Can you please share your foster or adoptive family story with us? Other families who are waiting could be greatly encouraged to hear from you. Please don’t include identifying details but you can name your state/county/agency at your discretion.
Share special ideas that may help other families. It would be helpful for you to offer tips and advice too. For example: Do you have children with specific challenges? Is your family culturally diverse? What experiences led you to adopt?
If you have time, read the comments that are posted on the blog. So many families are ready to give up on adoption because they are discouraged and disillusioned. Hopefully your family “success” story can give them the hope they need to continue in the process.
Contact AdoptUsKids at 1-888-200-4055 if you need support and assistance.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
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133 comments:
This is a great idea!! I think sometimes when we read all the comments posted we arent hearing from those families who in fact have already adopted. It appears to be those families who are new to the process or families who adopted many years ago and now in a very "different" system who are making most of the comments. I think that is quite understandable as I have been in the process for 3 years and I still everyday learn something I did not know the day before.
Personally, what led me to adoption was doing foster care and not always being happy with that system. I think I may have had some slight degree of "burn out" because I found it increasingly emitional when children would leave my home. It was very difficult at times to feel that all that I had personally invested in the foster children was possibly a moot point as they were being returned to the same situation from which they were removed. In hindsight, I am sure many of the children did in fact take much away with them when they left my home and hopefully what they learned stayed with them over time. Still, it was just becoming too emotionally overwhelming to give the children back. It was this mind set that led me to pursue adoption.
I did take some time off between my last stint at foster care and seriously looking at adoption. I had a teen ager at home who is Bi-Polar and felt I needed to devote most of my time and attention to getting him thru the difficult teen years. Once he was grown and gone I did start this process but not without many bumps in the road.
My first and I think biggest mistake was to not educate myself and research the whole process here in PA before finding an agency. I did think I was with the right agency for me based on phone calls and word of mouth, yet when I started trainings I found myself being talked into doing the foster to adopt program. As much as I did not want to do foster care again, I allowed people to convince me that at my age and being single it was my best and possibly only chance at adopting children and of course, I was warned up front that considering both of those "defects" (LOL) that I would only be considered for older children. It turns out that this agency only did adoptions for their foster children, did not do matching and did not do out of state adoptions. I was mislead, I assume to keep me happy and content, on more than one occassion. People kept telling me that what I was being told didnt "sound right" but I was stubborn and ended up what I consider wasting an entire year of the past 3 on that agency. Had I educated myself and researched the process, had I taken the time to speak with others who had adopted and listened, this wasted year could have been avoided.
Fortunately it was this mishap that landed me with my current agency, Sanctuary House of Chambersburg and the most awesome adoption worker, Paula, that anyone could ever want or have. It was just within a week or so of her coming to the house for my home study that it began going out and within a few months I was in the selection process for my boys. It was her honesty and upfront information that made the waiting more tolerable and less frustrating. It was her support and never being condescending or critical that allowed me to "discover" things for myself. This has made the entire process more positive and much easier to tolerate.
It is funny the way things sometimes turn out. I love young children and always have but felt due to my age that possibly I would be better suited to take a child who was a little older. Having worked with children, not just in foster care but in other capacities, I was very familiar and comfortable with taking children who had "issues". In doing my searches I noticed the Featured Sibs on AdoptUsKids and when I read about them noticed that the older of the two boys has Aspergers, a form of Autism. I had worked with a child for months with this diagnosis and just totally enjoyed him and it was a condition that I knew I could live with and deal with. Quite honestly, I was so excited over the thought of him, that I nearly overlooked the fact that while he was 10 he had a 3 year old brother to be adopted with him. My doubts were there that at age 55 anyone would consider placing a child that young with me ( based on previous comments from the old agency I was with) but I knew I had extensive knowledge of the Aspergers and I knew it was a condition that I could work with and do well. Much to my surprise (I was still rather pessimistic then- ok - I still am at times!!) I was in fact selected. The process took some time but I cant tell you the elation I felt. The whole process was kind of like giving birth. They say that once you see and hold your baby the first time, one has a tendency to forget the pain involved in labor. It was the same, once I was selected, all of the frustrations and disappointments seemed to fall to the back of my mind.
Shortly after bringing my sons home I received a call from my adoption worker, who does foster care work also, and she asked if I would consider taking a 13 yr old boy, at least on a temporary basis. He had disrupted twice from adoptive placements, no fault of his own, and she felt he would do well in my home. I was hesitant. I had just brought home my sons and while we were settling in nicely I was concerned as to whether he would fit in with them. I brought them into my home first, therefore, they were my main priority. I was also concerned because while Aspergers is a form of Autism, just a very high functioning form, this child was MR/Autistic. I considered it and talked to my sons about it and came to the conclusion that I would take him as foster care but that I did not want him to think that it was a permanent home for him. I thought since I was unsure that this would be unfair to him in the case that it didnt work out. Now I am angered when I think that his first disruption was due to his foster mother letting him go because she didnt think the subsidy was high enough and the other disruption was due to the fact that the person he was placed with didnt have the knowledge needed to realize the level of care he needed. He is a great kid and it did in fact work out and I am currently in the process of finalizing with him also. So in a matter of less than a year now I have three sons added to our family. They are great kids and I have no regrets of hanging in the system and waiting it out.
However, I am not quite yet finished!! I have the room, the energy, the love and dedication to give to even more children. Knowing how long and involved the process is I started months ago searching for at least two if not three (maybe 4) more children. (Now I have to admit that if I had a choice I would in fact do a sib group just so I dont have to go through this whole process several more times!!! )
Now I am finding it a little more difficult to make decisions concerning the type of child who will fit in because I have to consider the impact on my sons. I dont feel it would be fair to take children who might negatively impact their quality of life or restrict our family interests nor can I consider children who may be in some way physically harmful to my sons. So even though this is the third time around for me, it is a very different process again!
I no longer wonder "IF" it will happen but think in the terms of "WHEN" it will happen. As a believer of "fate" I truly believe that the children who are meant to be part of our family will indeed become a part of our family at some point in time. I still get impatient at times because like all of us, I want to do it now.!! I hate waiting!! So while I have been in the process for nearly 3 years, the past year of that time has been spent getting to know my sons and enjoying their blessing to my home as well as searching for others to add to our family.
I realize in hind sight that while I think our system needs improvement it is the only system we have at the moment and if we really want to bring children into our lives then we need to adjust and learn how to live with the frustrations so that can indeed become reality. We are the adults in this situation and if the process is long and frustrating for us, imagine how the children must feel just waiting and wondering if they are ever going to find a loving forever family. We have the maturity and tools needed to sit back, rationalize and wait. The children do not. The kids are caught between having to leave their birth family, possibly more than one foster placement, maybe being caught in the system where they think they might eventually go home and then dont and a lot of them feel somehow it is there fault and then to have to wonder if they will ever find a permanent home. It must seem an eternity to the kids who are waiting!! All of us are potential resources for one of many of these kids and we owe it to them and to ourselves to hang in there and do what we can to provide them the love, support and proper environment for them to be able to grow up well adujusted and feeling wanted. How do we just give up on that?
Chmae
We live in Maryland, Baltimore City to be exact. Termination of parental rights is frowned upon here. For eighteen months, since Henry’s arrival, I have been on a campaign to change things. More days than not, I am feeling hopeless. Then I look in the faces of those two little boys. I can imagine what their lives would be like. It is all I need to re-energize and continue the fight. No matter where you live you can do this. Please don’t leave another child to linger in Foster Care.
My daughter, a single woman, had decided to adopt a child from foster care. It had been two years of paper work, classes and inspections. In the meantime she busied herself preparing a room for her new arrival. As the months passed she began to give up hope. The pre-adoptive meetings she attended were filled with people who had been waiting up to four years. With so many children needing a home how could this be? She was about to get her answer. A call came for her at work from DSS (Department of Social Service) it was a Friday. Unfortunately she never received the message. It wasn’t until she arrived home that she learned there was a child available. It was an emergency situation and he needed to be placed immediately. She had tried to call DSS several times that evening but was unable to get any information. On the last attempt she was told that he had been placed. Her heart was breaking. It was a long weekend wondering what had happened to the child. Monday finally arrived and Henry’s worker called her. It had been a temporary placement and she would be getting him.
On November 21, 2006 an eighteen month old boy lay on my daughter’s floor hysterical and crying. We knelt next to him and tried to comfort him and we cried to. He had been born abandoned, drug and alcohol exposed and had no pre-natal care. Now at eighteen months he was in his third home. He had been placed in a foster home at four days old. It was the only home he had ever known for eighteen months and now in less that a week he had been moved two times. Here he was, with sadness I can’t imagine wondering where he was and who we were. He had come with some toys and luckily my daughter chose the right one. It was a little vacuum that played the “clean up” song from Barney. For forty five minutes she played that song over and over. Finally he stopped crying and got up and went over to his toys, the only things that were familiar to him. There was no way to let him know there would never be another move he was home.
We were given very little personal information about him. The simplest things you would tell a sitter. Does he talk? What does he like to eat? How does he like to go to bed? Does he have a favorite song? The list could go on. Those of us who are parents know that these simple preferences are security to our children. How sad that nothing was known about his life to help him with this transition. It was love at first sight for all of us but especially for my daughter.
At the inception of this pre-adoptive process my daughter had said she would only take a child that was adoption ready. This question was posed on several occasions over the next few days. We were assured he was. Less than a week of his arrival we found out the bio parents rights had not been terminated. The prior social worker had failed to file the proper papers and follow through on her duties. Now it was like starting from scratch.
In addition we now knew the original foster family had filed to have their home reopened and to regain custody of Henry. A feeling of panic consumed us all. We were Mommy, Grammy, Pop-Pop, aunts, uncles and cousins Henry was ours and we were prepared to do whatever it took to make it legal.
He was sick when he arrived and so the first week was spent getting medical attention. He had only been seen at clinics and we were applying to private physicians so he would a physician who knew him. It was difficult with little medical history.
Sleeping was a big problem. Since we weren’t familiar with his routine we let him guide us. For the first few months he cried himself to sleep while we held and rocked him. He would wake up in a panic, hysterical, crying and not fully awake. While he slept someone was always within a few feet of him. Ready to hold him close and assure him he was never alone.
As weeks passed my daughter continued to press for an adoption date. Finally, good news, so we thought. A court hearing was to take place on January 24th that would terminate the rights of the parents. The court appointed attorney for Henry was called the following day to find out the results of the hearing. We were informed the hearing never took place. My daughter was also told at this time not to concern herself with the prior foster family’s petition to reopen their foster home it would not happen. The hearing for the prior foster family took place in June. Not only had their house been reopened they were now filing a petition to have Henry returned. On July 18th the bio father was released from prison and on that day had filed to block the termination of his rights.
The panic we had felt Thanksgiving Day was nothing in comparison to what we were feeling at this time. It took us until September to get a private attorney to agree to meet with us. One after the other had turned us down. Time and again we were told it was hopeless and nothing could be done. They wished us good luck. Henry’s state appointed attorney had been little help as we tried to find out our options. We will always be grateful for the attorney who did meet with us. She gave us the key to help ourselves. My daughter downloaded Consent to Adopt forms off of the internet. The only information we had on the bio father was his name, last known address and place of employment. We spoke to his last employer and with the information he gave us we transferred our search to a specific location. For three days we hit the streets. Up and down, day and night we walked talking to anyone who would talk to us. Finally we found him. After convincing him we were not with the police or any other government agency he talked to us. By the fourth day we had his forms signed and in hand. He led us to the bio mother and a few days later she also signed. We also found out the bio mother was pregnant with her sixth child.
We knew that the papers that had been signed would not be acceptable to DSS. Our ace was the courts would have to hear our side now. The bio parent’s signatures could not be dismissed. My daughter called Henry’s worker to tell him what she had done. I know he was secretly proud of her. He is a caring man himself. This was his job and so he brought us the proper required consent forms. Once again we hit the streets. By the next day the papers were signed by both parents. Finally we thought we are on our way. Henry’s lawyer was furious with my daughter for taking matters into her own hands. She was Henry’s mommy and she would have walked through fire to save her child.
On October 26, 2007 a call came from the bio mother to my daughter. She had just delivered Jack, Henry’s brother. The bio mother told my daughter she had signed over all of her rights at the hospital. For all intents and purposes my daughter would have all of the rights of mother to new baby Jack. The hospital would not abide by the bio mother’s request. She was only able to peer at Jack through the glass, just like any other stranger. He was so small, just a little over 4 pounds. He was going through withdrawal. Here she was ready to hold and comfort him and could do nothing. Everyday after the first visit she called but was never allowed to see him. Attempts to reach someone at DSS that could straighten out this mess proved futile. On November 1st she reached someone at DSS. She inquired about Jack’s condition and when she could see him. She was told he had been placed in foster care. How could that be? She was his mommy and he was with strangers.
Angels hover over my grandsons. People move in and out of our lives but I have begun to realize it is not without purpose. On November fifth my daughter located Jack. He was still hospitalized and going through withdrawal. He was also having trouble learning to suck. He had been transferred to a pediatric hospital. Jack was thirteen days old. For the first time the only mother he would ever know was there to hold and comfort. He was sick but now he had a family who could love him to wellness. Jack came home on November 7, 2007.
When a baby is born they are given a temporary worker and so was Jack’s case. My daughter immediately called Jack’s worker for Consent to Adopt forms. He was not aware of this option. Henry’s worker gave us the forms for Jack. By this time we had contact #’s for the bio parents. The forms were signed and delivered. Jack would be one of the few abandoned children born lucky enough to only know one home. He was loved since birth and had a family.
At first Henry was not quite sure why Jack was there. Henry had been the center of the universe for a year. He has adjusted, some days better than others. Jack is eight months old now. Henry is three. On February 20, 2008 Henry was legally adopted. The entire clan was present for the adoption.
Henry is extremely bright. I say that not as a grandparent with delusions. Jack is also bright and alert at seven months he is on par with his peers. Sometimes he can barely drink his bottle afraid he will miss something. I only mention these things because I don’t want you to be afraid to adopt babies born drug and alcohol exposed.
It is so difficult and timely to adopt a child in my area. I have been working on options to ease the laws. I want to impress upon the judges how important it is to terminate the rights of children born to such dire circumstances. The faster they are placed in a permanent loving home the better. Don’t give up do whatever it takes. You can fight the system. We did it.
I am so glad that you shared you nightmare in this post. We live in Texas and have seen some of the same idiotic roadblocks here. The saving grace is when you finally complete the process to bring children into your home. It is worth it but some changes must be made in the system. We have adopted 4 children, 2 different sibling groups and each time it took over 3 years to complete the process. Don't give up---just keep pushing. Remember you may have to upset some people but all for the love of a child.
I am so glad that you shared you nightmare in this post. We live in Texas and have seen some of the same idiotic roadblocks here. The saving grace is when you finally complete the process to bring children into your home. It is worth it but some changes must be made in the system. We have adopted 4 children, 2 different sibling groups and each time it took over 3 years to complete the process. Don't give up---just keep pushing. Remember you may have to upset some people but all for the love of a child.
My story is so beautiful to me. We just adopted our little girl. She's 11. We waited for her for 2 years. I was on the adoptuskids web site every day, calling, and showing interest. I bothered my worker and NC Kids constantly. I spent many hours trying to find her. She's our first. I'm 29 years old and wouldn't have had a child any other way.
When we went to sign the final adoption papers, the social workers let me know that many on the committee didn't agree that my husband, 28, and I would be a good match because of age and experience. That's probably why I waited for an older child so long. No one would accept us.
When she first moved in we had a very hard time with her. She told me she hated me, I wasn't her mother, this wasn't her home, and she wanted to go back to her group home. I was so hurt. But the truth is she was hurting much more than me. She knew she had to let go of her birth mom and settle for us as parents. You can't imagine how I felt. I waited and waited for her, but didn't love her yet and she didn't make it easy for me to love her. Finally after several months of patients and consistent disclipline, I hugged her and loved her anyway. Something in me changed that night although not a lot changed in her.
My husband and I stayed very consistent (something she wasn't used to). If anyone out there is listening, consistency is the key to getting through to your child! I'm not sure when the change in her occured. Maybe it's been little by little, but she's so much brighter now. After 6 months, she listens and tries to do her best. I'm not just mom to her, I'M MOMMY!
If your out there wanting to adopt and your like us, young and green (at least in the eyes others), take heart! Get training! MAAP is out there for a reason.
Having any child (birth or adopted) isn't a cake walk. Suck it up and go on being consistent. Whether your still searching, be consistent. Whether you've got your little angel (or devil), be consistent. Hand your problems to God and learn from every experience you face.
God bless everyone of you for your committment to children. If you've given love to the least of these, you've done it unto God.
Ok mine is a book so be ready!
Our journey through the wonderful world of adoption. We are a family of 7 now. We were a family of 4 when our journey started. Mom, dad and 2 boy boys. The boys were 17 and 19. Empty nest time! NOT! So we started thinking adoption again. We had tried way back when the boys were 3 and 5. We fostered to adopt a 10 yo that in hind site was RAD. At that time we were young and foolish and didn't know near enough about being parents to deal with a RAD child. We disrupted. Left a bad taste for a long time. But faced with an empty nest we decided to get educated and try again.
We were blessed in the same adoption worker (AW) that we had years ago was now a supervisor. She even remembered us. We had been very involved in a local support group and did lots of squeaking. Because we had been so involved before we only had to do the 8 hour 'mini- pride' class. Then we waited! We filled out paper work and waited! We did our class in Aug. We squeaked until March. One Sunday in March we we ask our whole church to pray for children for us. We got a phone call on the next Friday to come in and read a file on three kids. They had to be moved ASAP. My husband was working so I went in and read the file. It was 2 + inches thick! I read every page! I listened as the case worker (CW) was trying to find a respite home for them for the weekend. I cried on the way home. We prayed all weekend. On Wed. we had a placement meeting, on Thursday they came home with us!!!! They were T-4, MN 7 and MJ-8. Let the fun begin!
Little did I know that MN was RAD. MJ was borderline MR. In fact his therapist who had saw him for 2 years thought he was MR!!! None of this was in the file! MJ isn't MR, he probably has Asbergers Syndrome. When we got him all he knew how to do was watch TV and walk in circles. We don't TV! So he did lots of circles as we drew him out of his shell. Now he is an almost A student. Still doesn't socialize as well as I would like, but much better than 3 years ago.
With much work MN is now healed of the RAD. It wasn't easy! Lots of times I really thought we would not make it. Now she is very compassionate. She loves life and loves people. We survived and healed because I educated myself. I surrounded myself with like minded knowledgeable people. I did this with a good therapist and most of all an on line support system for adopting an older child. They were and still are my life line. The place I go when I need to vent, or need an different view.
One of the ways MN exercising the demons of the past has been through writing.
Here are two of her poems.
Love
by MN age 10
Feb.2008
You are a baby goat
that is sick and cold,
blind, hungry and lonely
you are crying, you are
beaten, and fooled.
No one looks at you
they snort, butt you
kick you, and looks
at you with a hard
eye it pierces you.
It rains, snows, and
hails as it pounds your coat.
Finally someone
sees you it is raining
then.
She gets up and rushes toward you
your body tenses.
She does not beat
or kick.
She cleans you,
warms you, and feeds
you.
She makes a
shelter under her
belly, and she has
a soft eye
she sees
inside of you
she thinks you
are special. When
a enemy comes
she will push you
into safety.
One
day she died
you cry and 'cry
over her blood
shed.
She
died for you
and only you
She said I
will love
you my dear. and
she cries
"It is over!"
Her name is Jesus
I Need
I was 1.
I was hurt.
I was scared
and battered.
I was sad,
angry, embarrassed,
confused,
jealous, bruised,
blind in the heart and
I had mixed feelings.
I shouted to myself
"Why me?""Why?"
"Does anyone know me?
Or at least love me?"
I got older and still had these feelings.
When I was 5 I thought
"Am I the problem? Did
I do something bad?
Am I stupid, and dumb?"
As I longed for boys,
make-up, beauty, fashion,
and popularity. What I
was looking for was.......
