Hey, fellow Rabbots! If you're gonna write a fic where they foster the baby and you want it to be realistic (which I would hope you do just because the show is the most realistic and accurate medical drama yet according to most medical professionals),
Pittsburgh requires foster parents to pass background checks, and have a safe, stable home with sufficient space
A home inspection (in the foster world, it's called a home study) is required to ensure these things (This will involve questions about their past, their mental health, and how they would handle discipline and the baby's mental health once she's older)
Case workers are required to conduct at-home visits once a month (this will involve checking baby's body for bruises)
At least one parent needs to be at these at-home visits so they will need to coordinate with their case worker around their work schedules
No one in that house will ever get more than ~2 consecutive hours of sleep and will be fucking exhausted
The foster parent stipend in Pittsburgh specifically is about $400-$900 a month depending on the child(ren)'s age and care needs
Physical paperwork can and will get lost, so it would be in everyone's best interest to have any and all paperwork scanned into both Robby and Jack's phones just as a precaution and sent to the case worker through email and/or texts
Respite care is something foster parents can use when they need a break from the baby and another approved family or babysitter can take care of the baby for as short as two hours to as long as 14 days
The respite care babysitter(s) will also be required to pass background checks for obvious reasons
Agencies will provide "training" (telling you the kids are traumatized and will have behaviors and you just need to "put your trauma goggles on" to deal with it), support services (that they will probably take a month or four to actually follow through with because agencies are half filled with workers who are overworked and burnt out), and specialized care for the child(ren) (will probably also take a month or four)
Case worker turnover (typically high) causes miscommunication, confusion, and frustration frequently
Foster Love Project is a non-profit that clothing, toiletries, and support for families
Foster children under age 5 in Pittsburgh automatically qualify for WIC (Women, Infant, Children) program regardless of the foster parents' income
Some more complex cases (like a six week old baby abandoned in a hospital) are assigned a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), they are volunteers who watch closely over the child and advocate for what's best for the baby
CASA are unpaid volunteers and unlike case workers who can have up to 10-30 cases simultaneously, CASAs only have one child/set of siblings on their workload at a time
Case workers work with the whole family while CASA focus on the child and stay on the child's case until they are officially adopted and the case is closed
Here's a list of youtubers to get an idea of more realistic days in the lives of foster parents
š¬ 0Ā Ā š 7Ā Ā ā¤ļø 5Ā Ā·Ā Next month is Foster Care Awareness month, so if anyone wants to know about fostering, I've collected a bunch of youtubers
