Foster parents: EVOLVE classes helped us prepare

We found a common theme from talking with families at a recent Foster Care Family Picnic: Our foster parents have found many benefits from EVOLVE Adoption & Family Services’ training and classes.  

“I really enjoyed them,” said Cathy, a foster mother. “I thought they were wonderful, very informative.” 

We chatted with foster parents at the Sept. 9, 2017, picnic at Cliff Fen Park in Burnsville, and all spoke of the benefit of EVOLVE’s educational options for families.   

Cathy, who fosters her granddaughter and became involved with EVOLVE through a Twin Cities county, commended EVOLVE for its many opportunities to learn.

Training sessions focus on things such as foster care, proactive parenting, how to work with children with a traumatic past and more.  

It had been 30-plus years since Cathy had a child in her home, so she found EVOLVE’s parenting and foster care classes very helpful.  

“It was a nice refresher,” she said. “It was very interesting. The group activities were great that we did. Just having the information for resources and learning different things about coping with the different problems that our granddaughter has was very helpful, very nice to have.” 

Cathy already had plenty of experience parenting and caring for her grandchildren, but the classes prepared her for the differences of being a foster parent, along with what’s required of foster parents.  

“It was really nice to have that and know who to call if there was a problem,” she said. 

The classes also provided an opportunity to meet other parents looking into both foster care and adoption.  

“It was really informative, it was fun and very helpful,” Cathy said.  

Berta and Michael, who are fostering Berta’s grandchildren, agreed that EVOLVE’s classes helped prepare them to be foster parents.  

“They were great,” Berta said. “There was a lot of stuff that we hadn’t learned before.” 

The couple loved the class “Multicultural Parenting in a Racist Society,” and they also spoke highly of the “Proactive Parenting” course.  

“The two that run that group are awesome,” Berta said.  

Likewise, Ben and Emily found the classes to be great when they fostered to adopt, noting they were able to complete the classes at their own pace.  

“Overall, it was just a very easy process for us,” Ben said. “It was very laid back. We could kind of do things at our own pace. EVOLVE was very supportive. All the social workers were fantastic throughout the whole thing.”