When my daughter was 2 a social worker friend thought I would be a good candidate for emergency foster care. That would mean taking children on a moment’s notice. Over a few days or a week the child(ren) would be seen by Drs and set up with clothes, a toy and as much calming as possible.
Right after I qualifies, I got a call about a 14 month old boy who had been abused by his mother’s bf and placed with a minister’s family. Within 2 weeks the minister had been called on a mission and they needed an emergency foster while they found a permanent one. Well we had him for five years.
He came with some emotional baggage. When angry or frustrated, he would hurt himself. It took almost a year before he would be in the presence of a man without a woman in sight. We tried to keep him in touch with his family. We had sibling visits, they were with his paternal grandparents. His legal father (not genetic father) was in jail and his mother in and out but we visited when possible with his mother.
Toward the end of the 5 years my marriage was breaking up. In those days only a married couple could foster so I didn’t tell the social worker that we had broken up or that I was working. In those days the pay for fostering was $105/mo. That was plenty for his needs-food, clothing, toys. The state paid for medical and a special needs kindegarten. When I worked both children needed after school care. Summer was coming which meant full day care, $55/wk, which I couldn’t afford.
Several of the children in his class were in the foster system, so I talked to his teacher about finding a placement with familiar people. I thought if we had a placement set up, he wouldn’t have to go with strangers. It turned out his teacher had just become eligible to foster so we presented it to the social worker and eventually he was adopted by his new foster mother.
that was a difficult time giving up a child after 5 years and seeing such changes. Later when qualifications changed and single working people could foster, I occasionally thought about it but never could bring myself to do it again.