Meet Our Families - Colleen & Mike

Meet Colleen & Mike! They have been married for 13 years and have been MCJFS foster parents for one year. They are in the process of adopting the two school-aged boys who were placed in their home the same week they became licensed.

Beginnings
We always wanted to grow our family, we just didn’t exactly know how. We were interested in fostering and adopting, but we didn’t know anything about either process. We started looking into it and the training classes were starting soon. We had to decide to take the classes or wait another year, so we went for it. When we looked at the statistics, there was just such a need, and we couldn’t say no.

Likes
Hearing them laugh – genuinely laugh – is amazing. It took awhile for them to laugh and to hug us. But now when they’re both having so much fun and they belly laugh, it tells us they feel safe.

Challenges
Even though we’ve known the boys for 14 months, we haven’t known them their entire lives. We still don’t know everything, and we can’t anticipate all their behaviors. It can feel like a roller coaster when we try to put things in place, but we don’t have all the information.

Advice
The impact you feel you’re making can get forgotten about in day-to-day life. But when you have a moment to reflect and hear those belly laughs, you know this is worth it. Go into it with a conscious mindset that there is going to be a learning curve and acknowledge that it’s ok to continue learning.