I'm so sorry you have had so many changes in your life that may be changing your capabilities. I'm sure you are managing as best you can. You got this!

Speaking of the age ranges you’re doing right now, do you think when Darcy and Sawyer are older, you’ll take younger kids then, or keep doing teenagers?

I appreciate your honesty about boundaries around fostering for your family. We have an age of majority placement so we've never had the experience of a temporary placement, but it's interesting to hear how you're balancing it :).

Divorce is hard

Love your channel! Makes me think a lot about many issues concerning foster care that are very universal, the feelings, the boundaries etc... but today somehow the differences between countries came to mind. I watch a few channels from different countries. It seems like the laws are very different when it comes to these issues. Here in Finland kids don't change foster families often and they can only be adopted if the biological parent approves, no judge can override that. So we mainly have two categories of foster families, ones that do short term care (emergency, straight from crisis kids) and long term care (until 18 or 21y). So first kids are taken to these short term homes until a long term home is found from the licenced families or from relatives homes. They can sometimes return to their biological parents if the situation changes and the change seems permanent so it needs years of proof. I do long term but once I was asked to do a short term until the child would move back home in 6 months, the prior carer was retiring. Now the child is here most likely to stay until they move out as an adult. So I ended up being a long term as the parent seems happy of the way I support their family and how the child is reacting to my care. They feel like this is best for the child. But this is kinda what I expected when I saw them the first time. We had an instant connection through similar humour, the parent, the child and I. Most areas would not even ask a long term carer to take a short term one, but this time even the social worker thought that my family would be a perfect match. And I am glad I said yes. Also many of us here do this as our main work. Some have a job outside as well. But we get extra pay for the first year to be home with the child. I am a single mom, I have 3 biological kids (one adult and two who live with me every other week) and 2 foster children. Maximum that I can have is 4 foster kids at a time and I need to have a year in between each new placement so we have time to get to know each other. Emergency care has no such rules of course. And as a single parent I can only get one child at a time, no sibling groups even with my background as a daycare worker and a special education teacher. But the pay is good. The range depending from the area in Finland is from like 1600€ to over 3000€ per child per month and a lot of it is tax free income. I live in the better paying areas. On top of that we have free school system with free lunches, free healthcare and cheap and good public transport so the money goes far here. For example my monthly food bill is around 600€. No health insurances needed. So I can save a lot for our family travels and my retirement. But yeah I went into finances even though I was supposed to talk about the two different kinda families only😁 But it is interesting to see the similarities and the differences. Thank you!

Great advice, Whitney! Breaks ARE necessary. Hope you are doing well!

Our last placement left our home in September.. we had 2 babies back to back and who abruptly unexpectedly left our home. So we decided to take a break until January. We've been on the open bed list since January and have only gotten 2 calls... but our home has changed. We can only take small babies right now and we can only take boys due to the rooms in the house.

Thanks for the update

First comment! I just got recommended this so excited to see you again

Can you talk more about your preference for fostering girls? :)

Your videos are always so insightful. Thank you for all you do! I’m thinking about you guys this week because I’m going to a Reds game on Saturday! 😂 My best friend and her boyfriend have season tickets and invited me to visit and see a game. Hoping for a win!!! May you and your family continue to recharge for the next placement! 😊

When you get a divorce do you have to redo your home study since your situation changes? Thanks for your information!

Can you give us your perspective on being a single foster parent?

My eye did that when I was pregnant twice I think it was from rubbing it too hard

You mentioned your county is slower. We have such a lack of foster homes. Just curious if you worry if you say yes to emergency they won't have anywhere to put the kids long term. Or, you give a date you can hold kids to and then workers say "Well, if I move them it will be to another short term home"..meaning bouncing homes which increases trauma for kids so you want to say yes to short term but you don't really know what you are getting in to. And, because it is so hard to find a regular placement home, even harder to find respite. So, people taking kids with known plans and really hard to find respite. Got a call yesterday, Tuesday, for respite for Friday/the holiday weekend and next week. Who is going to be free to do that such last minute?

Did you and John co-foster parent (along with coparenting your biological children) and, if so, what did that look like (If you feel comfortable answering)? Hope everyone is doing well.