toddlers in the house, and six other children, our house can go from clean to disgusting in an hour.

If you have parented toddlers, then you know that what I mean. Just when you think the kitchen floor is clean, your toddler spills an entire bowl of cereal. While you are cleaning that up, your toddler realizes that juice squeezed out of a sippy-cup, makes cool designs on the carpet. Sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming are daily requirements during these years.

I spent the beginning of the week filling out and locating all of the paperwork that is required the day of inspection. Each adult licensee must have a minimum of six documented hours of training each year. I knew I had filed my proof of attendance documents somewhere; it took me at least two hours to find them. Super foster dad hadn’t done any official training this year as of Sunday morning. Therefore, he went to the Foster Club page for grownups on Sunday afternoon to get his six hours of free training. The site allows you to print certificates of completion when you pass a test; it also offers to email the results to your agency.

Other required documents include a signed statement of compliance for disciplinary practices. A gun compliance certificate is required that states that all weapons have trigger locks, are in a secure area, and ammunition is secured in a different area. All licensees must sign a form indicating foster family preferences for placement. This includes the age range, number, race, behaviors, and special needs of children that your family would be willing to accept for placement. Another form requires the dimensions of each room in your house and documents the sleeping arrangements for each person.

After that, the licensing worker has to walk through the house, confirm that each room has a functioning smoke detector. While doing that, she documents the location of posted escape plans, fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detector, beds, and emergency phone numbers. She must check the temperature of the foster home’s hot water because it cannot exceed 110 degrees.

The licensing worker is supposed to interact with family pets during the visit to confirm that the animals are not aggressive. Then she must conduct private interviews with each person residing in the household. She took each child off to another room and asked questions.

It is quite a process. We do not want to take any new foster children and we really did not intend to renew our license again. However, a year ago this month, Ali came back into care and we had to take her back. She had lived with us as a one and two year old for nine months. She is the cousin of our daughter Dani that we adopted in November. The girls had lived together and came into foster care together the first time.

After a year of parenting her again, we cannot turn our backs on her. Providing foster care to children is rewarding, but emotionally it can be difficult to see a child come and go so many times. Everyone in the family suffers from broken hearts, not just the parents. That is why we have decided to stop. Not to mention that we began fostering to adopt and we have already adopted seven children.

Photo Credit, Julia Fuller 2008, State of Michigan Children's Foster Home Rules and Compliance Record.