Each month, Liz Rivera welcomes a new crop of families to her pre-service training class for people wanting to become licensed foster parents. And she knows every person sitting in that class is scared to death. Freaked out.
Scared of the unknown.
Scared of the horror stories about who the kids in foster care really are and how they can turn your world upside down. Scared about giving their whole heart to a child and then seeing that heart break.
Liz knows it is her job to provide factual, research-based knowledge to each person sitting in her classroom. She also knows part of her job is to also “coach” them on the emotions they will be feeling, as they begin the foster parenting journey.
Liz has been a trainer at Utah Foster Care (UFC) for seventeen years. She has seen all kinds of families come through that training – couples experiencing infertility, aunts and uncles taking in their relatives’ children because that relative was abusing drugs, and empty nesters who have raised their own families and still want to give back.
Liz is one of a team of UFC trainers in every part of Utah who are professionals in training families to take on the responsibilities of foster parenting. She trains at our Murray location, and we also have full-time trainers in Northern Utah and Utah County. Our St. George-based trainer fans out across Southern Utah, offering classes from Beaver to Kanab. And still another trainer travels from Vernal to Price to Blanding to make sure foster families receive the same professional training in smaller communities as they do along the Wasatch Front.
They know there are no stupid questions and they know foster parenting is a scary proposition. They also know that most people graduate from their classes, feeling more prepared than when they started, and feeling ready to take on the challenge.
