https://dcf.vermont.gov/foster-care-inquiry – check: I would like to get an information packet -fill out: Is there anything else you’d like us to know?
Well, I guess I flunked this online test of the Vermont Dept. of Children and Families because they never sent me the “information packet”. Being honest doesn’t help. I probably started out with something like: “do they come with home heating fuel?” I went on to explain that I have two empty bedrooms upstairs but I am arthritic and if a child falls down, I can’t pick them up. If a child runs into the street, I can’t chase after them.
I was thinking it would be nice to have some ten-year-olds to vacuum the house and wash dishes. I have a car sitting in the garage but rarely drive it because the evil, mean primary care doctor won’t give me an Rx painkiller for my obvious bumpy, lumpy visible arthritis. A 16 year old with good behaviour and a drivers’ license would be helpful because there is no way on Earth I am attending teacher-parent conferences, court hearings or going to medical physician visits. Don’t they have something similar to grocery delivery for foster kids like “Instacart”?
Because the State of Vermont, in their fine wisdom, never sent me the “information packet”, I looked up foster care stories online. Wow, 50% of families give the kids back after one year and don’t want anything to do with the program ever again. Most, if not all, the families claim that the cost of caring for the kids far exceeds what the state pays them. Too many of the kids are destructive, and there goes your furniture or your whole house.
I waited another week, still no “information packet” in the mail. I tried to list reasonable accomodations and variances to the idiotic state contract that probably violates a dozen federal laws, in other words, the contract to be a foster parent would not, in my personal opinion, hold up in any federal court.
So, if the state had sent me an “information packet” then what reasonable accomodations would I have suggested? The neighbor whose property is adjacent to mine on the north side works at a local hospital and is some kind of fancy, highly educated nurse. Couldn’t the foster kids just run over to her house rather than be picked up by “instacart” and taken to a medical doctor appointment? The neighbor across the street from me works as a licensed therapist. Couldn’t the state pay the town to paint a white cross walk between his house and mine, and instead of calling deliver-a-package just have the foster kids run over to him with their problems? Would that be a valid reasonable accomodation? After all, I’m the one with two empty bedrooms upstairs, and the neighbor’s homes are full with their own families. Now, the neighbor whose property is adjacent to my back yard worked for years in the school system as some kind of teaching assistant, so couldn’t the state hire her to take the foster kids to their parent-teacher meetings and court hearings? What I’m saying is, look at my situation, I’m surrounded with wonderful neighbors, and the state could individualy and separately hire them to meet the foster kids exterior needs, medical, court hearings and therapy. I’m not going to be a sub-contractor, that is the worst problem of the foster care system, where they expect the foster parents to pay for the kids’ needs out of the too small allowance the state provides.
But, all these ideas are just down the drain because the State of Vermont never sent me the “information packet”. So much for foster kids. I have to come up with a different plan to get more money for home heating fuel for the winter of 2026-2027 which could be brutal. The more fighting that goes on in foreign countries, the more the ozone layer or whatever is affected by the exothermic decomposition products of detonated weapons. It will get colder.
Cris Ericson http://crisericson.com
