Gay foster parents in Texas
Setting: Texas Hill Country, very late 90s, very early 00s.
Searches already done: Perused this journal, googled "gay foster parents", "foster parents Texas", "gay foster parents Texas" but most of what I've found is about fostering now and what protections/rights/programs/etc are out there now for gay foster parents. I am also aware that Texas attempted to pass a bill in 2005 to ban gay people from becoming foster parents and I may use that at some later point.
Scenario: My MC has been in & out of foster care since age 5. He's now 14, very troubled, distrustful, a pot-head, and a chronic runaway. He's also done 2 stints in juvie, with his latest stint because he stole a car and he's also been labeled a "violent offender". He gets a new caseworker who sees past all of his bs and decides to place him in her go-to foster family for "last chance" kids. Problem is, this family consists of 2 older gay men (H & J) who run a ranch together. Now I've already done some hand waving and decided that the "polite fiction" that they put forth (and everyone accepts, because the community likes them) is that they're business partners and that's why they both live together; there's even a separate dwelling for one of them, though he primarily uses it as a wood shop/second office. The problem I'm having is figuring out how the foster licensing would work in this scenario. Right now I have H as the MC's official foster father, and J is a licensed foster parent -- I'm assuming that he would have to be because even if he never "officially" takes in a kid of his own he's still living on the property and would need to be certified as part of H's certification. Is this an accurate assumption? If so & J is a licensed foster parent, can H leave MC in J's care for extended period (e.g if H needs to go out of town) without having to get prior approval/authorization from MC's caseworker?
As a side note, I'm aware I'm hand waving quite a few things, including the fact that there would be clear evidence that H & J live together during the home visits/home study, but I feel like I have a stronger basis for hand waving/excusing those aspects than I do for the other stuff.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
Searches already done: Perused this journal, googled "gay foster parents", "foster parents Texas", "gay foster parents Texas" but most of what I've found is about fostering now and what protections/rights/programs/etc are out there now for gay foster parents. I am also aware that Texas attempted to pass a bill in 2005 to ban gay people from becoming foster parents and I may use that at some later point.
Scenario: My MC has been in & out of foster care since age 5. He's now 14, very troubled, distrustful, a pot-head, and a chronic runaway. He's also done 2 stints in juvie, with his latest stint because he stole a car and he's also been labeled a "violent offender". He gets a new caseworker who sees past all of his bs and decides to place him in her go-to foster family for "last chance" kids. Problem is, this family consists of 2 older gay men (H & J) who run a ranch together. Now I've already done some hand waving and decided that the "polite fiction" that they put forth (and everyone accepts, because the community likes them) is that they're business partners and that's why they both live together; there's even a separate dwelling for one of them, though he primarily uses it as a wood shop/second office. The problem I'm having is figuring out how the foster licensing would work in this scenario. Right now I have H as the MC's official foster father, and J is a licensed foster parent -- I'm assuming that he would have to be because even if he never "officially" takes in a kid of his own he's still living on the property and would need to be certified as part of H's certification. Is this an accurate assumption? If so & J is a licensed foster parent, can H leave MC in J's care for extended period (e.g if H needs to go out of town) without having to get prior approval/authorization from MC's caseworker?
As a side note, I'm aware I'm hand waving quite a few things, including the fact that there would be clear evidence that H & J live together during the home visits/home study, but I feel like I have a stronger basis for hand waving/excusing those aspects than I do for the other stuff.
Posted via m.livejournal.com.