"Love and care."
Oh how I
longed for a
hug or kiss
or being held
or just someone
saying "I love you."
I longed for
someone to
rescue me.
No one knew
me. No one cared.
"Why?" I would cry.
As I was suffering
people hid and
pretended not to
know. Why!?
God watched
me with tears
and anger. I was
a child and didn't
need to be harmed.
I have moved 6 times. 4 people I
did not know. I was
scared, angry and every
feeling except happy ones.
Now I understand
I can do miracles.
I am proud to have
been abused. For I
know God has a
Special plan and
place for me. And I won't be normal.
A child can never
ever outgrow....
"LOVE"
Written by MN 6-16-08
You have just had a glimpse into the mind and heart of a RAD child. Not a pretty place!
As the kids begin to heal we started talking of adding again. We called and ask that our homestudy be updated. We explained we wanted an older child. A teen no less! We were told that they wouldn't update our homestudy until we were matched with a child. Yet over and over we were told we had to have an updated homestudy to be matched. This battle went on for 2 YEARS! We found some areas that would match without updating first.
We were matched with a 14 yo girl in state. What was funny was this girl we had inquired on 4 times! Yes, we were drawn to her. She was removed from the web site several months before we got an email saying we had been matched. She had picked us! Yet it was 2-3 months before we were notified. We read her case file, and were set on adopting. She ran away from the foster home. Fear factor or hopelessness??? Months later I learned she had been found and was being placed with an aunt. This was in June.
We looked out of state. We even got invited to go to an adoption even in NM. There we met a young man that was 14. He wasn't what we were looking for! He reeked of gang banger type clothes hair etc, yet we were drawn to him. Come to find out he was drawn to us. We told the worker that day we would like more info on him. He ask for more info on us. NM thinks outside the box! They were willing to go the extra mile. The arranged a weekend visit. His case worker flew down with him and we had him for a whole weekend. He had a good time. We had a good time. But, when push came to shove instead of setting down with him and talking options about moving and what his chances of getting adopted were they called him after school and ask him if he wanted to move or not. He said no. Fear is a big factor in these kids not getting adopted I am learning. Without adult guidance and help they will run/refuse when it comes down to the wire. That was in Oct.
Fast fwd to April of this year. I got a call from AR. This case worker was a sales person. She knew the child and could answer all my questions. Believe me I have LOTS of questions. She answered all of them I had off the top of my head on the phone that day. I then emailed her a list of questions. Our on line support group has a list of questions to ask before you say yes. We are talking more than a page full of detail questions. She again answered all of them. I then talked to her therapist. Still no red flags. She is 16.
Just a week or two before I got this call I had gotten a call from Adoptuskids checking on our status. They had tried to get the local CPS to update our homestudy no luck. So they were going to fwd the fact they wouldn't to the state level and see if that would help. I was all for that! Same day I found the email of a state level older child adoption worker. I told her my story. I have no idea which broke the dam. The next week I got an email from our local CPS stating they were mistaken and they could now update our homestudy.
We had been told it was no big deal to get it updated. HA! We had to do a 8 hour class. That was OK, We had to have new finger prints. That was OK. We only found this out when AR called wanting the FBI fingerprints, we only had state prints. We did it the next week only to be told it would take up to 6 weeks to get them back. That wasn't OK! True to form it took six weeks to the day to get them back.
Mean while we are moving fwd with the AR adoption. Since we don't have fingerprints and our homestudy isn't updated we can't meet her. But, thinking outside the box again I came up with the idea of being her “mentoring mom” while we wait. The AR worker like it. So since April we have talked a couple of times a week. It is very very hard. She as even ask that we adopt her. She knows a family is working on adopting her.
Two weeks ago when we talked she said she had decided against being adopted. She would just stay in the foster home. Panic city here! I emailed everyone I could. They all assured me she was just afraid and that it was normal. That wasn't the plan for her and it wasn't going to happen. She told me last night she is getting excited about being adopted and ready to be. All her support has shared with her that being adopted is ok and being afraid is OK.
Does she know we are the ones adopting her? Her foster mom and I both want so badly to tell her, but we haven't. Does she suspect? I hope so!
Mean while paper work slowly moves. AR got our updated homestudy only to find some of the paper work in her TPR was missing and had to be found. That happened last Thursday. Then the paper work had to go from the AW to his supervisors desk in a different town, back to the AW desk and on to the capital to be sent to our state. This is the ICPC request. As of yesterday it was in the mail, SNAIL mail to the capital. From there it has to go SNAIL mail to our state and back. Then back to the AW.
We have also not gotten to read the case file. That is in the mail to our local CPS for us to go in and read. Snail mail again! I guess someone has to keep the Post Office in business. We should get in MAYBE on Monday. We will read it and agree to it. I don't expect any surprises. I have talked to everyone in her life and gotten the same information from all of them. Once we agree then we can tell her that we are the family!
Her CW has changed since this started. So I have talked to two CW, her AW, her therapist and her foster mom. All agree she is made for our home. The first CW told me she ask J what type home she wanted. She didn't go into detail but said J described our home to a T. I ask J a couple of weeks ago what she wanted in an adoptive home. She described our home down to an upstairs!
It is hard not to be excited. We have been disappointed so many times. We have been so close 2 times before. We have turned down a few kids that weren't safe for our home. I even had the photo album bought and pictures picked out to fill it for the first girl. Next time we were more careful to not give our heart, but it still hurt when he said no. This time I have so many emotions floating around. I want to go out and buy a teddy bear for her! I want to make a huge life book! I want to re-arrange beds and get ready for her. I have done none of these. I have picked out pictures and taken more of our life and family. Am I procrastinating or just fearful? Both! I don't want to invest more of my heart than I have, yet want to invest it all. How is that for a contradiction? I do know that no act of love is wasted. Even if this falls through, which I don't see happening the love I have given over the phone wasn't wasted.
Mean while we wait and pray! We pray for J to feel secure in being adopted We pray that the paper work flies on the wings of Angels. We pray that my husband can easily get time off to go when the time comes. He is having employee issues and very short handed. We pray, God's hand and His peace over all of this.
I also wanted to share this that a friend wrote to me.
AdoptUsKids.blogspot.com
Miracle Adoption Story
We are a family in Kansas that did the necessary 10 week training called "MAPP TRAINING" in 2003 after we found out that we had infertility issues and would have to do InVitro to conceive. I had a daughter before my husband and I married that he has adopted, she is now 17. We were told by many social workers that we would "probably never get kids under 5." But we had a faith that kept us going.
I am an adopted child myself through the Kansas foster care system so after I grieved my infertility and did a lot of praying, I came to the instant conclusion that this is the route we should take to become parents. I had been raised by the most loving family anyone could ask for. It took my husband a bit longer to agree-he was hesitant at first. We completed our training to foster to adopt in November 2003and by July 2004 we were chosen to be parents to a sibling set-3 year old girl Victoria and 5 year old boy Brendan. They moved in almost instantly and they are now 7 and 9 and blessings to us! They had been with us about 4 months when their old worker called me and said, "you may want to get your foster license because I heard their mom is pregnant again and if the baby comes into the system, the chances of you taking the child would be high." So we took her advice and got our license. Two months later we became foster parents to Myah-a day old newborn born addicted to methamphetamines (not their bio sibling). Then a couple of months later we did find out that our oldest 2 kids mom WAS pregnant so we started corresponding with her and were expecting the arrival and volunary placement of their baby brother with us.
Just 3 weeks before he was due, we had another day old meth positive newborn baby girl-Caty placed with us as a foster child. THEN our older childrens mom got placed in prison and their brother Wyatt was born while she was incarcerated and we took him in right at birth and were with her during his delivery.
During all of this, we had open relationships with all 3 of our childrens birth mothers. There are 19 children between the 3 of them. We love them like family, just because they have made mistakes in their lives gives us no reason to judge. They are welcome here as long as they are clean.
Wyatt and Caty were almost one when we got a call from Myah's mom saying that she was homeless, still meth addicted and pregnant-due in 3 months and she asked me "Are you ready for #7?" My husband and I prayed and pined over this and decided that there was NO WAY we would want them to grow up without one another and January 19, 2007 baby Jett was born-a true gift from God!
Our kids are now 17, 9, 7, 3, 2, 2 and 1 and we love them all dearly-couldn't imagine life any other way and to think that I was actually sulking and depressed that I couldn't carry another baby-WOW! So happy that God knew what he was doing and we went with HIS plan :)!
Who said we would never get kids under 5??? Divine intervention and Miracles have happened-We are living proof that ADOPTION WORKS!! So go with your gut and your heart, don't listen to naysayers. YOU DO what YOU are lead to do and have FAITH!! We went from 1 child to 7 in 3 years and are alive to tell about it :)
Theres MUCH MORE to our story, I could go on for days!
Will we adopt more children? We would like to one day, there is such a need. Most likely an older sibling set.
Blessings to you all and good luck on your adoption journey.
For those of you interested in international adoption, there was a news story last night on PBS's "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer." I googled "newshour and international adoption" and was taken to the PBS website. There's a video of the story. Char
Please people DO NOT GIVE UP! I have been a foster/adopt parent since 1997. We have adopted 5 children from foster care and are getting 3 more soon, from AdoptUsKids website.I know it is not easy. But here are some things that help and actually have worked well for our family. 1.Be very very patient, everything takes a LOT of time. Have realistic expectations of your adoptive children AND the agencies involved.I know we had to learn to CELEBRATE the SMALL TINY BABY STEPS of improvement our adopted children made. You will not get instantaneous results. My own personal opinion is it takes 3 years of HEALING for every 1 year of abuse. So do the math...it takes time! 2. Support group - a very valuable source of information and even more important - IDEAS to help your family overcome many challenges. Don't have one? Then start your own support group - that is what we did and now we are over 10 years STRONG and had to expand to two groups on different days and times. 3. Keep a diary of how you handled successfully stressful times. For example, in stressful times my husband and I take MORE breaks and pray more - sound crazy? It works, then we have more ENERGY to deal with the child's stressful situation much better with success much sooner than without our breaks. In the diary I also write what works especially well for that particular child who is having the hard time at present. Son #1 may need more "alone" time, son #2 may need to run outside to burn off energy, etc. Reading this diary during stressful times reminds me what I have to do, because when I am stressed, I forget things more. 4. MUST have breaks for yourself - time away from the kids and any stress. VERY IMPORTANT or you will burn out and give up on your kids. 5. Unconditional love for EVERYONE in your family - when their behavior is the WORST is when you need to reassure them of your LOVE FOREVER the most. (That is hard sometimes when they really push your buttons - especially the RAD kids.) 6. Hard to make the time for this one - but it saves you a lot of stress later on - KEEP A DAILY LOG describing each child's behaviors, etc. etc. this documentation can be invaluable to you and the child later - also include dates and times and agency needed info, or info workers relay to you over the phone, etc. INVALUABLE!!! 7. Try to cultivate a support system for your family - do not wait for family or neighbors to offer help - you have to TELL THEM what you need and EDUCATE them appropriately to assist you. This actually helped enrich our relationships with some friends. Be warned, you may loose friends and family too - some people just do not understand why we adopt "special needs" children.
8. Get training all the time!!! Whether it is through your agency or county, get training and workshops - more hours than your agency requires - get as MUCH as you can!! I have attended over the years multiple trainings on ADHD for example, yet have learned different things at each one! Never stop training!!!!!!!!!!
Parents in our support that have failed adoptions/disruptions, tell me they "stopped loving" their child. I do not believe this. I think the parent REALLY believes they stopped loving that child, but I have learned that these parents got so burned out and stressed out, they just could not take it anymore and give up. Please do not let that happen to you. Get help. You need a support group - it is hard to find babysitters sometimes for these troubled children....when you cultivate a supportive network to help you when you need a babysitter....it helps you SO MUCH not to get burned out. It is hard work to cultivate and attend a support group - hard to get the training, but I promise you it will help you and reduce your stress in the long run, AND make you have a better chance for a successful adoption!!!!!!! I live in Michigan.God Bless You All.
My adoption (foster care) story. I contacted Lakeview Center Foster Care in Pensacola Florida and stated that we wanted to work in the "therapeutic care" foster care. "Joy" (not her real name) came to see my wife and I. We live in a nice, new (built 2004) four-bedroom, 2 bath home. Joy spent the 2 hours with us complaining about our home, our placement of furniture, our smaller back yard, our lack of a back yard fence, the amount of car traffic at the back of our home, and more. We assured her that we would put our furniture anywhere she felt it was best for children, erect a fence, insure we did not use our back yard for anything but children to play in (play space) and told her that we live on a cultisack in a very secure, safe, and family friendly area. She continued to complain.
Before she left she told us to be "very specific" about the kind of child or children we wanted because they did not like removing children from a home. We said we preferred girls and we did not want children who were diagnosed with sociopath, psychopath or ADD (ADHD). Joy got very upset and said that "every foster child is ADHD". We told her that we did not believe that every foster child was ADHD, and that it may be that the ADHD diagnosis might be overused. We told her to then forget about desire not to house ADHD children. She remained angry.
We were given forms to fill out and told that there would be classes to attend and she would call us with the location of those classes. Four months later we had heard nothing. After many attempts to contact Joy we were finally given several weeks worth of classes to attend 25 miles away. Upon arriving at that class the instructor asked us why we did not attend any of the many classes regularly offered in our own city? The answer to that is "Joy". Since were were starting, we decided to finish rather that try to work with Joy to find out where the other classes would be and further delay our start time. We attend the classes faithfully and tried to contact Joy when we finished the courses. After 3 weeks of trying to reach her, she called and said she did not get the paperwork, so we completed it again. After several weeks, we tried to contact her again, but was told she was "busy" and we would have to wait for her to call us back. Despite the fact that we called many times, we never got a return call from her subordinates or superiors. After about 3 additional months of attempting to contact her, she called us back and told us that she was "working on our paperwork" but "very busy".
A month or so later, at our next call she told us that there was a new rule and that we would not qualify a therapeutic foster care parents until we first enrolled and served as "regular" foster care parents for 12 months. While we would do the "regular" foster care for a year to meet this new rule (which may or may not really exist), I cannot imagine that Jane would do anything but continue to block our effort to be foster parents as she has done for most a year. Obviously, she has both the desire and power to do so. So, why bother.
I've contacted her supervisor, but my complaints fell on deaf ears. It is no wonder that foster parents are hard to find and keep with such inept leadership in the program.
This is a success story. This is a success story about how an incompetent individual and the incompetent supervisor of this individual kept one qualified couple out of foster care. While I am sure that not all foster care leadership is poor, it is a fact that 100% of the foster care leaders we have come in contact with are worthless.
Foster care would be better served here, if qualified and caring leadership were hired. Maybe this is a problem that extends beyond our local foster care agency.
Venting a bit, I know, but this is the truth.
Thanks for listening,
Joda & Laura
We have been fortunate enough to be able to adopt 2 of the babies that have been placed with us over the years. BUT we have inquired on at least 30 children from our state of Texas and a lot of other sttes to adopt. We rarely hear "thank you for you inquiry but this child has been placed with another family". We just hear nothing. With so many children needing to be adopted and so many licensed adoptive families looking to aodpt, why is it so hard to match the two? Why does it take years for these children to be matched. I know at least 5 families that have been trying to aodpt children that are school age, not babies, for 5 or more years. The system is NOT working for these children. What can be changed to help the children get placed within a reasonable amount of time?
Joda & Laura
I hope that you are not giving up!! I would guess that most of us whether in foster care or adoption only have in fact experienced this type of caseworker. It is a shame that anyone should have to go thru that.
I would assume that like in PA, all foster care agencies have to be licensed and follow state regulations. Have you ever considered making a complaint to the licensing department in FL? I would worry that considering the way you were treated that the children from this agency also may be recieving less than the proper attention from the workers. It is amazing that once a complaint may "threaten" the ability of the agency to make money, things often change. I would pursue this. But please dont let this one incident discourage you to the point that you give up. The kids need you!!
Chmae
Hi all:
I'm for putting complaints in writing and "cc"ing the SW's boss in the letter. Again, they cannot ignore things in black and white. I'd also advise you to make copies of EVERYTHING you sign or any letters you send to your agency. For example, when the SW I had been working with left the agency, my child abuse & police record check were lost/misplaced. These are very important documents. Luckily, I had made copies and it was just a matter of sending a FAX to the new worker. I also like the idea of making notes because they are helpful not only to us but also to anyone else who may get the children. These notes can also prove invaluable in the event that you have an incompetent or unethical SW. Char
What God has Joined Together
A Family in Process
When I was a young teen, I often told my mother when I married I was going to adopt children at three years of age so they would already be potty trained and I would not have to deal with diapers. She would counter with “you’ll need to clear that with your wife”. Thirty years later, I find that my plan had no basis in reality. I had a four and five-year-old in diapers for almost a year. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Although my wife Lisa and I had first discussed adoption with each other twenty-one years ago, even before we were engaged, we didn’t actually contact an adoption agency for six years after our wedding. We were living in Queens, NY at the time, and decided to check out an agency in New Jersey. We were very discouraged by our “fact-finding mission”. The counselor we met with told us we were looking at a 3- to 5-year wait for a “white” baby. We told her we were open to other ethnic groups, but were told we “did not qualify”. Even though Lisa’s grandfather was Cuban, she did not have a Hispanic maiden name; therefore, since neither of us could prove Hispanic heritage we could not adopt a Hispanic child. The same was the case for a black or bi-racial child. The greatest obstacle though was their fee: $15,000 or 20% of our annual gross, whichever was greater. Since their fee would have taken almost half our income, that particular door had definitely closed.
It was ten years ago that Lisa and I started to actively pursue adoption. We had recently left New York and purchased our first home, a two-bedroom condo, and wanted to fill it with children. I was sure there was a way to adopt on our budget, so we filled out an application with the South Carolina Department of Social Services. We knew it might take a while, but still didn’t have the $10,000-$15,000 most of the private agencies we inquired with were asking for.
Once our application was completed, we started taking adoption classes. We were a little nervous when our home study was scheduled during the middle of a construction project in the house. The social worker put us at ease almost instantly. We spent 2+ hours talking, and she never left the living room. When she left, we thought “W0W! This might actually happen!” Sadly, our excitement didn’t last long. The weeks without a call became months and then a year with no call.
We looked for ways to keep our hopes alive. We considered going to India to adopt. (We knew an Indian evangelist whose father had government connections. He was sure if we could get there, a few calls would have us leaving with the child of our choice.) Once again, cost was a barrier. When we did hear from DSS, it was not quite what we expected. They asked if we would be willing to become foster parents for their new foster-to-adopt program. That was fine with us as long as we were only placed with “adoptable” children. We started shopping for a crib “knowing” it would soon be filled. Still no call…
After waiting almost two years from our home study, we decided to take our lives off hold. We bought a house with a park off the back yard (still looking hopefully to the future). We planned a vacation to Mexico and secured non-refundable airline tickets. That must have been the secret formula. Three months after moving, and two weeks after scheduling our trip, we received the long-awaited call - DSS had a 4-week-old girl, and were we interested? We were instructed to take some time to think about it, and call the following morning to give them our decision. Like there was any chance we would decline.
We had five days to prepare for our new baby while dealing with the emotional roller coaster adoption is. We would go from overwhelming joy (We’re getting a baby!!) to disbelief (this isn’t really happening) to something akin to terror (What if we are bad parents? How can we afford this? What if they change their mind once we get her?). But after five days of being physically and emotionally drained, we nervously joined our caseworker to go meet, and bring home, our daughter.
Being first-time parents brings many new challenges, and doing it at 35 doesn’t make it any easier. After enjoying 11 years as a couple, we had to restructure how we functioned as a family. I took the night feeding shifts, more out of self-preservation than any conscious effort to be a considerate husband. The few times Lisa got up to feed Juliana, she would bring her back to our room and talk to her for about an hour, assuring I wasn’t getting sleep either. I could usually get her fed and back to bed in half that time and actually get some sleep.
