If you can't adopt...

We had the opportunity to care for a four month old a couple of times in the past month to help out another foster family. Luke and I had a blast and were exhausted looking after this precious little one! We got in some practice in being a tag team: preparing bottles, changing diapers, and rocking him to sleep. For now, this is how we hope to help out as foster care parents.

He loves to snuggle!

Going for a walk

It isn't easy to find babysitters as a foster parent. Youth Villages requires background checks and an application packet to become an approved respite provider. If you want the child to come to your home, you also have to do a complete home walk-through and comply with the same rules as foster parents. It's a pretty extensive process. Some children, like the little one we recently watched, require medically fragile training due to their medical needs. Basically, as a foster parent you can't just ask the same people to watch your foster children as you would your own children, even if it's close friends or family, they all have to be approved to provide respite care.

There is a great need for foster families in Middle Tennessee. We were recently told that there were more than 20 children spending the night at the DCS offices in Nashville while they search for families to provide a home for them.

Maybe you can't adopt or foster a child right now, but there are so many ways to be involved. One way is to look into becoming a respite provider for foster families. You can become a support person for an individual family or you can contact DCS or a foster care agency like Youth Villages and go through the training.

Jason Johnson has an excellent blog post on ways to become involved and serve foster care families.
Some ideas include providing services to families such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, or bringing a meal. I can attest that having meals provided for us was such a blessing! It was one less thing to worry about at the end of the day.

He also talks about babysitting and providing care packages for service agencies. Youth Villages has multiple opportunities throughout the year to provide items for children in foster care. One of them is Backpack Heroes (going on right now!) and Holiday Heroes at the beginning of December. Be sure and check them out!