Elise, our foster child

Elise is a five year old girl (almost exactly one month younger than Lydia) who is staying with us one weekend per month.  She is not exactly a foster child, instead we are a steungezin (support family) for her family.  What happened was that, during the fall/winter of 2005, Elise's Mom suffered from depression and wasn't really able to take care of Elise - at the same time, her husband just started a new job and wasn't able to take time off, so they went through a very difficult time.  They turned to "Jeugdzorg in Gezin", the agency that we work with for fostering, for help, and they contacted us.


When we met them, the Mom was doing better, but she was worried that she would have a relapse, and she wanted to know that Elise had somewhere to go where she would feel comfortable.  We started by just having her come over to play, then gradually working up to spending the night and then the weekend, to the point where she now spends one weekend a month with us.  If anything happens with the mom now, we are ready to pick up Elise and have her stay with us, and we know that she is comfortable with us and with John and Lydia.

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