Thinking of moving to Missouri

I know you posted your original message a few days ago but I thought I would reply regarding the foster parent situation in Missouri. I've been a foster parent for about 7 years now. I am licensed with Division of Children and Families but also with Missouri Alliance for Children and Families and Department of Mental Health. MACF is a for profit group that gets the kids DCF cannot place. They are harder to place kids, many times older teens or disabled kids or DMH kids. The pay is better to compenstate for the difficulty. They also do alot more for the kids, the case manager visits once a week instead of once a month, they provide mentors, counselors, tutors, or whatever the kid needs. I really like working with them. Their standard pay starts at $55 a day and goes down to $25 a day when the kid has been stable in your home for like 3-6 months. (In other words, you do a good job and you get a pay cut!) DCF is very overworked here. State funds are being cut right and left so there is not any extra for anything for the kids. You as a foster parent have to do everything out of the stipend they give you. For traditional kids it's $14 a day, $21 for behavioral rate kids and $48 for career foster placement (most difficult kids.) You have to go through training with either MACF or DCF. The MACF training is the same as DCF and you then can be dually licensed. I don't know if they offer training in Springfield. MACF is located in Jefferson City and training is usually held there, Kansas City or Columbia. The training for either is 8 weeks and includes 3 home visits. You may get credit for the training you did in California, you'll just have to check with the state organization here. I will look up urls and post in another message if I can find the web site for MACF. As far as Springfield is concerned, we lived there like 28 years ago. Man, has it grown since then. It's almost doubled in size. It is one of the fastest growing cities in Missouri. I know there are many great neighborhoods there. It's a very conservative, religious town. The international headquarters of the Assembly of God denomination is located there as well as the headquarters of the Bible Baptist denomination. It's a great community to live and raise kids in. Teresa

OK, here are the two websites: Missouri Alliance for Children and Families: http://www.ma-cf.org/FosterParent.htm Mo. Divison of Social Services index. has adoption, foster parenting, etc. Just click on what you are interested in. http://www.dss.mo.gov/atoz.htm

Well Kristen... It is pretty obvious that when you do move that ALL of us will be over there helping you to move in.. Just tell me the date and..when was that? Oh, what do you know. That is the date I will be in physical therapy getting treatment (sprained my motivation) Shucks.. Other than me, I am sure everyone else will be there to help you move Have a wonderful Bakersfield July Weekend (yukyuk) Ken

HI, I'M 47, DIVORCED,AND I LIVED IN RIVERSIDE, CA. MOST ALL MY LIFE, I MOVED TO JEFFERSON CITY MO. 8MO AGO, AND YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO MOVE BACK. I LOVE IT HERE. I'M ALSO AN LPN, THE PAY ISN'T AS MUCH HERE BUT THE COST OF LIVING BEING LOWER MAKES UP FOR IT. YOU WON'T BE SORRY YOU MADE THE MOVE. ALSO IT'S A MUCH NICER PLACE TO RAISE YOUR KIDS. I WAS ABLE TO BUY MY OWN HOME, BY MYSELF FOR A $109,000, IT'S 2300SQ FT. I COULD HAVE NEVER DONE THAT IN CALIF. I, LIKE YOU, COULD'NT HANDLE THE TRAFFIC OR THE PEOPLE ANY LONGER, MY SON LIVES HERE WITH MY GRANDAUGHTER (3)YRS. I DON'T REGRET IT FOR 1 MIN. GODS BLESSINGS TO YOU , JANET

Hello! My name is Robert and I am 9 mo post op. My wife Sarah is 3 mo post op. We both live and work in Springfield,MO. We Love it! We moved here 4 yrs ago from St Louis,MO. Since my wls I have under gone all types of life changes including finally obtaining my Real Estate license! As a fellow wls post op and REALTOR I would love to help you all out any way I can. If your interested drop me a line. Good luck to you all!! Thanks, Robert 337/209/195

How funny that you're a realtor. I was surprised I hadn't had a response from a WLS/Realtor yet! There you are! Here's what we think is gonna happen. We're coming out next week. We are going to look at houses with Lisa Vaughn from Carol Jones. Then we'll come back here, finish prepping our house for sale and get it on the market. Once we sell, we'll get out there...rent for a while to get a better idea of the area we want to live in. Then put down a chunk of change on whatever we find then. So the time frame is really dependant on when we sell our house here. (I am the perfect seller client. I have removed EVERY bit of clutter, photos, etc and am painting any wall that was painted already, into a neutral color. Everything that WAS white, will stay white--and clean and fresh and NEW!--any other ideas on PREPPING/STAGING/SELLING our house?) I'd like to keep in touch with you though for future help. I think this visit will really jsut be a "getting to know you Springfield" visit. If we fall in love with Lisa, I'll stick with her, otherwise I'll keep you in mind. So, where do you live? What area? Any reccomendations on neighborhoods (zip code), outlying areas (not as far as Marshfield though), etc? We want to NOT be smashed into a little neighborhood right up next to our neighbors like we are now. I want a little space. Doesn't have to be ten acres though. Thanks for your reply to my post, hope to keep in touch with you and your wife! Kristen

I asked where you live now, but I realized I read it too fast and it says you LIVE and WORK in Springfield. I jsut saw WORK. NEED MORE COFFEE!!! LOL Take care, Kristen