Not So Fast

For anyone considering fostering in the state of Colorado here are the training requirements per my caseworker. I'm posting them here to help others but also to give myself a quick reference. I did get some good news the other day. The 18 hours of training I took for my new NPP position counts towards my foster care training. Yippee!

The first training that is required by the State is CORE training. That is 12 hrs. To get your pre-certification, you need CORE plus 15 hrs of training. (Such as the training on Parenting Strategies for Challenging Children by the Butler Institute that is coming to Gunnison in April) 12+15=27 hrs of training out of the way.

So, once you have had 12 hrs of state sponsored CORE training and 15 hrs of county training, such as through the pot lucks, and any other scheduled trainings, you will have your precertification.

For the first 3 months of your license, that is the only required training other than 1st aid and CPR. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to count CPR and 1st Aid for their hours the first year of certification. We can in consecutive years, but for some reason, they dont let us the first year.

After that, you need 20 hrs of training your first year. So, the first year is pretty intense, because you actually need 47 hours of training. 6 of that comes from reading our Policies and Procedures Manual, on your own time. So, we make it happen, but it is a lot of hours.

So we have our Core training planned for April in Denver. I'm pretty sure that we'll be precertified by summer but my caseworker tells me there aren't any local kids waiting for a foster home right now. Things could change and we could get placed right away or it could be several months. I don't want to rush anything, but I really hope we get to do it sooner than later.