So this evening I pulled up the AFABC website, as I do several hundred times a day, to check and see if the AEP course has been put on the site yet. Tonight a teaser was put up, and it's making me a little insane.
Here is what the site has to say about duration and start date:
AEP Online is a 12-week program, set within a 13-week framework, thus allowing participants a week to rest or to get caught up. Each week requires approximately 5 hours a week of your time.
We are offering 3 start dates this fall. Each start date includes two cohorts.
TWELVE WEEKS! In all the correspondence I've had with social workers and support coordinators and people from the AFABC, not a single person mentioned that it was going to take THREE months to complete. I don't think I/we (Cal is bothered by it too) would mind as much if it was at least going to be offered sooner. To have to wait, and do nothing to progress the process, for four months?! (We completed the last step that we could in May when we handed in our medical questionnaires). We started all this in March and haven't had the option to do the MANDATORY education until 5 1/2 months later....completing it 8 1/2 months later. How does that make sense?! It seems like nobody cares about these kids!!!!! I want to bring them home and love them, and be their Mum, but the stupid system is getting in the way. If it was for a good reason I would be on board, but MAN OH MAN, it's starting to drive me bonkers.
I was doing okay, but when this was uploaded tonight I snapped a little. I think Cal did too, because he decided we needed to contact the author of this blog post: http://adoptionsupportinterior.blogspot.ca/2011/04/aep-ssp-and-other-annoying-acronyms.html to ask her about the AEP SSP (Self Study Program), and whether it would still be an option.
This is the email we just sent:
My husband and I began the process to adopt through MCFD in March. We have been waiting to start the AEP and are frustrated that there are no courses starting until the fall. We found your blog post http://adoptionsupportinterior.blogspot.ca/2011/04/aep-ssp-and-other-annoying-acronyms.html that discusses Self Study, and we were really interested in it, because it doesn't sound like you have to go by any specific schedule. We are in the northern region. We have completed our medical questionnaires, application, criminal record check, and all of our references are in. We've been doing a lot of research, including taking AFABC webinars. We understand that there will be a new program where remote communities can take the AEP online through AFABC, but the first available one starts in September and will not be complete until the end of November. If there is any way that we could begin the education sooner we would really like to avoid the wait.
Your program sounds ideal, and if it is still an option, we'd be very interested in more information on it. We have had a difficult time finding anyone to give us concrete information about the AEP course (probably because of the big changes with AFABC offering it online) and we would be very interested in any information you could share with us.
Hopefully she gets back to us tomorrow.
On a more cheerful note, we are having a bbq with our friends with the adopted girl with FAS tomorrow night. I'm looking forward to it, they're great people.
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