After a grueling 5 weeks as new parents, we took a much-deserved vacation. Ok, it was the non-refundable trip we booked two months earlier. We wanted to take Juliana with us, but were certain we would have problems with customs trying to bring her back into the country with no papers on her. We managed to enjoy our brief getaway between calls to Grandma to check on her.
For years we had heard how children “control” what the family does. We were determined not to let that happen. Juliana took her first vacation at 18 weeks when we took a 14-hour road trip to upstate New York. Six weeks later, she went on her first camping trip. Aside from setting up a new tent for the first time, in the dark, by myself, in the rain, it went really well. Juliana slept through the thunder while Lisa and I played mancala on the floor.
We did make some adjustments as we settled into being a family of three. There was less money to do things, and spontaneity took more planning, but Juliana kept up with our schedule. In fact, we were doing so good as parents that when Juliana was about 14 months old, we started talking about our second child. We contacted Christian Family Services, a local adoption agency, made them a profile, and started filling out an application. While we considered whether to proceed, we got a call from our former DSS caseworker. Someone asked her if we were still in the system because she could not find our name. She needed an adoptive home for an 18-month-old boy, Justice. We leapt into action, updating our home study, filling out the necessary paperwork to reactivate our file with DSS adoptions.
We did everything “they” asked and waited for the call that we could come pick up our son. His picture and profile was faxed to us, fueling our impatience. Lisa went out and bought a “boy” cup for his anticipated arrival. Juliana asked whom it was for. We told her it was for her brother, who hadn’t come yet. We talked with our caseworker weekly to see what was happening; after all, they asked for us specifically. After a couple months, we were getting a little discouraged. Finally, about six months after we first heard about Justice we received word that he had been adopted by his foster family. We tried to console ourselves with “he already knows them, so it’s probably better”. That did little to lessen our disappointment.
For the next few months, Lisa and I discussed what to do next. She wanted to go back to CFS; I didn’t think we could afford an agency and wanted to keep trying with DSS. What we did agree on was that Juliana, now 2 years old, needed a sibling, and we prayed we would have another child before she turned three. Lisa updated our profile and, in spite of my protests over the cost, had our CFS file activated.
Less than a week after we received our updated application package, we received a call from our caseworker, Joanne. She had just met with a young woman, Sally, 6 weeks from delivery who wanted a home for her baby. Joanne had taken our profile with five or six others even though we hadn’t completed our application. Our profile was the third one Sally looked at. She wasn’t even half way through it when she put it down and told Joanne she didn’t need to go any further; she had found her baby’s family.
Sally wanted to know if we would meet with her. It was not a condition of choosing us, but meant a lot to her. We had lunch with Sally and Joanne a week later. She asked what we wanted to name our soon-to-be daughter. She was making a memory book for her and wanted to spell her name correctly. When we told her we chose Natalia in part to honor her heritage (the birth father is Mexican) and because of the inherent meaning (God’s precious gift of joy), she almost cried.
After lunch, Sally told Lisa she could call and chat if she wanted. They spoke a couple times on the phone. Lisa started feeling a little uneasy about the “connection” that was developing, but was even more unnerved when Sally stopped accepting her calls. We later heard through Joanne that Sally was feeling uneasy too.
Things seemed to be humming along. We were working out a payment plan with CFS and securing our FMLA time in anticipation of Natalia’s arrival. Then three weeks prior to our expected due date, we received word that the birth father, who had been absent for the entire pregnancy, found out about Natalia and was threatening to take her to Mexico for his parents to raise! This isn’t supposed to happen! She is our baby; he has no right! Well, technically he might, but we were not giving up without a fight. Our attorney encouraged us to proceed with placement as soon as possible after birth to strengthen our claim on her.
Most of our friends and family prayed with us for a speedy resolution. Of course we did get the obligatory pseudo-supportive comments. “Maybe this is God’s way of telling you NO. Can you really afford another child? Wouldn’t she really be better off with her biological family, even if it is the grandparents?” We thank God daily we had the courage to persevere.
Sally had wanted Lisa to be in the birthing room for Natalia’s delivery. Lisa wasn’t too sure she was up for that. When we got the call that Sally had gone into labor, we dashed off for the hospital still debating whether Lisa should be in on it. Thankfully that choice was made for us; Natalia was delivered a few minutes before we arrived. The midwife had just finished cleaning her, and insisted I put on her first diaper. I cautiously complied, careful not to break the tiny thing in front of me.
I don’t believe I have been in a more awkward situation before or since. Sally insisted Lisa and I hold Natalia, so we sat there with her for probably 45 minutes wanting to focus all our attention on our new baby while knowing we could not ignore the woman a few feet from us who gave us this most precious gift.
The hospital gave us a room for the night so we could stay there with Natalia. I really wanted to go home and try to get just one more good night’s sleep, but that wouldn’t come for several weeks. (The sleep, not home.) We left early the next morning to tend to Juliana, who had no clue what had transpired over night, and give Sally some time alone with Natalia per her request.
We returned that evening with Juliana so she could meet her new sister before we brought her home. Seconds after we entered Sally’s room, a man appeared in the doorway asking to see her alone. We spent the next thirty minutes in the hall praying for no confrontation with the birth father. (We thought that was he, which was confirmed later.) Juliana and I saw him approach the elevator. He looked at us briefly, smiled at Juliana and left. Sally told us later he just wanted to see Natalia, and had decided not to contest the adoption; however, he would not sign any legal documents, so we still had to have the court TPR.
Juliana was thrilled to meet her new sister. When Natalia started fussing, she tried to give her a teddy bear. She asked who Sally was and why was she in bed. We explained as best we could to a 2-year-old that Sally was the woman who gave birth to Natalia and was giving her to us. Upon hearing that, Juliana walked over to Sally, gave her her teddy bear (which Natalia didn’t have much interest in) and said “Thank you”. The three adults in the room choked up. We stayed for about another hour, then headed home to prepare for Natalia’s homecoming.
We arrived at the hospital around 8:00 am the next morning. Lisa brought an outfit for Natalia to come home in. Sally was having a rough time when we got there, so discharge took longer than expected. Since Natalia was born in North Carolina and we were adopting in South Carolina, the hospital could not release Natalia to us. Sally held her until the nurse wheeled her out the front door, then the nurse picked her up and handed her to me. She was really ours!
We all went back to the CFS office to sign all the papers which could not legally have been done in the hospital in North Carolina. We waited outside for a few minutes for Sally to compose herself. Once we entered the office, we took a few pictures with Sally and Natalia, and gave her some alone time to say her final good-bye. When we finally headed home, I told Lisa I didn’t want to do that again, being with a birth mother during her very emotional farewell.
Being veteran parents by this time, we knew what to expect with a new baby. I told Lisa I was giving her fair warning that at some point in the next few days I would “lose it” due to sleep deprivation. She just laughed it off. Needless to say we were both caught a bit off guard when I had a major meltdown a mere three hours later. Natalia refused to sleep if she wasn’t being held. I was determined to let her cry herself to sleep, but could not find anywhere in the house where I could not hear her. We took turns not sleeping, trying to catch up on the other’s shift.
Natalia did not handle her first road trip very well. She was about three weeks old when we pulled an all-nighter to New York. She fussed for about half of the 14-hour drive. Fortunately by her second road trip, 26 hours to Minnesota, she was sleeping through the night and seemed to enjoy the drive when she was awake.
When Natalia was about 14 months old, we received a call from CFS. Sally was expecting again and hoped we would want another child. This was sooner than we had intended to have another baby, but the thought of Natalia actually growing up with a biological half sibling, and our concern for the baby, spurred us into action. We updated our home study and background check, started picking out names (we settled on Gabriella), and waited for the call. When we received a call from our attorney, we thought “Oh no, not again!” Sally had promised her baby to another agency before contacting us. What sort of contractual/legal claim would they have!? Both CFS and out attorney told us not to worry, so we cautiously waited for the right call.
That call never came. The call we did get was very disappointing. Joanne had lost contact with Sally; she was not returning calls. Joanne happened to see Sally’s birth announcement in a local paper and went to the hospital to find out what was going on. She arrived as Sally was leaving with Gabriella (we don’t know what Sally named her, but that is how we will always remember her). When Joanne confronted her, she said her sister convinced her to keep the baby even though she had no job, no home, and possible legal problems with the other agency. Disappointment doesn’t even come close to what we were feeling, but we were powerless to do anything. I did call our foster contact in case Gabriella was taken into custody for any reason, but that was a long shot.
Two months after this, we went to Florida to spend a few days with Mark and Becky, friends from Minnesota who had just been placed with their second child from Bundle of Hope in Jacksonville. Becky wanted us to meet Glenda, the director of the agency, whose first question for us was “how soon can you be ready to be placed with a baby?” My response… immediately. (Our home study had been updated three months earlier.) She said she had a baby due in four weeks, and proceeded to give us an application to complete.
Jadon was actually born five weeks later. Glenda called on Monday to let us know he had been born the night before and expected him to be released Wednesday morning, so Tuesday morning we loaded the van and headed for Florida. Shortly after checking out of the hotel Wednesday morning, we got a call from Glenda; we had a major snag. The birth mother tested positive for an STD during pregnancy, so the doctor had decided to put Jadon on penicillin as a precaution against an infection he showed no signs of having. As a result, the state of Florida would not let Jadon leave the state until his 10-day regimen was complete. Our choices were go home for a week or stay in Jacksonville and try to get him released while we waited for his shots to end. When we told friends at work the situation, they “decided” we should stay and several sent money to cover our unexpected additional expenses. What a blessing!
We headed to the hospital while Glenda made calls to get Jadon released and find us more appropriate lodging than a hotel room for 9 more days. The girls could only look at Jadon through a window while Lisa and I went in one at a time to hold and feed him. Lisa would have spent the whole day at the hospital, but with a 3-year-old and 18-month-old to consider, we only stayed for about an hour before going in search of toddler entertainment, which was found at a local mall play area.
Thursday morning we checked out of our hotel and went to meet with Glenda, who was still trying to get Jadon released. We then went to the hospital again to let Jadon know we hadn’t forgotten about him. Juliana stood at the window telling anyone who would listen about how Jesus gave her a baby brother and we were here to pick him up and take him home. “Do you have a baby here? There’s my baby. Isn’t he the prettiest baby you ever saw?”
Thursday afternoon we checked into our temporary home, a residence hotel Glenda had found for us. It was basically a small 1-bedroom apartment with a kitchenette. The girls were thrilled to have their own TV, and we appreciated being able to cook instead of eating out for the entire time. It was also nice to have somewhere besides the van for naptime.
Friday morning, after making the girls their favorite breakfast (pancakes) we headed back to Glenda’s office to see what was going on. Much to our great relief, she informed us Jadon was being released that evening as long as we could get a nurse to come to the hotel daily for his shots. We went to the hospital to give Jadon the good news and spent a couple hours with him before looking for some outdoor activity for the girls.
We met Glenda at the hospital around 6:00 that evening and went up to finally claim our son. We spent Saturday showing him off to friends who came up from Port Charlotte, FL to celebrate with us. On Sunday, we joined Glenda at church so she could show us off to her pastor. Juliana was a bit concerned that Glenda was holding Jadon too long. She tugged on her skirt and calmly stated “That’s my brother. You can’t keep him.” Five days later we were free to come home.
Shortly after Jadon’s first birthday, we reactivated our adoption file with DSS. We continued to take in foster children while we waited to be placed with our next child. We would check the COAC (Council on Adoptable Children) website regularly and expressed interest in individual children or sibling groups at least once a month. When we finally received “the call”, it came from out of the blue. A caseworker had a sister and brother who were not legally free at that point and as such had not yet made it to the COAC site. Of course we would take them!
Alizabeth and Christopher came with a laundry list of issues. Alizabeth had just turned 5, but would wet herself several times a day. Christopher was almost 4, but acted more like a 2-year-old than Jadon, wetting and soiling himself several times a day. (It would have been easier to deal with if there were a medical issue, but they had just not been held accountable for personal hygiene.) Both were very defiant and only spoke in one volume, LOUD!
Jo kept assuring us everyone would understand if we couldn’t handle the problems. We assured her they didn’t bring anything we hadn’t seen before with foster kids. We also told her we couldn’t even entertain that as an option if we were truly committed to making these children permanent members of our family. Most importantly, God would not have brought them to us just to have us give up on them.
They have now been with us just over a year. They both know they are an important part of our family and are excited about changing their last name. A few months ago their foster caseworker, who has been involved with their case for three years, said she knows God put them in our family. We finalized their adoption last fall. We have started praying about our next child. They’ve all been asking when the baby is coming. Since DSS is unlikely to have an infant available for adoption, we may be visiting CFS again soon. Our next addition, though, needs to wait until we have a larger vehicle. Our current one is full. If any one has a bus you would like to donate, I’m sure we will fill it up.
hey all.
i am looking for a site where i can find any/all adoption parties/mixers/picnics. Anybody have any ideas or help?
thanks,
allison
Anything that's helped me reach the workers:
Go to trainings!
Not just the ones they offer you as a prospective parent.
Find out where the trainings are for the SWs and caseworkers and go to those, it is the best way to meet them and get to learn how the system works. At least you can get some insight into who the kids are dealing with.
Bring your paperwork in person, instead of mailing or faxing it. Take snacks to the office for the workers and receptionist. Show them a friendly helpful face to put to your name. No kidding.
Stick a one-paragraph summary on top of your homestudy with a recent photo!
Make it inviting to read. They are LONG and too easy to postpone reading them.
Contact the Heart Gallery, they are very motivated to search for the kids they feature.
Offering to foster:
The workers are crisis-driven, they are more motivated to find foster placements as they need them, than to pursue adoption possibilities that take a lot of time and may not pan out. I wanted to go straight to adoption so the teen wouldn't question my commitment, but now I feel if it will help the kid and s/he is unsure about committing to adoption, I would happily foster. If we make a connection it will endure, no matter what we call it.
Just a quick word of encouragement to those families who are in the middle of the "war"...hoping & praying for TPR, knowing that you'll give the child/ren a much better home and life...and yet not having a foot to stand on because you're "just foster parents" and you don't get any representation in court...you sit there and listen to all the junk being thrown back & forth and you want to scream, but you can't. I know...I've been through it...adopted eight wonderful kids over the past twenty years and learned a valuable lesson: be patient and let the process take it's course...it usually does. Yes, sometimes they go back--here in NC "reunification" is still the ultimate goal, and it should be if the parents can prove they're worthy. But most of the time it doesn't work out that way and if you'll hang in there, be at every team meeting, be at every court hearing, be at every permanency planning meeting (this is NC terminology--your state may call it something different), have the GAL in your home for frequent visits...just do all the things that good parents do and the system will sort it all out. There's still no guarantee things will go the way you want, but these are things that you can do and they make a big difference! The foster parents who don't show up, don't advocate for their child/ren, don't build a rapport with social workers, therapists, GAL's, case managers, etc. don't stand a chance because they're not doing any more than the bio parents who aren't doing enough either. Do what you can and let the process take it's course. Back in July of '05 they brought us a cute little 9 year-old blond girl. We waded through court hearings month after month, team meetings, therapy appointments, etc., etc., etc. for twenty-four months! Yeah, I was going crazy but a very wise (and experienced) manager at our local DSS gave me the advice I relayed above...and at the end of twenty-four months it was suddenly over--and we were able to adopt our then eleven year-old daughter...we finalized three months later with a private adoption ceremony in a closed courtroom with the judge who had heard the case for the twenty-four months...it was very emotional. I could tell many more stories...it's all about being involved and in some cases being the last one standing. Hang in there! Some of you are focused on changing the system...that's good--it needs it. We chose to learn the system and work it for all it's worth...it has worked for us. The important part is, don't quit!
After what seemed like forever we were called to attend a "Matching Party." If you have not done so contact your worker to find out what it would take to get invited. It is a great way for childrens workers and administrators to see you and see how you behave around the children. Chemistry is extremely important in matching a family with a child or children and the placement being successful long term. We ultimately did get a placement a few weeks later. Not any of the children we met at the party but children none the less. Other than that make regular contact with your worker on the phone and in person at their work place. The more that they see you and are around you the more likely you will be to get a placement. You must also be persistent but realistic. While it may seem like you are alone in the universe there are likely to be several potential adoptive families working on the same criteria you are.
I just wanted to let everyone know that when you least expect it things might happen for you. I have many inquiries in the works right now. I know, according to the caseworkers, I am being seriously considered for at least 3 different sib groups. I am in that limbo place right now where I am wondering if it is going to a committee, when it might be happening, and the wondering if the phone call will come today. And, I have this new fear that the calls will come close together and I may have to actually choose which group to take.!! Anyway, since knowing that I am in fact being considered I have slowed a little in my search. Then out of no where I get a call from someone and find I am being considered also for a child that I did not even inquire about.
My point in all of that is that while nothing is definite and for some reason I may not end up being selected for any of the children, I relish in the fact that caseworkers are looking at my study and seriously considering me. This is a big change from the lack of interest in me over the past 6 months or so. I shouldnt even take it as personal, I am sure the lack of response in the past has not been personal, just the way things work in this system. It just seems that it is feast or famine.
This is the worst part for me. I try not to dwell too much or go back and re-read the profiles for the kids as I try not to get attached to children I dont even know as yet. I try my best not to get excited or hopeful for one group or the other. But, the waiting I think is worse when you reach the point I am at. I am no longer waiting to be ignored or have my study ignored, now I am waiting for the end results. Maybe I am crazy, but that seems to be the worst for me. But, when you are at that point where you think nothing will ever happen, it does.
This process is an emotional roller coaster for all of us waiting and wondering what will come next. It is unfortunate that we can become excited just because a caseworker requests our home study. The excitement should come when we get closer to the selection process, not with that initial step. But I try to keep in mind that if it is emotional for us, how must the kids feel? They are the reason I keep hanging in there. I cant give homes to all of them but I can give homes to some so I keep on plugging away. If we quit then not only are we giving up our dreams of adding to our family, but we are letting down the children who may have eventually be placed in our family. I think of all the faces I have seen on the web sites and the narratives I have read and I know that if just one more child is added to our family then it is one more child that is out of the system and on the way to a more normal and stable life. That is why I hang in there.
I hope all of you that are still waiting and looking will not give up and will keep the faith because if we help just one child at a time then we have accomplished much.
Chmae
Terry said- I have been waiting for over 3 years to match with a child. I have gone to match quite a few times. Recently I finally was matched with a child. We are now waiting till we can go visit. I believe we finally matched because I got to know a few of the workers over the phone by using the same county agency, over and over. Hang in there4 and be persistant and nice. Good Luck.
I would like to correspond to some people that are waiting for "the call" or who have already adopted. My husband and I are trying to adopt a little boy (we have four bio kids now) and we just need some some supportive people to talk to. Thanks!
To Anon July 7
I would be glad to communicate with anyone by email or IM. I believe that any exchange of information between us would have to go thru those in charge of this site. I will go ahead and email Kate and let her know that I am willing to exchange email addresses with anyone who wishes to chat more. I am not an expert by any means but would be more than happy to offer any support that I can. I wish I could think of that offer as unselfish, however, regardless of where anyone is in this process, I learn new things from everyone who comments. It is also support for me because while I am a little more experienced than some and not as much for other, I do have my days when I need some extra support also. I wish there was a way to start a support group on line as I think this subject has no geographical boundaries. I did attempt to establish a chat but found that no one was ever in the room when I was there. I just think it would be great because all of us have something to offer the others.
Chmae
well, i will try my hardest to be supportive, but as someone who has 3 bio children of her own...it seems like it is a lot harder than we thought it would be. I do think it is because we already have 3. But it is what is best for the kids, right? I try to keep that in mind. The cases that we want, the sibling groups, aren't just sitting there. They come in, we don't get chosen, but they are sent to other homes, so that is good. If we were getting denied, and they still were available month after month, THEN I'd be angry. I DO, however, have a problem with it, when we say we will take them to keep them together, but they are still split up, or FAMILY comes in (of all people) and splits them up. THAT, I DO, have a problem with. You'd think, if I, a complete stranger, knows the value of keeping these kids together, their own family would try to do the same.
