R is for Respite

 Yes I skipped Q. I thought of a few things that would work but nothing really came together so I skipped it. So today is R is for respite. Those in the foster care world should know what it means but for everyone else, it is basically someone to watch your kids. Respite can be for a couple hours to a couple weeks. Our agency is pretty lenient as long as we don't need a sitter overnight they don't need to approve the sitter (fingerprinting and back ground check I think). If you have a family emergency and can't bring your foster child(ren) with you then you can call your worker and they will set up for someone to watch your foster kiddos. They have rules for who pays what depending on how long it is. I think here as long as its less than a week the foster parent and respite provider work out an amount and the foster parents pay them directly. More than a week and the state doesn't pay you they pay the respite worker. Its all very confusing and I've never really worried about it since I don't leave my kids with anyone, biological or foster care.

 Well I was forced to rethink that today. My Moose got his finger closed in a door and it was BAD. I knew it was a rush to urgent care visit (hospital is over 40 minutes away). I was alone with all 5 kids since Hubby was off volunteering about an hour away. I do not have an approved respite provider but since I was sure it wasn't going to need someone over night I called my friend. She was amazing, dropped everything and came down. She helped me rewrap Moose's finger, I don't do blood and was doing my best not to pass out so that was amazingly helpful. Then she fed my kids while we were gone and got both girls to go take their nap. I think I need to get her official as my respite provider. I don't think she'd accept money but the safety of knowing I had an 'approved' back up would be a breath of relief. Pictures of the damage, broken finger and 4 stitches since only 1/4 inch of skin was keeping his finger on.

 Now for those people who want to help foster children but don't feel able to actually be foster parents I really advocate looking into being respite providers. You can call you're local cps office and get the information for your state. You can say you are available a couple hours or even open to taking some kids overnight, well at least that's the case here. Most of the time you need to be able to pass a background check and be fingerprinted. Other states might have more requirements but its generally not as intense as the work to be a foster parent. Just a thought for people to look into.