An Introduction to Myself

I have fostered several children and have adopted a special needs child.  We are grateful for this experience, however like most special needs children we have had several challenges.  These include extreme anger, extreme aggression to authority, violently acting out, and other things that we have experienced.  We love children and hope that this blog could be a resource to finding help for your troubled child.  I will list different resources for respite and different tactics that seem to work for us.  I do not make any claim to be an expert and in many ways still finding new ways to cope with the challenges that we have experienced.  My hope is that we can share experiences that will help us all.

One of the hardest challenge that we have experienced is the lack of resources to help in respite services.  Now although there are respite services in the community there are not many in our area that help with the needs that we face.  Some include the Boys and Girls clubs and others that are controlled be private donations and the community.  you can also find some controlled by the state.  Many respite services are free and offer to a variety of age groups.  Some of them will be willing to take your child for up to eight hours and others will take them for several days.  I recommend to inspect the respit site ask questions Are you insured, are you licenced and ask to see documentation on these things.  Do background checks such as ask neighbors what complaints they have filed? Is it a quite place and not overcrowded? What discipline will they use? Many respit services will show you paper work on these things.

Here is a list of possible respit services.

The Boys and Girls Club, This is a great place and it is fun for children they often include off site activities and have plenty of staff on hand in case anything goes wrong.  These places usually will have an low membership fee.

The Utah Youth Village,  This is a good place for longer term respit.  There is usually a cost for this service.  With this option the families are matched with other foster families in the community. 

The Family Support Center,  This is a great resource and there are many in each community.  Check your local Center for the hours of operation and age ranges.  This resource is usually free but again check on the details.

These places are in the Salt Lake City area but others can be found by asking your therapist.  Many communities do not post the respit services because they are not for profit.  You may need to do some digging to find one near you.

Respite is essential to families, not only does it maintain sanity for everyone but it will also give the children something constructive to do.

I will post the next posting on finding a good therapist.  As always please feel free to post any comments.