Good luck in your search. Are your bio children older or younger?
I agree with keeping sibs together whenever possible. I know there are some situations that dont allow that to happen and it is unfortunate. I do, though, understand what you mean by seeing the children on the site for extended periods of time, being willing to take the whole sib group and then learning later they are being split up. I have even see on a state specific web site ( not this one) a comment that the foster family was interested in adopting only one sib and not the other.
I am sure that the caseworkers, in most cases,have legitmate reasons for splitting sibs up. In some cases it might be the sib group is so large that a family willing and able to take them cant be found. I think at times the abuse, especially sexual abuse, the chidren have suffered is such that it is simply not healthy for the children to remain together. Sometimes it takes a clean slate for the children to be able to break the cycle. And, it may be that a sib has such severe issues and needs and require so much attention that placing sibs together would be a detrement to all involved.
It is just this type of situation that can become frustrating to us that are looking for children. Again, it is the NOT knowing. Of course, it would be ridiculous to assume or even want a caseworker to publicly comment on these issues. However, it would be so beneficial to us all if caseworkers would comment here and at least give us their ideas and reasoning when it comes to some of the issues involved with placing children. I would think rather than losing potential permanent homes for these kids that caseworkers would be more than happy to address some of the issues from their point of view.
An example I can think of right of the top of my head is TPR. Some children sit in the system simply due to this issue. When one thinks that when children are intially removed from their family an agency most often than not allows the family a time period ( I know that 6 months is pretty standard) to take parenting classes, etc to get to the point of the child being returned home. If progress is made during that time but not quite enough to return the child home, it is not unusual to extend it another 3-6 months. If requirements are not met by then, TPR is started and requested. I understand that can take from 3-6 months for rights to be terminated. Then, there is an appeal period, again involving months, for the parents to try to get the children back in their care. Many other factors might play into it, such as not knowing paternity, parents who cannot be located, etc. So, the entire TPR experience can be well over a year at minimum and up to two or more. So while I think the legalities of this process may need some adjustments, it is easier to understand why children may linger in the system for 2 years or longer. That may be frustrating for all of us, but at least it is something once explained we can understand and rationalize.
And, I would like to say, that like TPR, there are legalities that are NOT the fault of the caseworkers or placing agencies. It is the fault of our judicial system. Having been involved in foster care for many years I have been to quite a few hearings. Caseworkers, guardians, foster parents, all the people working with the children have been convinced before walking into a hearing that TPR would happen just to have a judge not follow thru due to a technicality or his desire to allow the parents another chance. I know of one case where a child from age 5-12 lingered in the system because everytime it went to court to free him to be placed in a permanent home it was denied. It was denied because while the mother had severe mental health issues, considered a disability, and her attorney argued that thru the Americans with Disabilites Act that her rights could not be terminated based on her own disability. Each state has their own abuse/neglect laws and the basis for TPR. I have been in courtrooms with foster children in my state where the judge would not allow the foster parents to speak and one court where the foster parents were not even permitted in the court room.
I try to put myself into everyones "spot" in situations like this. Imagine being a caseworker and knowing intimate details of the neglect or abuse a child has suffered in their bio home - imagine being the same caseworker who knows there are families out there who could provide a wonderful home for a child, but the caseworker can do nothing but allow a judge, who doesnt really know the entire situation, make a decision. Imagine being a caseworker who has to return a child to a home that he/she knows will end up to be a disaster for the child but legally it has to be done. This cannot be an easy job! Imagine a child being in the system for years and has a goal of adoption yet rights arent yet terminated but a caseworker is supposed to be looking for potential homes but knows the child cannot be placed even in the near future. I think while we all linger in a state of limbo during this process, so do the caseworkers and unfortunately, the children.
It is not just the foster/adoption system that is faulty. It is the legal system. I dont think I had realized this until I spoke with an attorney concerning this very issue. I am in the state of PA and not only do all 67 counties in this state have their own rules and regs concerning foster/adoption, all 67 counties have different court rules and regs for procedures, etc. He told me it is nearly impossible for an attorney to practice in more than one county in PA because court procedures vary so tremendously from county to county.
Maybe an answer for the children in the system is to establish some legal rights for them. I understand that the system needs to support the family unit and reunify when at all possible. The issue is, shouldnt children who are in the system just lingering have a right to a stable and loving home? The answer, unfortunately, in our current system, is NO. Children have no rights. It is almost as if they are the property of the parents and the system. It doesnt seem to matter what these children have to suffer thru as long as no one steps on the toes of the parents who have abused or neglected them over a long period of time. Our system is willing to give the parents chance after chance but not give the children a chance at a normal life that they so need and deserve.
I see all of what I just commented on as another reason for all of us to hang in there and not give up. The children in the system need us to stand up for them and to provide them with the family and home they deserve and need in the future. I know it is a long process and a very frustrating one indeed, but we, as adoptive parents, owe it to the children and ourselves to do what we can to make a difference. It may be that we can only do that on a case by case basis, but it can be done.
Again, I am pleading with any caseworkers who visit this site to comment. Inform us of what is going on and why the process takes so long. We can and will hang in there if we believe it is not a waste of time for us to do so. We can and will be patient if we know the reasons we need to be patient. We will relate better to you and your situation if we understand it better. In the long run, no matter how you look at it, it is the children who will reap the benefits from providing the understanding and the tools to cope for those of us who are waiting to be placed with a child. As a team working together we can accomplish much more.
Chmae
Hi all:
Last night, I participated in a free 2 hr long webinar given by Adoptions From The Heart (AFTH) and it was very informative and helpful in terms of understanding the whole adoption process. Their policies and practices are straightforward and clear. The SW's have been with the agency for a while, so they are very familiar with the families and the infants. They are also open and honest in terms of telling you as much info as possible about the biological parents and getting as much info from you so that they can place the appropriate infant with you. FYI: AFTH is an open adoption agency, but you and the biological parent(s) have the power to chose how much contact you want to have with one another. Also, AFTH has annual picnics and events for adoptive and biological families, which is another plus. For those of you interested in infants, the presentator stated that they placed over 100 children last year and that they have about 100 European American families and only 18 African American families waiting for placements. In other words, the numbers are on your side if you are either African American or looking for an African American, bi-racial with African American heritage or multiracial infant. Your wait won't be very long. I've never used webinar before, but it was easy. All you need is a computer and a phone. You basically have a PowerPoint presentation on your computer screen. You use your phone to listen to the presenter and to ask questions or to make comments. I enjoyed it a great deal and it's one additional thing that's making Adoptions From The Heart, a private, nonprofit adoption agency that specializes in infants, more attractive.
Next, I just got back from meet & match in Lancaster, PA. I'm considering two brothers (3 & 4 yrs old) who I've seen on the adoptuskids website for the past yr and a half. I saw and talked to a lot of SW's I've seen at other events, so they are getting to know me and I them. I'm excited about my prospects for adopting soon. Char
My husband and I are in the process trying to adopt. We are the blessed parents of two biological children that are both over the age of ten. We have completed all the paper work and training and have been approved by the state to adopt. We have waited for six months, and have not heard a peep from our case worker about a possible match. Our wish is to adopt a child or two siblings between the ages of three and eight.
When we started this process, we felt that we were a fairly normal family with a lot to offer. I have sent our home study off to several case workers myself. We just do not seem to hear anything back. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am really starting to think that this maybe not meant to be.
Hi! We are proud parents of a biological daughter, an adoptive son, and a foster son. We adopted through Alabama Foster Care System after praying about it for 3 LONG years. To all the prospective parents waiting and hoping to adopt - don't give up. It will happen. Our home was licensed in March 2006. We had an excellent case worker. She is very diligent and is there for the kids. We provided respite for several wonderful children during the proceeding 4 to 5 months. In July of 2006, we received a call about a 10 month old little boy. We said yes immediately. It was a legal risk placement because they did not have termination of parental rights yet. Our son was placed with us July 17, 2006. We knew it was meant to be! TPR was achieved on September 12, 2006, shortly after his first birthday. We finalized the adoption on May 1, 2007. It has been GREAT. A very smooth process. Now the situation with our foster son is not quite as smooth, but we are trusting God. My advice is to Pray and trust God, be persistent, and keep believing - after all we are in this for the kids. A wise person describe the wait to adopt as being "emotionally pregnant." I completely agree with that. I also agree with one of the bloggers comments "to be the last one standing." That is so true.
My husband and I were married young. (Straight out of high school!) We were (and, in some ways, still are 13+yrs later) idealistic. We wanted a large family with lots of love and laughter. After several close calls and doctors who insisted that I would lose my life if we kept trying, I had my tubes tied. We have three biological children (from nine pregnancies that "made it" to the second and third trimester).
My biological children are a blessing that I wouldn't trade for all the world. Yet we couldn't help feeling a sense of loss for the babies never born, and the large family and hordes of grandchildren we had dreamt about coming to visit...
Our oldest deals with health complications resulting from his difficult delivery; but we wouldn't trade a moment of the past 12yrs with any of our boys! We tried not to be disappointed that we wouldn't be doubling that number, and looked to the future.
Then, several years ago, my husband worked on a volunteer program at the military base where he is stationed. He met a wonderful man who happened to be on the board of a local agency. Somehow, they talked about our desire to have a larger family and my husband admitted that we were finished trying. Within two weeks we set up an informational meeting to discuss adoption with a representative from this agency.
The process was very fast for us - they had a sibling strip of three with special needs that my husband and I are familiar with. They were anxious for placement, and they pushed through our homestudy in record time. We attended PRIDE training classes in July and had our first placement in late August of the same year ('05).
Somehow, the sibling group never materialized. Though everyone on "our end" felt we were the perfect match for this group, and ours was the last choice where the siblings wouldn't be split up, the siblings' case manager didn't feel that the children would get enough attention in our home because we already had three children. "These are high needs kids," she explained to me on the phone (she wouldn't meet with us in person). "I don't think you understand fully the challenges involved with this placement. They really need someone who can dedicate individual attention to their needs." "But", I protested, "I'm a stay-at-home mom. I'll be with them all the time. I have family members with these same physical limitations and I'm confidant I can help them fulfill their potential." Her response? "I'm sorry, but we feel they need to be the only children in a home." They each ended up in homes with other children; without the other siblings. :-(
We didn't have long to mourn the children we had never met. We were called at 4am less than a week later. It was an emergency placement, and of course we said yes! At that point we didn't think there was ANYTHING we couldn't handle, and we wouldn't have even considered saying 'no'.
Our daughter came to live with us roughly a week after that call. The police couldln't find her, and we kept getting vague reports that the mother was "on the run", had "been spotted" somewhere with or without the infant that was supposed to already be in my care. I did a lot of pacing and calling! People from the state, from my agency, even police officers would call to find out how she was doing and why I hadn't scheduled an evaluation only to find she wasn't here! Then, in the middle of a sunny and quiet afternoon, I got a call from a police officer on his way to my house with our daughter!
She was, quite frankly, the most pathetic infant I had ever seen! I had an instant connection with her, and jumped right in to caring for her. She was meth exposed, the side of her head was conformed to the filthy carrier she came in (nothing ever gets the meth smell out!), she had a horrible scab where the hospital bracelet was allowed to cut into her leg as she grew... I couldn't imagine the level of neglect that had left her this way. She would turn her head away from me when I made eye contact, and got instantly over-stimulated by anything and everything. I wasn't used to a baby that would go from content to a high-pitched scream with nothning in the middle! With my biological children I had perfected the art of intervening to care for needs BEFORE the screaming began. My daughter gave me quite an education about the volume and variations of infant displeasure!
Our daughter was an emergency foster placement. We didn't think of her as our daughter - we were still waiting for our adoptive placement and were just "fostering as well". We worked hard to help support her biological mother during the year that followed. We sent pictures, accepted phone calls, even took our little girl to the jail to visit when bio-mom was incarcerated. Then something unexpected happened. Bio-mom disappeared. It still didn't occur to me to expect we would adopt. I was worried for bio-mom, whom we had really come to care for. I called several contacts in "the system" to find out if anyone had heard ANYTHING abougt her - "I hope someone is at least looking for her!" With her gang connections and history of drug abuse and subsequent illegal (and dangerous) activity I had numerous nightmares of her being found dead, injured... It occurred to me that she could really be in trouble! But because of her history, no one was seriously looking for her and we were really worried!
Six months went by and still no word. Our daughter's case manager called to ask us if we would be willing to consider adoption. Parental rights were being terminated because of abandonment (no contact or answer to summons, etc, for six months constitutes an automatic termination on grounds of abandonment in NE - not sure how it works in other states). We hadn't considered it before, to be perfectly honest. The closest we had come was to hug each other and cry late at night about how painful it was going to be to have to watch her leave... We still didn't have any prospects on the adoption front, or so we thought. We were warned that birth mothers just don't choose families with three older siblings for their infants, and none of the older children we had inquired about ever turned up results. (Though I note that several are back on the heart galleries and/or AdoptUsKids. I can only assume they were disrupted from whatever adoptive placements kept them from our home. A frustration it sounds as if the rest of you are quite familiar with!)
It was during this time period that we had a call from the early head start prevention program. They wanted to know why our daughter hadn't been enrolled. This confused me momentarily because I honestly thought the various spokes of the foster care family wheel communicated with each other better than they actually do. You see, some of those spokes still had no information since the early days when the prognosis was dire. We were told that she would possibly never use the left side of her body, her development was certain to be delayed, and "who knows what effects we'll see from her meth exposure". I had to have her pediatrician contact Head Start to assure them that she was a perfectly normal toddler (about to turn 2yrs), and didn't need services! She has hit all of her developmental milestones on time if not ahead of time, and you would never know to see her today that she had such a rocky start!
Two days before the paperwork for termination was scheduled to be filed, bio-mom turned up. She was in prison and asking for visitation rights. To make a really long and upsetting story short, bio-mom did eventually decide to relinquish her rights on her own. I'm not sure she is getting the help she needs to deal with the loss, though - she has recently become pregnant again (while still in a work release program from her 2yr jail sentence), and named the newcomer almost the same name as our daughter - same middle name and only a syllable off of our daughter's name. We honestly hope that things go better for her this time, and we have offered to be here for her and the new baby should it be necessary. It is in the backs of our minds that the child may need foster care and perhaps we should update our homestudy... I haven't contacted any of the workers involved yet - I'm procrastinating, I know. Our of fear? Or possibly just fatigue at the thought of going through all of that again.
After the mother relinquished and the search for a father turned up three or four different men (each of whom was up in arms to get "his" child until paternity tests dispproved them all; and all of this after she had lived with us for two years - all but three months of her young life!), several uncles stepped up to the plate. They didn't know the child existed until CPS called them to ask if they would be willing to take her. We were hurt, to say the least - but the official stance in NE is "family where at all possible". Blood is thicker than water? Whatever. We were devastated - I wrote some really bad poetry during that time period and cried a lot.
I asked the adoption worker to specifically contact the uncles and relay my message to them (we weren't allowed)... One was a foster parent in another state, and had just lost a baby they had raised. They declined the offer because they knew it was in her best interest to not be moved; but have never since returned my calls, emails, or commented on the pictures I sent. The other uncle heard the adoption worker's message that we humbly asked them to adopt us as siblings and remain our daughter's uncle... He declined and continued with his home study. At some point a sympathetic person at an adoption Q&A in another city (a judge, no less) recommended that we have an attachment study done. We had never heard of such a thing, but immediately jumped on the idea. An attachment speciast comes into the home and observes the child with the family, and writes a report based on those findings. We knew that she was attached to us. We're her family. We knew in our hearts that moving her would be detrimental to HER, not just us. (I kept thinking of her sitting on the floor in her uncle's house as if she were at a sitter - wondering when Mommy and Daddy were coming to pick her up and why her brothers weren't there with her...) So we requested the attachment study! Everyone else seemed to agree that a disruption at this stage in her development could cause all manner of problems; there was no doubt what the study would find! Our hope was that when all of this paperwork hit the judge's desk, he would make the decision that was honestly the best one for our daughter. And, if the decision came down that she was to go live with an uncle she had never met we would try our best to live with that and hope the uncle would let us stay in touch across state borders...
The attachment study never came to be because the uncle, upon being told we had requested it, changed his mind about the adoption and elected to allow her to remain with us. We finalized our adoption on June 14th of last year, and she is now a beautiful, active, sassy, and brilliant 3yr old about to embark on adventures in preschool.
We let our foster care license expire right after the adoption. We plan on renewing it again in the near future. Possibly not in NE; depending on what career choices we both make in the mean time. I do know that we will research our agency next time and try to find a place that "fits" us a little better. In the mean time, we're rennovating our poor old house and taking the time to heal and grow as a family before changing the dynamics again! We do plan to adopt at least twice more. (A visit to a South Korean orphanage has us seriously considering foreign adoption next time we're there!) We're just not quite ready to tackle the foster care system again, and I have a lot of respect for those of you who do!
Not all of our experiences with foster care have been pleasant; but they have all been educational! We took on two RAD boys who broke our hearts and destroyed our home, for a brief time (was it only 4-6mos!?). Even still, we miss them and would gladly take them back if we were given the chance. No, it wasn't our decision to move them. They were in respite after a particularly violent out-break. We know now that we should have sent the other four children to a safe place for respite, and that we only made the situation worse by asking for respite for these boys. We honestly were burning out and not getting the help, additional training, and counseling services we asked for these kids! (Any of those things would have "saved" the placement and they would be adopted by now.) The day we were supposed to go pick them up from respite, an agency representative called us and told us they were being moved permanently. The oldest ran away from that placement and came back to our house... Of course we had to call and let the new foster mother know where he was. They had police helicopters out looking for him and everything! He felt betrayed, and they wouldn't let him stay over even for just the night. So we haven't heard from him since - he still hasn't forgiven us for the police taking him away. I've heard since that they delivered him to his room in HANDCUFFS (he was 8!) because he back-talked the police officers. I didn't see the angry and defiant side of those boys often - I saw hurt little boys who needed security and love. It's the first time in my life I've ever rocked a child that size in a rocking chair - probably not the last. My husband maintains that we'll probably be changing diapers and replacing walls some angry and frightened child destroyed when we're gray-haired great-grannies.
In any event, we've learned to be patient. Most of the people working with these children really do care and really do want what's best for the child! They're restricted by rules that don't always seem to make sense (like family over foster regardless of circumstance?!). And there does seem to be a lot of prejudice and a jaded attitude that makes your case managers believe that NO ONE is good enough for their kids. It's a lot of responsibility (our case managers have all had an unbelievable load - averaging 65 cases each!), and a lot of stress. We've had case managers go prematurely gray or even lose hair in chunks, and more than once we've had three or four case managers on one case because so many people just quit. So, be patient! And realize that sometimes not every person involved in your kids' lives is communicating with the others. I think of ourselves as the hub of the foster care team; we're the only people with daily contact with these kids, who get to see interactions between parents and kids on visits, who talk to everyone else involved. Honestly, I've had to tell a GAL who the new case manager is, that visits aren't happening, or tell a case manager something a visitation specialist said that never got reported for whatever reason. Facilitate communication between the spokes of your wheels, and be patient. :-)
My bio children are of all ages. 10, 8, almost 4, and almost 2. We are looking for a boy between the ages of 4 and 9, and we've also just started thinking of also adopting a girl around our oldest daughters age..10. I have the same aggravation. It would be different if I didn't keep hearing how these kids need good homes, and yet they are on the photolisting month after month after month. I also know it makes it harder on us, because there are supposedly no kids in our state within that age range for adoption. (I live in TN). So we are having to do most of our looking in other states...and I've found that most people don't want to send their kids out of state. I've had one case worker tell me that I couldn't adopt one child because he is black and we are white...it would be too much of a culture shock, and in a way, I can definitely understand that. I had another case worker tell me she was probably not going to pick someone from out of state. So I am definitely discouraged at this point.
