I had never heard of it, and I was instantly excited/convicted that I had stumbled upon a way to be hands-on in orphan prevention here locally. Because we have been in and out of adoption processes, we are unable to be foster parents as that involves having "custody" of another child (thus affecting our homestudy). Because in Safe Families we are just free childcare volunteers, we are able to help out without it messing us up legally.
I was so excited.. and then there was also the terror of doing it. Ted and I talked it over at length. We were at a great place. Sammy was very well adjusted. We agreed we could start the process of getting approved. Since we already had a perfect homestudy for our Ethiopian adoption, we only had to do a few additional pieces of paperwork to get our file in order. We went live in mid December with Safe Families.
We didn't hear anything over the Christmas season, but had a few near-assignments in January. Finally, a situation stuck and moved forward to needing our help. We are currently helping a 3 yr old little boy who has actually been able to stay with his mother at ANOTHER Safe Families host home. My other SF comrad can't do childcare for children but CAN help adult women and my situation is the opposite (due to the size/nature of our house, I can't give adults much privacy). He is with me during the day and some evenings/weekends while his mom is getting some wonderful help from the Women's Employment Network.
It is an interesting thing to have your life now intertwined with another little family. It is sometimes inconvenient and messy (example: we had a death in the family, but our friends need to be in court for a domestic abuse situation and we are responsible to both situations... hm...). Do you know what else? It is AMAZING. Just the other day, I was explaining to a stranger that these were my 3 boys, and my extra little boy was my "friend" who I help sometimes. He looked up to me with his big blue eyes, pointed and me and told the lady "mama (is) my friend". He knows I'm not his "mama", by the way, he just thinks its my name so it is used in more of a "hey you that helps me with stuff" tone. I love that he views him and me as friends. We help each other and we spend time together. What a great thing to call our relationship!
I can't really show pictures of him since he isn't my child, but I can show you a behind the scenes of my house without full identities and names.
We have been so blessed by Safe Families. I hope we can work with them for a long time. It is very good stuff.
For any/all information on Safe Families (a national network, by the way) here is their website and a few more. Email me if you'd like even more information!
http://www.safe-families.org/
http://orphanjusticecenter.com/what-we-do/safe-families-for-children/
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