MAPP classes

Yesterday was our first MAPP class and I had really wanted to come home and blog about it while it was still fresh in my mind....but after 6 hours of activities, lessons, videos and horror stories, my brain was mush.  This may or may not be a lengthy post because my brain is still mush and I have to get ready to go to work in a few minutes.  (Yes, I am aware it's Halloween, but I figure that this will be the last batch of holidays that we won't have a kid or two...might as well work while I can!)

Right, so MAPP classes...  Our instructor is a social worker who has been in the field for 25 years and is the only one in our area to teach the course (hence the abundance of horror stories me thinks).  MAPP Trainer (MT) is definitely a great teacher, and she takes no crap from ANYONE, which is refreshing considering some adults missed out on basic school lessons like not talking when the teacher is, but I digress...  In our particular training we will have ten lessons we have to cover.  Yesterday we covered the different groups of people taking our course (foster, foster to adopt, and adopting) and then went over who each works.  She explained in some depth how our process would go as well as how kids are removed from their homes and taken into care.  Quite a lot of the discussion centered more around fostering, as that's what most people there are planning to do.  Next week we start talking about loss and helping our children with attachments.  MT said to be prepared to talk about suicide at the beginning of next week's class.  Joy.

We will have some homework, and were provided with a few assignments that I'm already obsessing over now.  First (and possibly the easiest) we have to have pictures of ourselves and our pets if possible, which could be quite funny in my opinion, considering the fact we have 6 cats and 2 dogs.  Secondly, we have to write a short letter to our future child, sharing with them different things they may want to know about us.  Then, we also have to write a letter tot he parents of the child and share with them things that may make them more comfortable having their children placed with us.  Those two seem fairly easy in theory, but we haven't sat down to actually write them out yet.  Last but DEFINITELY not least, we have to design a scrapbook for our social worker (due at the end of our classes) to show our future kids where we live, who we are, etc.  I am MAJORLY sweating this one!  First of all, I am a horrible perfectionist and this sort of thing makes me twitch...not even going to lie about that.  Second of all, I am NOT creative and keep fretting over how to make our scrapbook inviting to a child from the age of 4-17 of either gender.  Can we say challenge!?  I need a few more hours in the day and maybe an extra day or two in the week to feel like I can have a remote chance at accomplishing this.  If anyone has a few extra hours lying about, I seriously wouldn't mind buying them off of you.  I may need them!  Oh! I almost forgot, we have to draw out a floor plan of our house indicating which bedroom will be our child/children's room(s).  MT has me figured out already, as she was sure to tell us that it didn't have to be drawn on graph paper to scale...she was saying this looking straight at me! LOL  At least that will be easy compared to the scrapbook!

One final thought before I close...when MT mentioned that we would be talking about suicide she also mentioned the high number of LGBT kids in foster care right now.  When I say kids, I mean kids...as in children as young as 8 or 9 years old!  Mama S and I had already considered adopting a Deaf child or two, but now we both really feel as though we should look into opening our home to an LGBT youth as well.  Of course, there are many things that can happen between now and that time, but it's food for thought.