Hi all:
There's a town hall meeting in Room 109 of the Univ. of Penn's Annenberg School of Communications, 3260 Walnut Street, Thursday, July 17 @ 10 am to 2 pm. LeAnna Washington, a PA senator and Anne Marie Ambrose, the new DHS commissioner will be in attendance. Washington is one of the senators working on reforms and improvements in the child welfare system. If you can attend, I'll see you there. I'm preparing a statement and I hope to have a chance to speak. Also, state rep, Greg Vitali was kind enough to send copies of the "Resource Family Care Act" and the "Resource Family and Adoption Process Act." Each document is only two pages in length and it is apparent that some of the agencies aren't following the laws of the Commonwealth of PA. To get your own copies of these important pieces of state legislation, you can probably google the names of the bills. This is another empowerment tool in our Quixotic battle against a chaotic system. Take care. Char
Hello, I have never really been a blogger but, I am so frustrated and not sure what else to do. My husband and I are looking to adopt 1 or 2 children. We have 3 biological children already ages 1,2, and 8. We live in a small town in North Carolina. In the begining we called our local DSS and followed all the steps they said to take. We became Foster Parents, had our homestudy completed. Since then we never hear anything from our Social Worker. SHE IS NOT AN ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN. She has a job which she shows up for and leaves when it is time to leave. She hardly ever calls us. We have even spoke on the phone about meeting so she could sign paperwork...she said "come on I will be here until atleast 11:00." I got there a little after 10:00..meeting her at the door as she was leaving. We have sent in many request for her to send our homestudy to diffrent places. We are not really sure she has sent all of them. We never hear anything. So what are we to do?? We keep looking on ADOPT US KIDS and making inqiurys. We have worked with the people at ADOPT NC KIDS, they are GREAT!We have sent out our family profile to countys in NC. But we still wait.We are not even sure that if someone called about our profile that she would even want to work enough to help. My husband and I have started the process to go international which is exciting and maybe that is just where Jesus wants us to be. (Although I would to have found a child here.) But, I am an advocate for children. I have seen how the DSS here works and will not be able to walk away from that. Something needs to be done. There are qualified Families that want children and children that want families...HOW CAN WE HELP THAT PROCESS TO COME TOGETHER??
Hi Char
Thanks for the info and hope your statement is taken seriously and to heart. Some changes need to be made, across the board, but particularly in PA.
Personally, having been in the foster care system for years, I know first hand that PA isnt doing what they should be doing. The problem lies a lot with individual agencies that do not follow procedure or regs unless to benefit their own agency or purposes. It would be easy to say that one simply report the agency and their "misbehavior" but that can come with a price. Unfortunately, that "price" is something that many people are not willing to pay.
Foster care is a field in which any even small infraction concerning the foster parent(s) can cast concern as to the care of any children placed in the home. I personally, and know of other people who have had similar experiences, was going to appeal a decision to remove a foster child who had been in my home well over the 6 months required to make an appeal. The child was not being removed for any reasons such as abuse, neglect or adoption, thus qualified for the appeal process. I talked to agency personnel about doing this and responses were intimidating to say the least. It is a rather long and involved story, but to make it short, in over two years never once was the care being received in my home questioned, not once was I "talked too" nor reprimanded for any reason. The child was happy and we were happy. That, I believe was the issue, the child was happy. There came a time when the child was asked to do a holiday visit with Mom and while the child did want to do a visit with Mom, the child also wanted to share the time with us in his home. And while I had absolutely no "say" in the final decision, the Mom became irate and started making accusations, one in particular being that we were all too close and it was hurting her chances of having a relationship with her child. She got her attorney involved and it became a nightmare. The agency decided to accomodate Mom regardless of the wishes of the child and decided the best bet was to move him. When I protested and questioned I was told that I should just let it go or there could be "trouble" and they also inferred that I might want to think about whether this child remaining in my home was worth me possibly not being able to do foster care in the future. It turns out Mom, who had lost her children due to her own serious mental health issues, was threatening to sue the agency if her request to have him moved was not taken seriously. The agency was sneaky about the move and how they did it, I didnt even know he was leaving and I found out at a later date that they told him that he was moved because I didnt want him any more and could no longer tolerate his behaviors. I was then forbidden to talk to him or have any contact with him. (To this day, that infuriates me.) I did speak to agency personnel about this and they again told me to "let it go" that they told the child this in order to protect the mother so the child was not aware it was her "fault". They then laid the whole "what will you be doing to the child if you pursue this, is it good for the child" as well as "it could look very bad on your record for the future". There is no doubt in my mind that had I appealed or turned the agency in for any of the inappropriate comments/threats they had made towards me that they would have indeed done whatever they could to cover their own butts and have be blackballed. I did in fact talk at length with a case manager who had previously been with that agency and was told they would in fact do it to me and they had done it in the past with other foster parents and that their belief was that I needed to sacrifice my beliefs for this one child in order to continue helping others that might come my way in the future. I then contacted some other foster parents that had worked for the agency who had similar stories, two of who were in fact kept from doing foster care for some amount of time, until they were able to sort things out and find another agency willing to work with them. This particular agency is still operating in this state. Needless to say as soon as the ordeal was over, I resigned and moved on to another agency. Others that I know that were in similar situations just quit doing foster care, which was a shame, as they were devoted and caring people.
I also know of a couple who had been doing foster care for years and a child came into their home and made some comments regarding inappropriate touching by the foster dad. I was the respite person for this child and the child in fact had told me and my sons that the way to get out of a foster home was in fact to make that type of accusation. Evidentally from what I gathered, the child had used this "method" in the past. The child had also told another adult that she had made the false accusations because the child didnt like the rules in the house. The family went thru hell during this process and did in fact take the issue to court only to find that for reasons of protecting the child and confidentiality, the past history of the child and any statements made to other foster parents was not permitted for legal reasons. There was no way for this poor family to prove that her allegations were manipulation of the system. Formal charges were never filed but "indicated" was the charge on the child abuse history thus the man in question could not get a clear history preventing him from contact with children in the many community settings in which he had volunteered with children for many, many years. They did fight this also but after many thousands of dollars and sleepless nights, lost to the system again. Ironically, it was the very agency we were working for that had their attorneys present to prevent the child's past history from being disclosed in court, even preventing the child ( a mid-teen) from being permitted to testify or be questioned. I ran into this child after she became an adult and she admitted to me she had lied and thought it quite cute that she had managed to get her way and be moved from their home. It didnt seem to matter to her that she had destroyed lives and unfortunately, probably never will.
I had read a comment here in the past with the foster parent stating that they were refused as foster parents due to breeching confidentiality. I sympathize with that. Many times over the past a caseworker for an agency has said to me "if you have any issues or questions feel free to contact the previous foster parents" only to learn when you do so, you are breeching confidentiality. This does not seem to be an issue unless someone manages to complain or twist the truth. My advice is to never put yourself in that position. For one thing, when you make the inquiries you are doing the job of the caseworker. Second, no matter how well you think you know the other foster parents, it is human nature that comments get taken out of context. If you have questions, request that your caseworker find the answers and report back to you or ask the caseworker to put it in writing that you are permitted to discuss the case with previous caretakers. ( That is not likely to happen). It is fine for agency personnel to allow you to do these types of things for their convenience but they will also use it against you if need be to cover the agency from ramifications. As this commenter stated, they are having a difficult time finding an agency now that will certify them to do foster care.
Much of this is why I made the decision to adopt rather than to continue to do foster care. I know there are children in foster care who need homes but I am not prepared to put myself back into such a position. There are many children in need of permanent homes also and I will provide that. However, all those years ago had I appealed and "rocked the boat" with the agency, I wonder if I now would even be in the position of being able to adopt.
So while laws and regs may be ignored by agencies, the only way to prevent this or have the agency sanctioned is to report them, there are probably many foster parents out there that simply switch agencies and go on rather than risk getting put on someones "list". It can be financially costly as well as emotionally draining to fight such charges. If you find yourself in the position that your instincts tell you that something improper or unethical is going on with your agency, seek another.
My intention is not to shy people away from doing foster care. There are many, many good agencies out there who are reputable and respectable. Protect yourself by getting all you can in writing and regardless of what a worker might tell you is "ok" if it is against agency or state policy, dont do it. I promise you that any agency will protect themselves before they will admit wrong doing and protect you. Do what you know is right so that you never need be in a position of defending your actions. There are certain things that cannot be avoided when taking foster children, there is always some vulnerability but we can do whatever humanly possible to protect ourselves, family and reputation. Document everything. I learned to keep a running account of contact with the workers. I kept a time and date of all calls as well as a summary of what the call was about. Too many times I have been questioned about why I didnt report something that I had reported because the caseworker just didnt document it or "forgot" then to cover themselves stated it had never been reported. E mail is great for that as you have a copy as well as the worker.
There just seems to be a lot in place to protect the bio parents, the agency and the children but little in place to protect the foster parents. It seems when one gets too comfortable is when the other shoe drops and things come to a head.
To Anon in NC
Whenever I read comments such as yours, being ignored by the worker and the worker not showing much interest, red flags go up. I have said this many times before so probably sound like a broken record but will say it again. The worker is working for you. She is your representative. She either has been or will be paid for her services just like any other "job" you would contract out.
I would first try putting your concerns on paper and if you have an email address send it to her that way. This way you have a record of your concerns. If the response you receive is not adequate, I would forward the email with a short note to her supervisor. I think you need to exhaust all the possibilites within the agency first. If in fact you are still not satisfied,it is probably time to look for a new agency.
Be your own advocate. If you request a home study be sent, follow up. If you inquire on this site more often than not, there are email addresses or phone numbers for the worker in charge of the case. Call or email the worker with a short comment that you were just checking to be sure he/she received your study and that you are looking forward to hearing from them in return. If they havent received your study you know to take it one step further with your adoption worker. Or it might be laying on a pile of paperwork in the caseworkers office and it might be the trigger she needs to look further for it. Keep a notebook or log of all the requests you have made with dates as well as how you made the request. Again, I find email the best way to do this.
I wish I knew what the answer to your question is, as to how to improve the system. It is not just your state but seems to be across the board in most cases. Make calls, write to politicians, support any bills going thru congress. It takes some time but I think the best and biggest thing we can all do right now is simply draw attention to the issues. All of us in this process are aware of the faults in the system but the general public isnt. The difference we can make is figuring out a way to make it public. There are many influencial figures out there who while might not be interested in adoption for themselves, do care about children and their issues. Char has done a great job in trying to bring public awareness, not only here in PA but on a national level, concerning foster care/adoption. I have tried to follow suit and write as many letters and emails as I have been able. Honestly, it is quite therapeutic to know that your concerns have been sent to people who can make a difference. As working citizens we are in fact paying the salaries and providing the funds thru taxes that are supporting the foster care system. County Children and Youth agencies are funded by our tax dollars. The agencies receiving that money need to be held accountable for how it is being used. There is state money being allocated as well as federal money thus bring attention to the fact that the money may not being used to provide the best possible care and services for the children and eyes will open. Convince elected officials that the counties and states should only be paid funds when children are placed and I bet you would find a lot less children lingering in foster care.
Again, I would like to plead with caseworkers out there to comment. We all, for the most part, are in this to help the children. When we are writing our letters or making our calls, it would be beneficial if we could include information from your point of view. I am sure most of the caseworkers involved in this process do want to see their children placed as quickly as possible. As a team we might be able to accomplish this.
We all need to hang in there for the sake of the children involved.
Chmae
Dear anonymous from PA:
I agree with what you've written because I, as a first time foster parent, got caught in a messy situation when the bio mother got mifted when I asked the SW to find out whether the infant had received shots on not. I had taken the child to the pediatrician and while I had the shot card, there was not info on whether the shots had been given. I didn't call the SW or have her question the mother to cause trouble; instead, I was worried about the child receivin an overdose of shots, especially in light that all in the news people are saying some of those shots may be causing autism in children. I didn't know that the SW would call the mother. I thought SW would check the child's file. Well, the mother didn't know about the child's shots and got an attitude with the SW and me. During a visitation a few days later, the bio mom and her SW made some ridiculous complaints and a week later the children were removed from my home. I fought the decision because it was unfair to the children who were thriving in my home. I'm not one to "go along to get along," which is what too many foster parents do so that the agency won't blacklist them. I not only demanded a meeting with the big wigs at my agency but I also showed up to a court date to which I was invited with an attorney to protest the move. to my horror, I discovered that NO FOSTER PARENT HAD EVER DONE WHAT I DID, which is to show up with an attorney ready to fight an injustice. Unfortunately, I was not permitted to give testimony or to give my side of the story because it was irrelevant. No one cared because I was "just a foster parent." As I said in earlier blogs, in PA, there's a foster parents bill of rights. Unfortunately, it isn't enforced and foster parents continue to be treated like dirt by everyone involved in the child welfare process. I'm assuming that the threat which was made to me by two different people - one at the agency and another at southeast region office was real because I haven't had another child placed in my home for a year. Char
It is nice to know that some people live in areas where there is more than one adoption and/or foster care agency. The state child welfare district in which I live, which encompasses four counties with a total population of approximately 650,000, has only one agency handling special needs adoption, and only one agency handling foster care. (They are not the same agency.) Both are in contract with a non-profit organization that was formed in an alleged effort to privatize child welfare services. (This non-profit organization is actually staffed primarily by the same workers who had worked in the same capacity for the state.) One of the reasons for the privatization, name change, etc., was some well-publicized problems that the state department had become known for.
What I'd like to know is, what do you do if you have trouble with the one and only agency in your district? The adoption agency, foster care agency, non-profit "surrogate" organization, and divisional office of the state welfare department are all in cahoots with each other. A little competition from other agencies for state money might squelch some of this.
Living in a district with limited resources and a state with a dubious record makes a prospective adoptive parent want to move, but to where? From what I'm reading, the whole child welfare system seems to be suffering from corruption! I'm sure there are some areas that are doing a great job, but the number of children that need to be placed, coupled with the number of years that many of them wait, makes it sound like most are not doing the job.
Hi All
Just wanted to keep you all posted on my progress. I received a call and email yesterday concerning two sibs. I had sent my study for a sib group in that state and while they were not a match to me, the caseworker liked my study and contacted my adoption worker to see if I might be interested in another sib group she is working with. I had recently seen these two children on the site and was going to go back to make an inquiry on them but hadnt done so yet. Thus, my point is again, if you keep sending your study out someone eventually reads it and you can never be sure what will result. I cant say I have been chosen for these children but it is encouraging to know that the caseworker in question is on the job. And, one of the reasons I was asked to further consider these children was the flexibility I show in my child preferences. I cannot tell you how important that seems to be to caseworkers who are looking to match children with families.
I think about all of us who at some point in time who have "bucked" the system, specifically foster care and I have to snicker. It amazes me that a caseworker will avoid us like the plague if they get wind that we may be "trouble makers" because they dont want to deal with the extra hassles, yet many actually request families who will be "strong advocates" for the children. In this day and age it most times takes someone who will make "enemies" in order to get the job done. With my own bio son who is Bi-Polar, he was doing miserably in school and it was his mental health issues that were interfering with his studies. I talked to school personnel over and over about this and while he was tested I was told they could not accomodate him as he didnt qualify for special ed as he had no learning disabilities. I made phone call after call and finally someone at the state level spoke with me at length as well as sent me a wealth of information. It turned out that they should have been accomodating him thru the American with Disabilities Act and he should have had a written Service Agreement ( an IEP with a different name is all).
I was furious that for two school years his needs were ignored and thru further research learned that all school districts in the US are legally bound to do a Child Find and more or less advertise this. I kept having problems with the school district so I finally filed a federal Civil Rights complaint and in the end, the school was sanctioned for not complying with the law. It was funny that when my child was failing school it was all my fault, I was failing as a mother and an "uninterested, uninvolved parent" but when I started to cause problems to see he received the services he needed I became a "pain" and interfering witch!! So, those of us who have a reputation for causing "problems" even if those "problems" are the fault of the regs not being followed, are "trouble makers" yet it is us that are the strongest advocates for kids who need special assistance in the system. And, just like in the foster care and adoption process, it comes down to the money. Schools do not get reimbursed special ed funds for kids who are accomodated by ADA thus it "costs" them financially. Foster agencies dont want to lose money by losing the children or county agencies as clients. Children who linger in the system are actually bringing in the money to these county, state and private agencies. So, if I have to step on a few toes on the way, so be it. There is no reason children should linger and age out of the system, or be returned to inappropriate parents due to finances. This is ridiculous.
I dont want to infer that all agencies operate in this manner, just that one has to be careful when choosing an agency or when staying with an agency. I realize that some states are state only agencies and there may not be a choice as far as the agency you are selecting, however, all agencies, whether state operated, county, private, for profit or non profit, have both good and bad employees. This goes back to the issue of not sitting back and just waiting for months or years for a worker to respond to you and do the job correctly. If you cannot change agencies you most certainly can request another worker and would think that with legitmate reasons for this that request should be granted. If advocating for yourself does nothing else, it will give you your own sense of being in control of what happens in your own life during this process. We do have so little control in many aspects of this process that it helps when we do excercise the rights we do have. If you advocate for yourself I think that things become much more positive and the process becomes less of a burden.
I complain about PA all the time but sometimes think that there is one good thing in the system and that is the ability for those of us here to pick and choose the adoption agency we work with. I feel for those of you who dont have that option. I would never think of leaving my current agency, my worker has become a part of our family and she is just wonderful. However, she too has to work within the system here in our state. Fortunately, for those of us willing and able to consider out of state placements, that can be avoided.
I would also like to pose a question to any "experts" who might be able to address this issue. I often wonder and would very much like to know why the subsidies vary so much from state to state? A child who is Title IV-E eligible in one state receives the same amount of federal assistance as one in another state? If this is true, then why do some states offer a relatively low subsidy vs other states who are more willing to offer better? I am assuming that when a state receives federal funds they are permitted discretion in how that money is spent, however, are not the subsidies designated to better the life of the child, not the funds going back into the system for other reasons. Personally, I would never turn down a child based on a subsidy amount but have often wondered about this issue. I just dont get how the State of X has a limit of 400.00 monthly yet the State of Y gives 750.00. Do not the funds all come from the same place? I do understand if the child is not IV-E eligible that the state has to pay the subsidy without federal funds thus the state in question needs to provide all the funds out of pocket. Another thing I do not totally understand is why caseworkers will play up the SSI side of things. I understand that SSI is based on family income, thus a family who takes a child but who is earning a decent living would not be permitted to collect the SSI amount. And, workers also make it sound as if a child is eligible for the SSI they can collect subsidy too and that is just not the case. If a child is receiving SSI then the subsidy amount is considered when determining the amount of SSI the child receives. It is all very confusing. I was also told that even though SS Death Benefits are not based on income, that subsidy and Death Benefits cannot both be collected. I know some might not agree but I see this issue as another way to advocate for the child coming into your home. I was amazed as I recently contacted SS attorneys for answers to some of these questions and very few, if any, knew anything about adoption and any kind of SS benefits. Again, it comes down to money. If there was money in it for an attorney, there would be experts in this field also. If anyone out there has any experiences or expertise in this area, I would appreciate if you could share the information with the rest of us. I dont think many of us like to discuss the subsidy issue as it sometimes seems like we dont want to feel like we are "buying" a child or profiting from adopting but subsidy is a right of the child, just as is child support, and I have to believe that the majority of us use this money to benefit the child. I guess this is a tough issue to tackle as I am sure just like everything else, it varies from state to state and in PA from county to county. It is almost as if "subsidy" is a secretive term in adoption and none of us even want to go there! I find it difficult to believe that there are many families out there who could afford to raise a child or children based on their own income and when that is the case, subsidy is much less costly than is keeping the child in foster care or institutionalized, not to mention that a permanent family is much more conducive to a normal life than staying in the system.
And, I guess I am going to say this until someone finally repsonds, CASEWORKERS, please comment here and let us know what you are going thru and the way you view the system!!!!
