Training

Jeff and I are well underway with training. I had big plans to write these posts as we were learning and doing our online modules, however we are now halfway done and I haven't written anything!

First a little background information on what the training all entails. When this is all said and done, we will be registered foster parents with the Ministry of Saskatchewan. The first step in getting connected to become a foster parent is to contact Saskatchewan Foster Family Association (SFFA).

During this 5-10 minute phone call, they take your basic information such as;

- names and ages of everyone living in your household

-pets

-what type of home you have, size and number of bedrooms; if you own or rent

-jobs

-what ages and gender of children you would be willing to foster

-why you want to become a foster parent

The SFFA then sends this basic information to The Ministry of Social Services Resource Department who then give you a call and ensure all the information provided is accurate and they connect you with a resource worker. In our case, since we live in a rural community we were connected with a resource worker in Regina, SK who will work with us to become registered foster parents. Once we are done with that process she will then transfer our file to a resource worker in Swift Current who we will use on an ongoing basis.

We met our resource worker on August 27, 2019 when she came to our home to do our In-Home Consultation. She provided us with some policies, got to know us a little bit and did a really quick walk through of our home. We showed her the foster child's bedroom and she checked out the rest of the house. She also provided us with a Home Safety Checklist which we have to go through and have completed before we will be approved as foster parents. She explained the goal of completing the training is 5-6 months from the time we made the call to SFFA. For us, the goal is to be done all our training, and have our home safety checklist completed by February. If it all works according to plan, we should have our first placement by March 2020. When we called in August, that seemed far away with lots of time to get everything done. Now it is December and we are in high speed trying to get everything checked off the list.

For the training we were provided with login information so we are able to work on the online modules called PRIDE. This is the bulk of the training and is all done online. There are 9 modules; which Jeff and I estimate have taken us 3 hours each to complete. As of today (Dec 10, 2019) we have completed 1-5 and are about to start the 6th module.

These are the names of each module and what we are learning about.

Module 1: Connecting with Pride

Module 2: Teamwork Toward Permanence

Module 3: Meeting Developmental Needs: Attachment

Module 4: Meet Developmental Needs: Loss

Module 5: Strengthening Family Relationships

Module 6: Meeting Developmental Needs: Discipline

Module 7: Continuing Family Relationships

Module 8: Planning for Change

Module 9: Making an Informed Decision

There are two training's that happen in Saskatoon or Regina; Trauma Competent Caregiver Training and Cultural Training. We also have to get certified in First Aid and CPR. We also are responsible for submitting a complete physical from our doctor and a criminal record check.

Recently the The Ministry of Social Services implemented this online training. When I worked at The Ministry of Social Services as a Long Term Child Care Worker (more to come on that later), to become a foster parent you had to participate in training face to face. Each module we are doing online, had to be done in person in either Saskatoon or Regina. Each module was a weekend. It amazes me rural people interested in foster parenting were able to pull that off! I don't think Jeff and I would have been able to commit so much time for the training, especially with kids of our own. The online modules have been very helpful because we can do it on our own time and Jeff and I are able to talk about the modules as we do them and get feedback from each other. We've been able to discuss in real time things we are worried about and brainstorm answers to the questions together. I know since we are not in a group setting we miss out on hearing from others and connecting with other foster parents. However, I don't think Jeff and I would have even been able to become foster parents if we had to leave our kids for 9 weekends to take the training.

That's the short and the long of it! I hope this gives you an idea of what the training looks like and if you have any questions, feel free to ask or give the SFFA a call!