Mary Ann Goodearle

A Guide to Foster Parenting: Everything but the Kids! Mary Ann Goodearle

Most people entering the profession of foster parenting become quickly disillusioned when they realize that parenting children is only half of their job descriptions. The other half is survival in the foster care system itself! There is plenty of training available for parenting difficult children, but no one prepares foster parents for what comes along with their foster children, namely, a whole entourage known as the foster care treatment team!

Foster Parents require much more than parenting skills to achieve success and longevity in today's foster care world. The goal of this book is to help foster parents improve the climates where they live and work, which in turn enables them to be available for needy children for the long run.

Foster care agencies experience huge turnovers in foster parents. That is because the majority of people entering this field have altruistic motives to help children succeed without possessing the knowledge they need to survive on the foster care treatment team.

Foster parents most begin to see themselves as equal professional member of their children's treatment teams. Living with foster children 24 hours a day, seven days a week makes the foster parents the highest level of experts about those children. The problem is that they are not recognized as experts by the other members of the team!

This book will help foster parents take a more aggressive approach to educate themselves about the inner workings of the foster care system and be able to make better sense of why the other players on the team do what they do. The author's insight as an adoptive and foster parent, and also as a foster care social worker provides information to the reader from both prospective. It is a must read for all foster and adoptive parents and social workers!