Chmae
HELLO, ANYONE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEM OR THE PROCESS OF ADOPTING A CHILD OR CHILDREN WHO ARE IN THE SYSTEM, DR. PHIL IS LISTENING. EMAIL HIM AND SHARE YOUR STRUGGLES, HE IS CONSIDERING DOING A SHOW ON THE TOPIC OF DIFFICULTIES ADOPTING A LEGALLY FREE CHILD AND WANTS TO SHED SOME LIGHT AND BRING ATTENTION TO THESE CHILDREN WHO NEED THE SYSTEM TO WORK BETTER. I CONTACTED HIM FOR HELP AND HE IS LISTENING AND INTERESTED SO NOW IS THE TIME PLEASE SHARE YOUR STRUGGLES.
I think I had stated in an earlier blog that I felt for those of you who have no choice when it comes to an adoption agency. I dont know quite what to say regarding where you should take complaints except that I would start with the state and then start contacting elected officials. It seems we are going to have to draw public attention to the crisis in this system before anyone is going to listen let alone initiate changes. Are there any support groups in your area that may be able to assist you in learning the ropes and who to talk to concerning the issues?
I guess, as I mentioned before, that it is hard to imagine that there are those of you who truly dont have choices. It is not only a shame for you but for the children that could be placed with you. I hope that knowing that we care about your plight will be at least a little comforting though I know the frustration will continue. I hope that you will continue to hang in there so that at some point in time there will be children placed with you.
I too had contacted Dr Phil on two ocassions and never received a response from his show. I am glad to hear that he is considering a show as an option. He is well watched and popular so if he addresses the real issues and the serious issues maybe it will start the road to change. I will email my concerns again.
Chmae
Hi all:
I attended the Foster Care Meeting held by the PA Democratic Committee at UPenn yesterday. Four of our state senators were in attendance (Dinniman, Washington, Costa, and O'Pake). The program lasted four hours and a myriad of people spoke and were questioned by the senators. Early in the program, there was not a dry eye in the place when 8 foster children who had aged out of the system spoke about their experiences. There were five females and three males. These young people ranged in age from 18 to 24 and they were all well spoken. Their stories were powerful and sad all at once. Each has survived the very worse that their biological families and the system had to offer. Basically, when children age out at 18 (sometimes at 21), the system gives them a miniscule amount of money in the form of a check, and kicks them to the curb, saying, "Good luck, kid." The 8 young people talked about not having family or friends to help them out when they got in trouble, which was immediately upon leaving the system because they had to find housing, food, jobs and transportation. The majority of them talked about feeling terrified and crying the night before they had to leave their foster homes. One young man said his caseworker showed up at his foster home one day and announced that he was no longer eligible for foster care and that he had to leave the home. One young lady said she was going to marry an abusive guy just to have some place to live. Ugh! Also, a man in his forties who aged out in the late 1970's was very emotional and called himself the "king of tears." He fears public speaking and this made his story even more wrenching. He talked about being 17 and getting dropped off at Kutztown U by his caseworker and being given a check for $500. He ended up homeless and he broke into churches for a place to sleep and stole food from a refrigerator in the basement. It sounded horrible. There was another young woman who spoke near the end of the program. She also had to figure out a way to get money for college as well as the other basic necessities. All of these people stated that they were the exception, not the rule, that most children who age out of the system end up in jail, homeless, on drugs, and in abusive relationships because they don't know how to latch on to healthy and helpful people. Another theme these people emphasized is that many college bound kids have a place to return to for the holidays or during summer breaks while the average child who ages out of the system has no place to go during these times and no one to rely upon for help when they need it. They stated that they were ignorant of their rights and that they didn't know that they could have stayed in care for another 3 yrs instead of breaking their necks to get out of the system. Most stated that they couldn't wait to turn 18 and to get out of the system because they thought being out of the system was better than being in it. Sadly, as we all know, life is a lot harder than it looks, especially for those who think they know everything at 18. They also lacked life skills such as being able to talk to people or to ask for help, which was something the child welfare system was supposed to teach them long BEFORE they were kicked out of the system. Many of the professionals who spoke stated that there is a rush to "close the case" and that children who have problems should have a way of getting back into the system until they are truly ready to live on their own. The four hours I spent listening to these young people's stories and to the experts' testimonies was eye opening. State Senator LeAnna Washington, who shared a little of her background of being a high school drop out and a teenage mother, is determined to get Senate bills 1245 & 1246 passed in PA so that young people have a net when they fall. The easy part of talking is over; now let's see if the Senate can do the difficult part, which is pass the bill, get the Rendell's signature on it, and enforce it throughout the Commonwealth. The whole proceeding will air on PCN, but I don't know when. The PA Democratic Committee will provide this info soon via email to those of us who attended the session and, once I know, I will pass it on to you. Char
I dislike the way foster parents are treated overall in this country. Unfortunately, fostering has a negative reputation for several reasons. First, too many people assume that those of us who foster are doing it for the money. Some are; some aren't. The idea that someone would take care of someone else's "damaged goods" is repugnant to many in this country. Second, some caseworkers who are harried by the burdens of their jobs as well as by the public, especially when a child dies in care, take their frustrations out on foster parents by blaming us for whatever went wrong - past or present. Finally, too many people think that foster parents are welfare recipients supplementing their incomes by fostering children. This assumption feeds the other one in that we are expected to KNOW how the system works. For example, I had an infant and a toddler in my home last year. They both were eligible for WIC, so, no being familiar with how WIC worked, I called the local WIC office to find out what I needed to bring in order to get the kids what they needed. The woman I spoke with stated that I needed this, that, and the other paperwork, which I had. I made an appointment for first thing the next morning. That day, I dropped the children off at the babysitter's and went to WIC. I presented myself and my paperwork. The woman at the counter asked, "Where are the children?" I answered, "At the sitter's." She said, "You have to bring the children with you. How are we suppposed to know that you ACTUALLY have the children in your care?" I said irately, "When I called here yesterday, why didn't you tell me I had to bring the kids with me? You only told me to bring the paperwork. What agency gives people paperwork for children not in their care?!" The woman said, "We need to see the kids." I was angry because my time was being wasted by a moron and the prospect of driving all the way back to the sitter's and then back to WIC and then back to the sitter's before heading to work with high gas prices made me want to visit violence upon that woman. I also was thinking that by the time I got back to the WIC office, the place would be packed and I'd be late for work. I called the sitter and spoke loudly into the phone while staring at that woman with daggers in my eyes: "You're not going to believe this, but these people want to see the kids because they don't believe that I have them. Who makes up that kind of thing? No...they won't accept the paperwork from the agency as proof. Can you imagine?" The woman busied herself behind the counter and wouldn't look at me. When I returned to the WIC office with a toddler on one hip, an infant in a carrier in one arm, a heavy diaper bag slung across my back, and my purse dangling precariously, the place was packed and I ended up late for work. While this story is funny now, it wasn't funny while I was going through it. I also advise that you not take this kind of unprofessional treatment and/or abuse from ANYONE because, but for the fact that the kids were eligible for WIC, that woman wouldn't have had a job. If someone is disrespectful and rude, confront him or her. If you're not comfortable with direct confrontation, complain to a supervisor. I did both. Also, if people think you'll tolerate their nonsense, they will give you more than your share. Since I'm not only one to confront others, but I'm also familiar with the PA Foster Parents Bill of Rights and I don't allow people to mistreat either me or the children in my care. Char
I don't know how many of you are from Pennsylvania as I am but I have a question.
My husband and I adopted in the past and I think our first adoption took about 4 months to find a child.The second took only 1month to locate and the third 3 days.All of my children were under the age of 5.Both girls were 4 and the boys 2.
Only 1 of them were very featured on Pae.
How long has the wait been recently to be matched in Pennsylvania and are some of you still waiting?
Carrie
I don't know how many of you are from Pennsylvania as I am but I have a question.
My husband and I adopted in the past and I think our first adoption took about 4 months to find a child.The second took only 1month to locate and the third 3 days.All of my children were under the age of 5.Both girls were 4 and the boys 2.
Only 1 of them were very featured on Pae.
How long has the wait been recently to be matched in Pennsylvania and are some of you still waiting?
Carrie
WHAT? did anybody else just read that last post? The longest wait you had was 4 months!!??
You might be interested in the online training courses at www.FosterParentCollege.com. Check it out!
Here is another good one.
www.adoptionlearningpartners.org
Tamara
Carrie
You are extremely fortunate. I have adopted a PA child but it was by sheer chance that he was placed with me as a foster child first. I have been inquiring about PA children for 2 1/2 years and have not been contacted or taken seriously as a potential parent in all that time. I have very flexible preferences concerning age, race, disabilities and sex of the child. I have had only one serious response to an inquiry in the time I have been looking in PA and have gotten to the point that I seldom go to PAE and look. I have talked with many, many people here in PA who have waited for not just months but for over a year and still no PA children. Maybe since all 67 counties in PA operate independently, you happen to be in one of the better counties. Congratulations on your adoptions and I hope others in PA also have your kind of luck
Chmae
Yes that right I said 4 months !! I was VERY active in my search for a child.I became very familiar with those who were trying to help me and made it a priority.
Funny anonymous never commented on the 1 month or 3 day matches.
They were both from disruptions and my worker knew the worker of the first child so it was almost like overnight.
The 3 day thing was also a disruption of an adoptive mother I knew.I got a call on Monday of the disruption and the children were placed with me on Thursday.
It has been 8 years since that time.And it was a "perfect match".
Carrie
Carrie
Again, you are very, very fortunate that 4 months is the longest you have had to wait, especially considering the age of the children involved. Whether in PA or any other state, that is a very short amount of time to find a child thru the process we are all going thru.
There are many of us who also are extremely involved in searching for children and who have also made it a priority. We spend huge amounts of time on the web sites searching for children as well as networking with others along the way. We do our best to get to know our adoption workers as well as contact caseworkers with available children. There are many people out there who have become so frustrated with the process and the way it works that they have given up, some maybe have turned to international adoptions while others just drop out of the process. I would say that you are very much in the minority considering the time you had to wait for any of your children and , while I dont have any statistics on hand, would feel safe in stating that most people are waiting upwards of a year to be placed, most probably longer.
There are probably many of us who were shocked as well as envious of your short wait and wish it was that way for the rest of us as well as for the sake of the children.
I think this situation represents the many faults in the system. If you were able to find children in such a short amount of time, why cant the rest of us? It may mean you have a great adoption worker and the children in question had great caseworkers. Something in the system obviously worked to your benefit that is not working for others. However, it also goes to show that placements do and can happen quickly and there is no apparent reason why children, especially in PA, the state that considers itself " a national leader in foster care and adoption" should be lingering in the system for years and years, some aging out.
I have to think, since you stated that only one of them was ever listed on PAE that the caseworker for these children was on their case and doing the job that is supposed to be done. There are many of us in PA who have waited for 4 months or more hoping to have a caseworker just to respond to an inquiry on a child. There are many of us who have, along with our adoption worker, contacted a caseworker many times and still never receive so much as as an acknowledgement of our inquiry. Again, this is not necessarily just an issue in PA but other states also. I think most likely the reason the commenter was surprised at the "4 months" is because that in itself is unimaginable to most of us, let alone the shorter times you mentioned. You also had mentioned that you have had your children for 8 years now. That is a long time past considering the way things have changed in the system and I dont believe it works that way any longer. Several other people have commented off and on that they had adopted in the past and cannot believe the difference between then and now.
If you are interested in adopting again and that is the reason you want to know what the wait is now, I would feel comfortable in advising you to settle in for the long haul. If that turns out not to be the case for you and you are again placed quickly, maybe you could be generous enough to let us all know what your "secret" is because we would all like to know.
Chmae
I cannot explain to you how fast all 4 of my adoptions happened in the past,but it looks like it will not happen like that again.I had a great worker and I was able to meet people that were able to help me just when I needed it.
I am hoping my wait will not be long as I think I was "spoiled" in the past.
Carrie
Carrie:
I've made getting a sibling grp of two a priority as well and I've been looking for a year and a half. Yours is the first case I've heard of where you got children in days and/or months with very little hassle. It's certainly not the norm. What agency are you using? Perhaps you've had better luck because you know all the people. Are they friends and/or relatives? Char
Okay, Carrie, let's test this out. How about letting us all know which county and which agency so that we can all hound them for children? Within a few months, there shouldn't be any children left there because we've adopted all of them.
Carrie
I do not wish this waiting game on anyone so hope for all of you out there waiting it would move quickly. I think it is difficult for any of us who have been in this process for years, especially those of us trying to find children in our home state of PA to imagine that anyone was placed so quickly.
I too have an excellent adoption worker and if you are looking for an agency I would give her a call. (The agency is Sanctuary House of Chambersburg. The agency will travel any where in PA so is not geographically limited.) She is not a miracle worker but she can make the process a lot less stressful and she works very hard for her families and the children she is placing.
You have to understand that even adoption workers in PA are frustrated due to a lack of responses from the county levels. Personally, when my adoption worker doesnt receive responses to inquiries on PA kids, I no longer allow myself to feel frustrated about not receiving responses myself. I wish I could tell everyone why workers dont respond as well as how to fix the system but your guess is as good as mine. And, since you have had your children for 8 years and are an experienced parent, I would suggest that you are flexible in the ages and issues that you are willing to consider. So many older children need homes. The other consideration you need to make when choosing an agency is if they do out of state adoptions because many here in PA do not.
This is all very frustrating. Char is travelling in PA to meetings, etc and writing letters to every elected official, etc and everyone is admitting that there are problems but no one seems to be able to identify those problems to be able to initiate the changes. So, I will jump on my band wagon again and ask caseworkers out there to respond. Even if as a caseworker you cannot for some reason identify yourself and your county, we as a team can use the information and pass it on to those who can initiate the changes. OR maybe it is just that the caseworkers in PA are not utilizing this valuable resource as we all are. It only takes a few minutes of time to read the comments here on the site and a few to make a comment. If commenting can lead to changes that are needed, like lightening the caseload of the caseworker, then I would reason that it would be a worthwhile investment for workers too respond. In the meantime those of us who are frustrated with PA are looking at out of state adoption, thus leaving PA kids lingering even longer. When push comes to shove, it isnt about the caseworkers, it isnt even about us as adoptive parents, it IS about the children who need homes and who are lingering in the system.
Carrie, keep coming to the blog site and keep reading if not commenting. Reading others comments not only helps with learning the process as it is now but is very therapeutic!!!
Chmae
To Syrag or whatever your name is,I am a professional and I will not even comment on the ignorance of your response.For the record I "never hounded" anyone.Word of mouth goes a long way and I had a worker that was okay(she was new and not as good as the first one I had)but the timimg was was very good.
She was in contact with a lot of workers and when a child came available she did look out for her people.
Because of the various needs of my children and the association I had with other workers,I was able to provide help to other adoptive parents who had children with similar circumstances and through that avenue was able to adopt my final sibling group.It was a case of being in the right place at the right time.
I was not related to anyone,I just knew the worker she had contacted me earlier about this same family.I didn't contact her.She was NOT my worker.Both my worker and the childrens worker worked for the same agency. They made it happen and with in DAYS,the children were placed with me.
I did not place my question to be slammed by ignorant people who do not know me or the situation.I love children and I am planning on adopting again soon and just wondered how long the average wait is.I know that I was blessed in the past,and I just wanted to know.
The reason I posted this question is to find out what the wait time is now for prospective parents in Pa. For the record,I must say that I NEVER "Hounded" an agency.In fact the child's worker contacted MY worker for my telephone number to speak to me about the children.
Those of you that want to be "judgemental" please do so after you know the facts.As each situation was different so were the circumstances around it and believe me "SYRAG", there was no hounding.I find your post very ignorant.
That was 8-9 years ago and things have changed I am sure.
Also,I am no longer with that agency but chose to go with another because they mostly do international adoptions.
To Syrag.. I will not even give your post a response.I was under the impression that the reason for these post were to be a support and information source for those of us hoping to adopt.Not an avenue to tear those down who got placements faster then you did.
I can understand frustration waiting for a placement,but making nasty remarks to others will not make you be chosen any faster.Maybe you should vent that frustration on the counties and the higher ups.
I am simply trying to see what the average wait time is in Pennsylvania now and prepare myself for the long road ahead.
I hope that all of you have much sucess in your search.
Carrie:
I don't think anyone is "slamming" you; rather, everyone of us has had to "hound" agencies and SW's - too many times w/o getting any results. We're frustrated and angry about the situation and from what I've read from other bloggers on this site, things were VERY different eight yrs ago. Foster care was supposed to be short term, but it has become THE solution and instead of finding permanent adoptive homes, the SW's seem to look for permanent foster homes for kids. They look for permanent adoptive homes when the child has been in the system for at least eight years and has psychological problems which are compounded as a result of his or her lengthy stay in the system. I have been trying to adopt a sibling grp of two and I'll even take four if it's two boys, two girls; four girls; or four boys, but I, like everyone else, have run into many ridiculous roadblocks. As I blogged earlier, I attended a hearing at UPenn last week and ALL the problems were brought up by not only regular folks like us who want to care for children but who cannot get the children out of the clutches of the system but also by SW's, administrators, and legislators. While everyone agrees that the problems need to be addressed, it will probably be a very slow process. We all know that the system could probably get kids placed in days or months, but it seems to lack the motivation to do so. I wanted to tell the 12 adults who aged out of the system and who testified at the hearing that we're out here trying to get foster children out of the system and to give them the loving, stable homes they want and deserve, that we're trying not to lose hope - even though it's hard. Unfortunately, the system is cumbersome and lacks the creativity to solve many of its own problems. For example, in the spring, I asked about a sibling grp of three - a girl and two boys who are older than the children I initially requested, but I was willing to be flexible because I was tired of seeing their faces at every event I've attended and of hearing their SW gripe about not wanting to break them up. Their SW, who has been trying for almost a year to get them adopted together, sent me email stating that they had been placed. I was glad for them. About a week and a half later, the children's pictures were back on the agency's website. When I inquired again, the SW sent me email stating that they needed a stay-at-home mom. Well, I'm single and I cannot stay at home because I need to earn a living, so I declined. A few weeks later, I was sent another email by the SW at my agency asking if I would consider taking these same children. I sent email stating what the other SW said, which, apparently, wasn't shared with my SW. Now, when I see the first SW at events, she looks at me like I did something wrong by not taking the kids. SHE made that stipulation about the stay-at-home mom, not me. These are the typical things we're facing with the system. There's always some little thing the SW insists upon which keeps the kids from being permanently placed. While I understand that there are some criteria that need to be made for some of the children, much of the criteria is unrealistic. It doesn't seem to me as if too many of the agencies want to let the kids go. Perhaps we all have to be Moses and tell Pharoah to let the children go. Char
Carrie
I think I can help you to understand the sarcasm that you've seen in some of the responses to you. Many people are extremely frustrated with the adoption system. By mentioning your success, you inadvertently struck a raw nerve in people who have not experienced anything close to that. You know, you didn't really need to mention your previous success in order to ask your question about how long it now takes. And, if I may say something in Syrag's defense, the verb hound means "to pursue constantly and relentlessly." That is basically what you need to do now in order to keep workers aware that you are really serious about adoption, so I don't think it was an inappropriate word.
Carrie
Chmae here!
I think maybe we are all being a little over sensitive. I dont think that anyone meant to offend you for your success in adopting so quickly. I think that people genuinely wanted to know what your "secret" was so that we might follow suit. I dont take offense to the word "hounded" as I think it simply means that to get anywhere these days with many caseworkers, regardless of which state you are in it is necessary to "hound" sometimes. It took me several weeks and many left messages and emails to finally get a response from a caseworker. I consider that "hounding". A friend of mine in PA received a phone call from a PA caseworker asking her to return a call conerning the possible placement of some children that she had shown an interest in. The adoption worker attempted to reach the caseworker many times as did my friend who finally had to call supervisors and go thru about 6 different people to get any information. From what people in PA and other states are stating this is more the norm than not. That to me is "hounding". A lot of us have done this in our quest for children thus with you being new to the current system, maybe it is just the choice of words that offended you and not the meaning of the statement itself.
