foster parent month

For those of you who are unaware (or have forgotten), I work in foster care. I am a licensing worker for LCFS (Lutheran Child & Family Service) and have for the past 3.5 years. I highly enjoy the agency I work for. My job is to conduct all regular "maintenance" on our foster homes...I have to do a home visit to each of our homes once per year and I also conduct investigations when someone says that they, as foster parents, have done something they shouldn't have done. The yearly visits are enjoyable. The investigations are not.

I was privileged to spend my morning today on the front lawn of our state capital building in Lansing. May is foster care month, which means that if you know any foster parents, tell them thanks! There was a "rally" this morning (I'm not sure what a rally all entails, but I'm pretty sure what we did today wasn't very rallyish) in which we stood in front of the capital building and listened to a few people give speeches about what great things foster parents are doing and what the state is doing (or trying to do) to improve the foster care system in Michigan. Then we retreated to the tent where we had our booth set up for people to take our pens and candy and other LCFS freebies. They gave us free pizza too. It wasn't the most exciting event in the world, but it was much preferred over sitting in my office working on my reports!