Medical Check-Ups

It’s important to schedule a medical examination for foster children as soon as possible after they are placed in your home. There are three primary reasons for this.

First, the child may not have seen a doctor in quite a while. Second, public schools require updated vaccination records. Many kids who enter the foster care system either have not had their boosters, or are lacking the proper documentation. And third, to cover our foster parent butts by establishing a baseline of the child’s health. It’s sad, but just like renting a car and noting the pre-existing scratches and dents, we foster parents must sometimes prove that we were not the cause of a child’s health condition.

In my county Medi-Cal is pretty good with this, and there are clinics especially for foster children that usually get them in to see a doctor faster than they would through regular channels.