Quite honestly, when I read your original blog I was a little put off by it because it almost sounded as if you were "bragging" about the short amount of time it took for your placements. There were others I think that had the same impression. Now that you have explained the situation in more detail it is easy to see how it happened and that you were in fact, not bragging. Unfortunately, this is an emotional process and it sometimes gets to some of us when people have been waiting years to be placed and others, not you in particular, are placed within a few short months. The fact that you responded emotionally to the comments verifies that last statement.
I feel fortunate that I had children placed with me just about 13 months after I went to my current agency. (Although not PA kids) I sometimes feel a little guilty for discussing that I in fact have adopted thru the current system when I know others out there have waited much longer than I have and still have no children or prospects. I would not be surprised if at some point in time I have not offended someone with my comments and thoughts but I do my best to try to remain sensitive to others as well. Again, I dont think that you meant to have your comment perceived in the way that it was, but it happened. So now is the time for all of us to forget it and move on. I know for a fact that SYRAG is a great listener and great support to people going thru this process and if your comment had been perceived as it was truly meant to be I think things would have played out differently.
I would hope that you will continue to be active on this site as you are just beginning in this new "system" and there are many people who are willing to answer your questions as well as be supportive.
I can tell you that there are many of us who are indeed active in trying to get reforms in the system and do in fact vent our frustrations to elected officials. Char for one has been very active in that respect as far as PA is concerned. I am sure that someday we will all hear that she played a major role in initiating changes in this state. As well, I dont think anyone was being judgemental, I think it was more amazement than anything else. I cannot speak for everyone but I know when I have discussed my adoptions and the process I have received congratulations as well as very positive feed back from everyone on the site.
You are blessed just as all of us who have found our families have been blessed and yes, if your case follows suit like the rest of us you may have a long wait ahead of you. I think if you go back thru the archives there are some very good ideas as far as how to handle the road ahead. There are valuable tips and hints as far as how your study is written, etc.
Surely, even if SYRAG was being "ignorant" as you put it, it shouldnt keep you from commenting and using this site as a resource. Again, in defense of anyone who commented and offended you, whether you meant it to be or not, you hit a senstive spot in people and it was perceived much differently than it was meant to be. You didnt seem to worry about holding back when responding to the comments when using words like "ignorant" and "judegmental".In my opinion those are pretty strong words when you may not be aware of the meaning behind those comments as the meaning behind yours were not understood correctly either.
I suggest that we all just "scratch our mad places and get happy again" and go on supporting and informing each other.
In my own defense,I am not mad NOR am I trying to pat myself on the back.I know my placements were quick but don't slam me for my BLESSINGS. I was not trying to "upset" anyone by the post and frankly if you are I really don't care.Some of you act like I was just "handed my children" and that was not the case.I had a great gruop of workers at that time.In fact,I recently found out when I switched agencies the director already knew me and my family.She was happy that our family and moved over to "her" agency.
What I was trying to find out is if the system had gotten better or worse over the years?
Nine years ago I am sure things were a lot different and I do not know how many of you were in the process at that time.
I don't "hound" caseworkers and never did.I feel when the time is right the right child will come to me.
Some of you have been a big help to me and I love your input and I hope it continues.
I think the blog loses its purpose when we slam each other for sharing or experiences opposed to being a support system.For this reason I choose to leave this post and find an another who will be more supportive and not so critical.
True I am now working with a new system and have already dealt with a lot of changes.I was trying to get answers and share my experiences instead I got picked on because I got fast placements 9 years ago !!!!
Good luck on your searches
Hello,
I think the part we are missing her is that this post is to "share ideas that my help other families".
To be impartial, I also would have felt a little upset my "Syrag's" comment.Seems she was saying if we all "hounded" the counties like Carra did we would get more children.
I also was blessed with pretty quick placements.It truely was a blessing and I am not nor do I believe Carrie was bragging.That was MANY years ago and I am sure by now we all know times have changed.
We also need to be careful as this is so sensitive how and what we say,because sometimes we may not be helping but hurting others.
I hope Carrie does not leave this site because I am sure she has a lot to offer us.Remember its all about the children.
Well, has anyone had any experience adopting from or in Tennessee? I live in Tennessee and I would just like to know. Thanks!
Everyone keep the faith. In the past few weeks I know of several families who have either had their kids placed with them, who have been selected and are just waiting for the kids to arrive and/or are going to selection committee very soon. I have also talked with people who have said that it seems that they are getting more responses and feedback from caseworkers than they were before. I am not sure why this is. It might just be trying to get the kids placed before the new school year starts and summer vacation is over.
There are placements being made and caseworkers who are responding so hopefully all of us will be placed and blessed soon.
I have to agree with the other blogger who stated that the comment on "hounding" was out of line and very insensitive on her part.For the most part none of us really know each other,but are here to be some type of support system for each other.
Sure,who of us have not contacted and agency or two to inquire about a child.I don't think that constitutes as "hounding" an agency.
We must all face it the system is not working for the children or for us.When an adoptive family is selected, if the waited 2 months or 2 years they should be given support and encouragement,not senseless remarks because your placement took longer and hasn't happened yet.
The main thing for all of us is to hang in there.There ar so many children out there that need us and we need them.Lets pull together for the good of the children.AND bloggers,please be more thoughtful of what you say to others....
I think each and everyone of us needs to do what it takes for us an individuals to get results. We do need to be supportive of each other and I think for the most part, we are. We all need to be sensitive to others feelings when at all possible. We all also need to be mature adults who respond as such. HOWEVER, we are all human thus with this being such an emotional and sensitive subject, it seems no surprise that once in a while something that someone says hits a nerve or two. I would hope that everyone out there could understand that we all make little errors in judgement at times and as adults should be able to "forgive and forget" so we can get on with matters that are indeed relevant. I still dont feel that anyone who commented MEANT to be hurtful or derogatory but may have used "words" that others of us might not have used.
I think we should use this as a lesson in how sensitve we become during this long, frustrating and tiresome process and that allowing it to get the better of us, whether we are giving up on our goal to adopt or as little as leaving this site is counter-productive to everyone involved. Personally I think this whole subject should be dropped and not mentioned again.
I would hope that Carrie would not allow this to keep her from coming to this site, offering her input and accepting support from others.
Okay, everybody, let me say one last thing, and then maybe we can put the issue to rest.
When I used the word hound, I had no idea it would be offensive to Carrie or anyone else. After all, by definition, it is what we often have to do to get attention. In retrospect, I agree that I should have used a different word. Nevertheless, my comment was intended to be facetious. I have a sarcastic wit, which people who know me generally appreciate. I thought the comment was far-fetched enough that everyone would recognize the humor that was intended. To Carrie, I say, "I'm sorry." I didn't mean to offend you.
Now everybody, let's DROP IT!
I very much appreciate the support that is offered by families and professionals on this blog. For families that are tired and discouraged from the search process, the encouragement from peers is invaluable.
Sometimes, in the midst of our blog conversations, we forget that we are on-line and cannot hear tone or attitude in the messages we send. It's important to be accurate, honest, and sensitive in the feedback we give to one another and always provide the courtesy of a second chance to clarify our comments.
If the search process is so deeply affecting our emotions, think how the waiting children must feel?
I just wanted to let everyone know that sometimes the worst of the waiting and not knowing is where I am at now. Being "selected" doesnt necessarily mean that it is a "done deal".
With some states being "selected" is the next to the last step in the process. I have been chosen for children in another state, however, there are little "issues" to iron out before it goes for administrative review and acceptance. Any one of those little issues could make or break whether these children end up in my home. My adoption worker assures me that it will all work out but I am having a difficult time riding the line between excitement and pessimism!!! These children have been a particular interest to me for some time now however I was able to keep my feelings in check until this point. Now I am finding myself wanting to ready their rooms, buy their furniture, toys, etc, but know that I cannot do that until I get the final word. I cannot do that because for me to go head long into this and then be told later that there is a hitch and they are not coming with me would be devastating. I also feel the need to contain my excitement around my other children. I would love to tell them they are getting sibs in the near future but to tell them that and then have it fall thru would not be fair to them.
Until now these children were simply pictures of faces and a short narrative. Now they have become real to me and I am becoming attached even though I have never met them. I dont know how to avoid that nor do I think that doing so would be healthy, but it is a fine line between becoming attached and becoming so attached that I am emotionally devastated if it does not go thru.
This is where having a supportive and dedicated adoption worker can make all the difference in the world. She kind of "grounds" me. She is working her fingers to the bone to make this work and all the while I am presenting her with all these "what if's".!! She manages to remain optimistic yet with caution by reminding me, which is also my belief, that if this is what is meant to be it will be. Probably the most important part of this process now is that she "dots all her i's and crosses all of her t's." At least that is one worry that I do not have, I know she will do her job and do it well. She also has not put me on hold for other children quite yet as, again, it could be one simple issue that could stop the process where it stands.
My intuition tells me that this will all work out, however, I have been wrong in the past. I think this is also a time when using the support of family and friends helps to keep you grounded as well as keeping them in the loop as far as what is going on will make it easier if it does in fall thru.
I think that many, as I once did, think that once officially "selected" that there is no going back and that is just not true. We all have our own personal ways of dealing with things and I think this is one thing we all need to learn to do. We wait and wait to finally be selected and then when chosen we expect it to happen and it does not always work that way. So be prepared and dont become so totally consumed that it hurts more in the end if the placement does not happen. "Cautiously optimistic" is the only term I can think of to describe where one needs to be at this point in time in the process.
If anyone has been where I am and has any advice, other than prayers, please feel free to comment. It can be excruiating!!!
Chmae
Hi all:
For the third time in about a month, I received a profile of a toddler in another state on the AdoptUsKids webpage, but when I click on the link, it says, "Child's case on hold while caseworker reviews active home studies." I cannot get access to read the full profile. I don't understand why I'm getting the kid's basic info and why I'm unable to make an inquiry. Is anyone else having this problem? Char
Four and a half years ago, I was selected for a 12-year-old boy who rejected me without explanation the day that I met him.
Three and a half years ago, I was selected for three sisters, ages 10, 12, and 15. I already knew two of these girls, and adored them both. I had only casually met the other. The placement never happened because the house parents of the 12-year-old didn't think a single person could handle her. (She's the one that I had only met.)
Three years ago, I was selected for a sibling group of 3 that I had met five years earlier and had always wanted to adopt. The 12-year-old girl was very hesitant at first, so the 10-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy began visitation without her. One week before they were to move in permanantly, the boy got "cold feet" and wasn't sure that he wanted to do it. Then, their paternal grandparents came out of "nowhere" and said they wanted to adopt them.
Now, on Wednesday, July 30, I am scheduled to meet a 12-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother. While my history with 12-year-olds and 14-year-olds isn't what I've hoped for, I have a good feeling about this possible match.
To Chmae and everyone else who is dealing with the ups and downs of the process:
What I do is simply ask God to go before me, opening the right doors, closing the wrong ones, and clearing the path. But, I qualify this prayer with the acknowledgement that, if it is not His will, then please let it fall through. I don't want to enter into an adoption with the wrong kids.
I know the heartaches because I've been through a few of them. In between, I have been rejected and ignored more times than I can remember. I know the emotions all too well. Notice that I've been at this for a while, and still don't have kids. Yet, I'm still trying because I have put my faith in God, trusting Him to bring about the right match.
So, everybody, HANG IN THERE! Relax. Let it happen in God's perfect timing. It will be for the best.
I have just been approved to foster-adopt in Pennsylvania.My worker said my wait should not be long because I am open to accept a wide range of children.Although I am hearing what she is saying,I am also reading that some of you have been waiting years for a placement.Because I feel that in a case like this "you" are more of expert on this.What can I do to make my wait less and is there anything I can do to prepare for the journey ahead?
What about the Pennsyvania Adoption Exchange(PAE)?
To Fost-Adopt in PA
It is my opinion that A LOT depends on the agency you are with, the area you are in as well as the worker assigned to you. I had done the fost-to-adopt for a little over a year and the children who came to me did not fit my preferences. I could have adopted several of the kids who came into my home if I was willing to take the child that the agency thought was "best" for me. The agency I was with did not do matching outside of their own agency thus one was limited to the children who came thru their care and they would not inquire about children from other areas in PA. They also did not consider doing out of state adoptions. Since adoption was my goal I felt it was best for my needs to find an agency that was basically adoption only. This has worked for me.
You say you are willing to accept a wide range of children which should benefit you in the long run as well as possibly make the process a little less lenghty depending on the children that become available.
The wait can be and most often is not just months but years regardless of the state you are dealing with but in my opinion PA is one of the slower states. I find the caseworkers non-responsive for the most part.
Again, I think that the agency itself plays a big part in how quickly the process will go for you. I wish I could tell you more however, with all the counties in PA operating independently of each other as well as the state, it is difficult to address.
I think to make you wait less you must stay on top of things at all times, actively search for children on PAE (if you are only interested in PA kids) and make sure that your worker is indeed sending out your study as requested. Read a copy of your study and make sure all the information you want is in the study.
I think the best way to make the process less frustrating is to do the things I have listed above and prepare yourself for the wait. I try never to become too attached or too excited at prospects because for the most part, that is all they turn out to be, prospects. Coming to this site to ask questions and "vent" is also a good way to ease the frustration. Sharing your experiences is therapeutic and also helpful to all of us reading the comments.
Char LOL I dont know what to say except that many, many times the same has happened to me. I dont think for legal reasons they can remove a child until a placement has happened, thus even if a worker is close to placing a child, they remain on the site. I have always assumed when I have gotten that message that the worker is swamped with home studies and is no longer accepting more.
Chmae
hi syrag -
can you give us an update on your meeting with the brother and sister?
also, thanks for your wise words of encouragement.
kate
Hi Char,
My name is Elizabeth Brescia, and I work with AdoptUsKids. Thank you for your interest in adoption!
AdoptUsKids encourages all case workers for all children to photolist all children on our website who are legally free for adoption (as long as this would comply with regulations in the child's state). Case workers rarely choose to photolist toddlers are on AdoptUsKids.org. This may be due to the fact that the number of toddlers who are already legally free for adoption is very low.
When a very young child is photolisted on AdoptUsKids.org, this is what typically happens: Many, many registered AdoptUsKids.org families use the AdoptUsKids.org "make inquiry" button to send an inquiry to the child's worker. If so many of these inquiries come through that the case worker cannot use AdoptUsKids.org to send a response back to the families as quickly as the families are inquiring, then the inquiries build up a little bit. If more than 15 families are waiting for an initial response to their inquiry about the particular child, then additional families who want to inquire see the error code which you saw. Once the case worker has responded to more of the inquiries, and reaches the point when less than 15 families are waiting for an initial response, then more families are able to use AdoptUsKids.org again to submit inquiries.
I have seen children's photolistings, especially the photolistings for such very young children, cycle back and forth between "on hold" (which is what you saw) and "active" (which is when you can use the "make inquiry" button) within one business day. In these cases, unfortunately, you will need to check on that child's photolisting again, later on, to be see when the child's photolisting is "active" again. At that point, you will be able to make an inquiry.
I hope that this information helps you to use AdoptUsKids.org. If you have any questions, please post again or call me at 1-888-200-4005.
By the way, I was wondering what you were referring to when you said a profile was sent to you. Did you mean that a friend or social worker told you about a child? Did you mean that you clicked on the "View Suggested List" that is available to you when you log in to www.adoptuskids.org? Did you mean something else? If you don't mind, I would love to know more about this.
Thank you,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Brescia
AdoptUsKids
I am still so undecided about adopting from foster care, so I appreciate hearing everyone's stories.
My husband and I have three beautiful children currently. Our oldest daughter is 6 and she was adopted into our family at the age of four from Thailand. She has significant medical and developmental needs, due to her extreme prematurity (24 weeks gestation) and 10 month NICU stay. She is blind and has a moderate developmental disability, requires line-of-sight care and will never live independently.
We also have two biological children. Our middle child is 4 years old and had significant medical issues as an infant/toddler, most of which have resolved or stabilized. He has a growth hormone deficiency, high functioning autism, celiac's disease and a couple of other alphabet soup labels.
Our youngest daughter is currenly 23 months old and has several cardiac issues that will require surgery by the time she is four years old.
All of my children are delightful, sweet, and wonderful. :-) I wouldn't trade them for the world! We feel we are at a point where we have an excellent handle on their needs, and enough love, time, attention, and devotion to spare to add another child with special needs to our family.
Initially, we decided not to go with international adoption again because out of the associated costs. We picked a program that runs out of the State of New York that places special needs infants in an open adoption type situation. They stipulate that they cannot guarantee placement of children because the decision is ultimately made by birthparents, which is perfectly fine with us. :-)
We have a private agency in our home state of Colorado who did our homestudy. Our social worker is wonderful, positive, and encouraging. She sees our home as capable and ready of handling a child with significant special needs. She also encouraged us to look at foster care.
I will tell you I went looking into foster care with an open heart and open arms. But, I have been very put off and nervous about dealing with this system. With all of our adoption experiences, we have always felt part of a TEAM, working together in the process of finding the right families for children. Even if we were not that family, we have always felt respected and welcomed as part of that process.
The few inquiries we have currently made on waiting foster care children have been received SO differently. I am openly rebuffed when I call to inquire about a child. I am given canned response letters telling me to mail homestudies to certain addresses with no contact information, no one to call with inquiries. When I take the initiative on my own to try and track down contact information, I am told I am not allowed to call and only my social worker can. When I have my social worker call she is told no additional information can be released, and we will not hear anything beyond what is in their public narrative unless we are chosen as that child's family. Mostly, the attitude I seem to be getting is a suspicious one, akin to "Why are you calling and how dare you ask questions!" Instead of being few as a team member in this process, I am being viewed as a nuisance, simply because I am calling to make a human connection with a person who is part of making a placement decision for this child.
We are specifically looking for children with severe and significant special needs. We are willing to adopt a child who will need permanent care for the rest of his/her life, and/or those who have a terminal illness or disease that will result in a shorten lifespan. Because my son's birth order has been disrupted once, our only hard and fast rule is a child who is under the age of four. We are in this for no other reason that wanting another child to love and add to our family.
In attempting to be part of this process, I have found it discouraging, confusing, and bewildering. I feel like all my efforts to make sense of attempting to find a child who might be right for our family, or for whom we can provide the resources and love that they need, are being rebuffed and left to die with no responses.
I am starting to understand in part why so many children wait in foster care for adoptive families. I now believe it is not so much a lack of willingness on the part of American families to adopt through fostercare, but a lack of ability or desire to work through this kind of bureaucracy with so little kindness and positive support in return.
We're making one last inquiry for a little boy who is waiting in Alabama. Already I have gotten a canned response to simply mail our homestudy to some address in Montgomery, with out any instructions or contact information on who we can possibly follow-up with in order to even make sure that our information is received. He looks like he would be such a wonderful match for our home. I will attempt, on my own yet again, to find contact information to at least make sure our homestudy is received and hopefully find out some kind of timeline they are looking at to make a decision. If this pans out like all of the other ones, with no information on how the process will work from this point forward, and no indication that they even care we're interested, then we are done with looking at foster care. We will remain in the pool at the private agency in New York and we will pursue international adoption once again.
There are so, so, so many children who need homes, both in foster care and around the world. I am not willing at this point to fight bureaucracy tooth and nail when there are other avenues to building our family that afford us respect, care, and a willingness to view us as partners in this process instead of a giant annoyance that just needs to be dealt with.
That's very sad to me though. :-( I really got so excited at the possibility of adopting through the foster care system.
Sincerely
Rene
I have posted before, just to recap. We were selected December 7 2007 to be the adoptive family for a brother & sister from Arkansas. Here it is 8/1/08 and we still don't have them. The "paperwork" was not getting compleated.The best thing we have done was to contact the Adopt America Network! They assigned us an advocate and she has told me what steps to take to help speed up the process.
She recomended that we contact the Judge and to let him know what had been happening (or in this case not happening). I spoke with the Judge yesterday and he was mad about the situation. He contacted the lawyer for the children and has informed them "to have everything done by August 20th or else"! We have been trying to get the kids here before school starts, that is 8/4/08! The advocate informed me that the kids could be placed in our home on an extended visitation of 30 - 120 days pryor to the paperwork being compleated. This way they can start school ASAP. I am waiting for some phone calls today to see when we can drive to Arkansas from TN and pick up our kids. We have had visits with the kids and both of the kids can't wait to get here.
