I suggest that the standards for foster and adoptive homes be united into one standard. We know that approximately 2/3 of children in foster care are adopted by their current foster parents, and it would save a great deal of time and money if all families were dually approved at the end of their training.

My comments are directed specifically to the portion of the proposed Local Department Approved Provider Standards that address foster, resource, and adoptive home providers. For the last several months, I have been actively recruiting and preparing for training. Our training program is twenty-seven hours in length, and although we recognize the commitment is substantial, the responsibility that we are giving foster, resource, and adoptive families is significant. Our local CASA agency requires 40 hours of pre-service training. Our local women’s shelter requires 40 hours of pre-service training. The volunteers at these two agencies are not expected to give full time care to those they serve. On the other hand, our program is asking families to care for a child twenty-four hours a day, so asking them to complete 27 hours of training is not too much to ask. During my recruitment efforts, the number of hours for training has not been brought up as an issue by a single family. The families will appreciate being prepared for the experience of fostering or adopting a child. DSS agencies would appreciate consistency amongst local agencies around the state regarding the mandated 27 hours of pre-service training.

CPR and First Aid certification should be mandated for foster, resource, and adoptive parents. If they are mandated for daycare providers and their care is part-time, then full-time foster, resource, and adoptive parents should be certified in CPR and First Aid also. Driving records should be mandated as part of the initial paperwork prior to approval of foster, resource, and adoptive families.

These regulations directly affect me, as I am the staff person in my agency in charge of Resource Home Provider training and approval. This is a new program in the agency and consists of starting and conducting a pre-service Resource Home training program, working with a five DSS agency partnership, approving all prospective families for the five localities, putting all date into OASIS for all PRIDE trained families, recruiting families within all five localities. Our situation is unique because the resources are not available for each local agency in the New River Valley to recruit and train their families independently. Therefore, a grant was created to fund my position as the Resource Parent Recruiter and Trainer for the New River Valley Departments of Social Services, which consists of Floyd County DSS, Giles County DSS, Montgomery County DSS, Pulaski County DSS, and Radford City DSS. We also have a part-time position for a clerical worker. Without our positions and our partnership with DePaul Family Services and the other DSS agencies, there is absolutely no way that staff in any of the five agencies could provide this training.

Though the standards are welcome, DSS agencies cannot be expected to accept responsibility for funding the implementation of this regulation without state assistance. During the PRIDE pre-service training, I personally will be working 20 hours with each family in their home (nights and weekends), train for 27 hours of pre-service training, and spend on average a minimum of 15 hours writing each family’s home study. During a PRIDE pre-service training, I will be spending a minimum of 377 hours in meetings with the families, training, and completing the home studies. If we offer three training series’ per year, that will be equivalent to a minimum of 1,131 hours for the assessment of only 30 families.

This does not include my time for the following additional responsibilities:

• Travel to/from each family’s home
• Completing multiple background checks on each family
• Recruiting in the localities of Floyd, Giles, Montgomery, Pulaski, and Radford
• Responding to inquiries from prospective families
• Completing the mandated reapproval process for all PRIDE trained families every 24 months (travel time will be significant due to the five counties)
• Participating in ongoing skills training
• Completing all resource entries as required in OASIS for prospective PRIDE-trained families
• Completing home studies on every foster and resource family

The state has an incredible opportunity to implement mandate foster parent training of 27 hours, but the state should keep in mind how many hours are necessary to make this happen.