Skip to main content

In her shoes

Ever have that moment where you are in someone elses shoes? And I don't mean mentally putting yourself in someone else's situation or literally putting someones shoes on. I mean you give someone so much grief (even write a blog post about it) then 6-7 months later are doing the exact thing they did and go "ah, I get it now."

Well, I had that today at work and I made my boss uncomfortable when I cried because of this realization. For the last 5 months I have been the Licensing and Training Coordinator at a local private foster care agency. Until a couple months ago, I was primarily doing training of prospective foster parents and recertifications of current foster parents. At the begining of February, I got my first assessment for a new foster parent! I was so excited to make a difference to someone's life and do "such a better job then my home assessor".  I thought we would be done by the middle of February. We weren't. I was for sure I would have everything ready to go by the end of February, but I didn't. I finally got myself to a completed draft for my supervisior to review and I was missing some information and needed to correct some spellings (surprise surprise). But as the last month and a half has gone on, I have become more and more frustrated with myself. Why am I not doing better than my home assessor? Why are these parents not done yet? Could I possibly do anything else wrong? The answer to all of those is "NO!" Jamie Fisher shut up and get a grip. You should have put it together 7 months ago when you went on a rant about your home assessor. The system and process for being a foster parent is HARD! It is long and frustrating for not only the incoming foster parent but the person assessing them too! Today, as I cried at my desk empathizing with this new foster family (because I have been in their shoes) I had the realization that I was a complete bitch to my assessor and I feel awful!

So after freaking my boss out a bit (it was kinda fun), I think it is time to write a note to my home assessor thanking her for all she did for me. I am so lucky to have baby girl in my home and I am so lucky to have a job that I love. In time, things always fall into place :)

On a side note-- it is social work appreciation month-- Have you thanked a social worker today??? :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A lot has changed in four years......

I forgot how much I missed blogging and sharing my journey and stories. A LOT has changed in the last four years and over the course of the summer, we are for sure going to dive deep into the mental health all these changes have had.  To say I have went through a lifetime of changes in a short amount of time would be an understatement. So with a new blog title as I am officially a forever mom and this is now more than just foster care, it is time to kick things back off.  So here we go...... Since my last post May 2017, we reunified my second foster daughter (there was a brief single mom with two under two), I reconnected with a high school friend, reunified my first foster daughter, took my third foster daughter home from the hospital, got pregnant, got engaged, learned my baby may need surgery as soon as he was born, had weekly ultrasounds, bought a house, had a baby (no surgery was needed!), sold a house, reunified our third foster daughter,  got married, gained a step...

Mothers Day

It’s interesting. As I lay in bed next to the pack n play on our families yearly Tennessee trip (that always starts on Mother’s Day), I can’t help but reflect about what this day means now that I am a foster mother. As I lay in bed at 6:50am scrolling through Facebook I come across this “Motherhood challenge”. Now please do not get me wrong, I am so envious and happy for those who are able to post pictures of their pregnancy, the day they first became a mother and a picture of the child now. That is so cool! But my journey to motherhood wasn’t that simple and could change at a moment’s notice. It makes me question do I really have a right to celebrate this day as a mother?  Foster moms get the short end of the stick. They get a call for a child and must react. They quickly find child care if they are working full time and within 24 hours of placement are back to work. They learn to live life on 3 hours of sleep, work 40 hours and raise children who are not their own. ...