I can't say enough about how much our advocate has helped us, we wish we had known about certain things many months ago and we would have been finalizing the adoption by now. It is great to have such a support system!!!
Hi Elizabeth:
Thanks for anwering my question. I clicked on the "View Suggested List" on www.adoptuskids.org and the boy's picture popped up. It's there again today. And I'm still not able to click on his picture to get more information or to make an inquiry. According to the listing, he's 18 months, but the date of the posting is Jan '08, so he's probably about 2 by now. The listing is from an agency in FL. I went to FL's child and youth services webpage, but the boy's number isn't listed there. Char
Dear Anonymous in NC – I am contacting you on behalf of the North Carolina RRT. Thanks for taking the time to share your particular experience with your social worker. I am hopeful that other North Carolina families and professionals will offer some helpful suggestions, tips and encouragement.
First and foremost, I want to thank you for your commitment to being a foster parent. With close to 11,000 children in foster care, we definitely have a need to recruit foster parents. Likewise, North Carolina has close to 900 children who need adoptive families right now!
It is always disheartening to hear stories that depict the social worker as the barrier to families finding children. On a positive note, most problems have a constructive, positive solution when they are addressed in a timely fashion! Would you feel comfortable setting up a meeting with your social worker and perhaps her supervisor to discuss your concerns? A meeting may allow both of you to come to a better understanding of your roles and responsibilities. Your social worker may not be aware of her treatment towards you. She may want to know that she is not providing you with the support and guidance your family needs.
In addition to this idea, you can follow the chain of command and speak to someone else within this agency (supervisor, program director, DSS director, child program representative, etc.) about your particular experience and concerns. My concern is that we do not know if other prospective families are receiving the same treatment from this particular social worker. If so, this will negatively impact the retention of resource families to serve our waiting youth and children. You can also contact North Carolina’s licensing unit to discuss your particular concerns and experiences with this agency. Finally, you also have the right to select another licensing agency.
I really appreciate you taking the time to speak up about this matter. This information is integral to our collective efforts to strengthen our child welfare system for the benefit of children and families. If you have any additional questions or need any further advice, feel free to post on the blog again or contact the NC RRT directly. I want to make sure we do not lose you as a resource family! With more information, I may be able to direct you to additional resources. Thank you for being an advocate for children!
Thanks for asking, Kate.
My meeting with the kids went very well. I immediately hit it off with the 14-year-old boy. The 12-going-on-21-year-old girl was sociable, but I could tell that she was also being a bit reserved, which is understandable. Nevertheless, she and her brother both laughed at my jokes.
Both kids enthusiastically told their worker afterward that they liked me, and that they thought I was funny and nice.
We are planning another get-together on August 23rd.
Hi all:
The problems with DHS continue here in Philadelphia. The DA's office released yet another scathing report yesterday on a criminal investigation they did concerning the death of a 14 yr old girl w/cerebral palsy who died of starvation while in her biological parents' care in 2006. The report is 258 pages long and it reiterates a lot of the common complaints about DHS and its entrenched bureaucracy. For example, the two social workers who were supposed to be looking out for the girl's interests didn't remove her from the home and they didn't go into her room where she was wallowing in her own urine and feces and wasting away from starvation. Also, the neighbors were constantly calling DHS complaining about hearing the girl screaming all the time. The neighbors reported the neglect, but nothing was done about it. The DA is livid and she's demanding that the state take over DHS. Unfortunately, this is not the first time the DA has called for the state to take over. The new DHS Commissioner, who's only been in the job for about a month, tried to do a press conference, but she could only stand there teary eyed and she said nothing. She has extensive experience, but I don't think she'll be able to fix the problems. As DA Lynne Abraham has stated, the system needs to be completely overhauled; the reforms that have been done in the past are used for about a split second then it's back to business as usual and children die. 9 people, including the girl's biological parents and the two social workers, have been charged. The story is front page news. It seems that DHS in Philadelphia is as dysfunctional, abusive, and negligent as the children's families of origin. In this city, instead of being fired, incompetent social workers get promoted. The report also focused on the propensity for some DHS staff to resort to deception and cover-up. For instance, the woman who was running the agency that was supposed to check on the girl and to make sure her parents were taking proper care of her, was falsifying paperwork to make it look as if her agency was doing its job. They back-dated reports not only to cover their dirt but to try to get paid for doing nothing for the girl. What a shame. There are so many of us who wouldn't dream of harming a child; yet, we cannot get a child out of the system. Something is terribly wrong when those who care about children cannot get placements and those who don't are rewarded with promotions. Of course, I'm sending email to DA Lynne Abraham as well as to Chief Justice Behr (he wants to shorten the length of time of family court preceedings and to get children placed in permanent adoptive homes sooner). If you're in PA, now might be a great time to send an email or a letter to your state rep and/or state senator to get things changed for the better. Char
I would love to hear from any one who has adopted from South Carolina. Also anyone else who may be in the process. Please let me know your experiences. To USKids blog, it would be great to have each state with their own blog comments. This would be very helpful for adoptive parents looking for feedback in their individual states.
Hello Char,
Thank you for telling me more. If I am understanding you correctly, this sounds like a website glitch because that shouldn’t happen. The “View Suggested List” updates itself. Children whose status is on hold shouldn’t still be on “View Suggested List” the next day.
Unfortunately, AdoptUsKids can’t know for sure or fix the problem without speaking with you one on one. Would you be willing to call me at 1-888-200-4005? I have spoken to Melinda Correll of our tech support about this, and, if you call me, I could explain how you could contact her. She can log in and look at the situation in detail to figure out what is going on.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Brescia
AdoptUsKids
I was a "Fast Track" worker for 5 years, which meant all of my cases (but one) went to adoptions. For the past two years I have been an "Adoption Facilitator", I get the cases when the child is in their adoptive placement and legally free.
Subsidies are one of the Pandora's Boxes of the child welfare system. The do indeed vary from state to state and sometimes county to county. In Pennsylvania, the adoption agencies in each county set the rate. Some states have a two tier system depending on need or lack of need of the child and some states, such as Oregon, have a sliding subsidy, based on costs of caring for the child above what would be considered a normal cost. It has been my experience that adoptive families do not understand subsidies, issues such as SSI, SSD and SSR are not always clearly explaine, and sometimes families just don't want to hear they will not receive as much as they hope too. In regards to subsidies, they are further complicated by other Social Security Laws. That is why a foster child may be eligible for SSI and then lose that eligibility when adopted. And why SSD and SSR benefits can follow the child, but have to be deducted from the subsidy. This is a short answer to a complicated issue, but may shed some light on it. - Terry
How horrible, yet typical, that it takes the death of a child to bring attention to the inepititude and inadequacy of the system!!! There is no excuse for the people in the system NOT doing their jobs, regardless if due to an overload of cases or just plain laziness. I really hope that the people involved with this case are not just prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law but live with the guilt for the rest of their lives!!! This was certainly not a case where a parent "snapped" for the first time and caused death or serious injury. Obviously, the case was current and should have been properly supervised and this would not have happened. I myself have dealt with Philadelphia on occassions and found the workers to be rude, ignorant or just non-responsive. IT HAS TO STOP!!!!+
Char - was their a contracted agency also involved in the care and supervison of the child? If so can you let me know which one? I would appreciate it greatly.
I just dont understand why placements are being done more quickly! If the workers are so overloaded that they cannot maintain their cases, wouldnt it make sense to quickly find these children safe and secure placements and lighten the load?
I also dont understand why the caseworkers are not standing up and protesting their working conditions? If they are in fact to a point where they cannot keep up and need to back date or forge paperwork to stay in good standing then why not just report to the press the conditions. The caseworkers hired by these counties to PROTECT the children thus it would seem that if they cannot do so should contact the proper authorities and complain. If they dont, they are no longer protecting the best interest of the child but only their own jobs. Again, why does it take the death of a child before anyone really looks and takes notice of the faults in the system?
It would also be beneficial if when reporting a situation of suspected abuse or neglect that as the reporter of the incident we are at least let know if the case has been considered. I know there is confidentialitly involved, but DHS doesnt need to let one know what the results are but just that someone indeed did look into the situation. How are we to know if they did or didnt without acknowledgement? Maybe in the future when reporting an abuse case, particularly when you think it is severe, one should also notify the police. If I am correct, the police HAVE to investigate and are mandated reporters thus would also have to make a complaint to DHS. Maybe if coming from the police the complaint would carry more weight??
I agree with Char in that we all need to contact anyone who will listen concerning this case and demand that something be done.
There was also a case recently of a child in the system who was on an outing with his residential facility who drowned under the care and supervision of the people in charge. It is my understanding that the "staff" looked for him and waited an hour and a half before reporting him missing. They finally found the child in 30 ft of water. Why would a facility send a group of children to a swimming area (state park) where our great State of PA has decided the best way to cut the budget is to not hire lifeguards? It is my understanding that this 17 yr old boy, who had been up for adoption for quite some time and had just found his forever family. How terribly sad, not just for the child but for the family who was going to adopt him.
Someone at the "top" of the chain in PA stated that PA is a "national leader in foster care and adoption". I have to wonder why that statement was made considering all of the problems with Philadelphia and the lack of placements the counties are making. Also, a big kudos to Chief Justice Behr who is trying to speed the process up for the children who are waiting.
Well I finally read where someone from Tennessee is adopting from another state! I haven't talked to anyone like that since we started looking at the beginning of this year. I am glad you are making some progress in getting your children!
I am sooo disgusted at this point with everything. I haven't even been waiting as long as some of the people that I have seen discussing their wait for a child. We have been waiting since around February to be matched, and we haven't gotten anything more than your average, "Thank you for your inquiry..yada yada yada." We were really very interested in this one little boy from SC and I sent a few emails to his caseworker with no response. I called and left voicemails with no response. I called and left msgs with other people with no response.
I talked to another lady at an agency here in my state and she was very positive and said we'd be a good home for the child and then when she talked to my case worker, she told her that they didn't want to put the child with someone who had younger kids. why didn't she just tell me that?
I have talked to three different caseworkers that have plainly told me that we couldn't adopt the child we were inquiring about b/c we are white and the children were black.
I have been trying to keep my hopes up and be patient and tell myself it's all in God's timing. But I have to admit, I am getting very discouraged. We are open to all levels of disability...it's just that we already have four children, and I think that may be what is holding us back.
I have always been one to think that I would never adopt internationally b/c there are too many children here needing good homes. But now I find myself looking into it, and to be honest, if it weren't for the cost, we'd probably go that route now.
I have even heard that sibling groups are hard to place, and that is why they linger in the system. I am starting to believe that isn't true either. It seems to me that there are kids needing homes, and people wanting to give these kids homes...but it's in between that has the problem.
I am in no way badmouthing my case worker. I do believe she is doing her very best to help match us with a child. She sends my homestudy out as fast as I ask for her too, to many different children. She always answers my emails promptly, and is very friendly. She will tell me that a lot of times, she can't anyone to call her back either.
I'm sorry if this sounds like I am griping. Maybe I am. I am just frustrated and having a bad day. It's very discouraging to get online and read of someone wanting to adopt the same type of child you are looking for and find out that they have been waiting four years already. Is that what I have to prepare myself for??
In answer to Rene's post.
First, welcome to the group.
Adopting from Foster Care is different. I have adopted both internationally and through Foster. I have been a part of several private adoptions for others. All experiences were different. The states laws are different. Just like different countries have different processes. Not all private adoptions work the same way either, depending on state law. Some states look to the social worker to be the information gateway and you are out of the loop until a match has been made. Other states allow more contact between you and the child's case worker. Both have pluses and minuses. Your homestudy must be received to even begin the process in all cases. That may be why you don't feel part of the process at this point. You are simply seeing different legal process requirements for different states. The workers hands are tied until you get that homestudy to them. I was taken aback at first when I ran into a state that wouldn't let me contact anyone myself. Your agency worker should be familiar with some diffent states. They can probably give you a run down of the particular states process or find out for you. Another thing is that laws do change, just not as often as international!!! The states can't do anything until they receive your homestudy. Once you are matched as a possible home I think you will find the information flow opens up more to you. You may want to find out what states require your social worker to be the only contact person and what states allow you to be in the process sooner. Either way, doesn't make it happen for your family sooner or later. The waiting is the worst part. Fear talks to your mind.
Fear is always in the mind of the kids.
I must say it can be very disheartening after a while. My husband and I started this adoption process 3years 6months agot in SC. We recently started doing the foster care about 8months ago. One reason was due to our Adoption Worker. She felt because we wanted children so much and truly loved children as most of you do that Foster care would open the door for us somewhat quicker to adopt and we would have that intial bond with the children. We have been brought to placement committe on a couple of sibling groups only to be looked over (not any child through fostering though). I must say however there have been some wonderful info from people on this blog. They have encouraged and shared info on certian situations they have had to deal with concerning the children they have adopted. We have had some wonderful kids and most would jump at the opportunity to adopt. Especially the one in our care now. The worst thing that bothers me more than anything else seems to be the lack of urgentcy or importance to significance of placing a child into an adoption. Dss has this basic unspoken concept that it is better to place a child in limbo in a foster home than to actually cross over the political line and finalize an adoption. They throw so many variables in the basic package for an adoptive family that they themselves cause potential amazing families that could be awesome mentors& parents to walk away and children desperate for a forever bond with a family empty handed. Now as a foster parent in SC if the children were not so important the politics would also cause you to walk away. I pray that the DSS system comes to realized love by choice from any person is far stronger than a DNA test that seems to justify exposing these babies, children, youth to much greater harm.
It has been interesting to read that people are going through the sames things that we are, regardless of the state. We asked a lot of people a lot of questions before we filled out a single application and we continued to ask the same questions to every person involved along the way in order to get a clear picture of what exactly are the realities of this type of adoption. We have since found out that almost everyone we talked to painted a picture that doesn't really exist. Some went so far as to give false information. Only one person was honest. She told us that it was difficult to adopt in our state (Wisconsin) and out of state placements were a long shot at best. After hearing this we contacted some of the people we had previously and and contacted DHS directors in 26 states. They all assured us that this was most certainly not the case and there were lots of kids fitting our criteria waiting. The one thing we stressed over and over to everyone is that we did not want to enter this program and waste our time, their time, the time of our friends and family and public funds if it was unlikely we would be matched. We were always assured that would not happen and on more than one occasion people told us we could expect a 3 month wait for placement.
It didn't take very long to figure out things aren't what they said they were. To date we have not received any word about any children in Wisconsin. We have sent out a lot of home studies to other states and rarely do we ever even hear anything back. We had one adoption worker who called to check on all of our open inquiries and we found that every one of them received a flood of inquiries. Recently our case was transfered to our third worker (#1 - maternity leave, #2 - temp, #3 - replacement to #1 who decided to not return). She came out last week to get to know us. She was the first person that would tell us the actual numbers for Wisconsin. Last year there were just over 100 families like us (adopting but not doing foster care). Last year approx. 10 kids were adopted to families like ours. I had asked this question repeatedly and nobody would ever tell me the answer so I figured the numbers were lopsided but I didn't expect them to be 10-1. Judging by the large number of home studies each child is receiving I tend to think this ratio is not limited to Wisconsin.
As I see it the problem is that there are a lot of people/organizations selling the idea that there is a shortage of families willing to adopt when this just isn't the case. Seeing Rene's post, even people looking for the most difficult cases are being snubbed. There needs to be disclosure to people right from the beginning stating clearly the the number of people with home studies waiting and the number of children adopted each year. They should also be told how many people give up and leave the program annually. I don't understand the reluctance to be honest with people. What do they have to gain by pretending the situation is something it is not? Our current worker is pretty realistic and even she had a hard time admitting we really have almost no chance of adopting. And that is fine but why didn't someone tell us this on the very first phone call?
At this point we aren't really looking all that hard anymore. We check the AdoptUSKids site every day or 2... or 3. We used to check the AdoptionExchange listings but after never having anyone ever contact us to get a home study after an inquiry it's pointless. We also check the Ohio site but only occasionally after finding how poorly it is run. We will be dropping out of the program either this November, depending on what is entailed in the renewal, or next November when the home study has to be redone. At no point was it ever our goal to be just a name on a list to justify a budget.
To Rene - for Alabama, they are supposed to send your worker a letter stating they received the home study but I don't think they supply any other contact info.
Cory
How the Child Welfare System Works is a new factsheet available from the Child Welfare Information Gateway, including a clear one-page diagram that might be especially helpful to you. The publication can be found at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/cpswork.pdf.
The Adoption Glossary on the website of the National Adoption Center at http://www.adopt.org/assembled/glossary.html is a helpful tool for anyone wanting to understand the language of adoption. The glossary includes words and phrases that may be in photolistings, recruitment materials, and policy.
I think Cory hit the nail on the head for me. It is not that I mind dealing with "they system". It's not that I don't understand understaffed and overworked social workers carrying an immense burden and responsibility.
What I don't understand is the need to mislead and waste time. I finally did get in touch with someone in Alabama. You know what they told me? They told me in a "MAPS"/fostercare training was not specifically mentioned in our homestudy, they just toss it out. "We have 7 caseworkers and 280 children, so we don't have the time to weed through all of that."
I can deal with not being matched with a child because we do not seem to be a good fit. I rejoice when we are not selected but a "perfect" family has been found for a particular child instead. I expect to be judged and assessed on the basic merits of whether or not we would make a good fit for individual children.
But being tossed on a technicality, without even being told the reason that is why we are not being considered? If I hadn't called and specifically asked, we would have sent in our homestudy and never have received a reason on why we were rejected. We would have just not heard back. We would have been left in the dark and in the cold, not knowing why. In our state, we didn't need this specific training that they are talking about to be a licensed foster/adopt home. It's not an issue to get this training, but *I need to know*. And it really saddens me that instead of having our VALID homestudy actually read *for our merit* it gets a first glance over and can get thrown out because we're missing a key phrase. That is putting the process above the needs of children, in my humble opinion.
I also don't want to be investing my time and energy in pursuing a child that there is zero chance the powers that be will ever match us with. If a state has a strong philosophy against placing with out of state families, and only one child in the past year has been placed out of state, then I would like to know that. I will then know to better invest my energy elsewhere where I am not trying to convince water to flow uphill.
Someone said "Fear talks to your mind" and then "Fear is always in the mind of kids." Someone else said something to the effect of "If the process is this emotional for us, how does it feel for the children?"
I absolutely agree. At the same time, *both* parties in the adoption process-- the child and the parents-- have rights and needs to be respected, it is not "just" about the children.
What do I mean by that? I am not in the process of adoption to be a martyr. If I wanted to be a saint or a martyr, I could have joined the sisterhood and been the next Mother Theresa, devoting myself exclusively to the needs of others.
Instead, I chose to get married. I want children. I want a family. I want children because I love them, because I find it immensely rewarding and satisfying, *especially* parenting my special needs children. There is something so internally fulfilling in watching my daughter go from a 4 year old who couldn't walk, talk, feed herself, dress herself, who had the skills of a 9-12 month blossom into the nearly 7 year old who runs through my living room and tells me she's hungry when it's lunch time. She will require supervision and care for the rest of her life--- that is something I happily and joyfully will provide for the rest of her life and in return I get the reward of helping her grow, watching her progress knowing I had a part in it, and getting to the chance to love and be loved.
I *want* to parent. I can have biological children, and I have had biological children. I open my arms to adoption because I see it as a wonderful way to fulfill a child's need for a family and my own desire to be a mother at the same time. I fight back, very hard, at the notion that this is just all about sacrificing myself and my family for the sake of a child--- we *both* benefit from adoption.
The reality is that there are children waiting *everywhere* in need of families. There are children languishing in U.S. fostercare, just as there are children languishing in orphanages overseas. The need is equal no matter what child you are talking about. But, when the process is made simpler and easier, then *parents* typically gravitate towards the simpler, easier, process. Parents have needs that they are looking to have the system meet as well.
I think it is unfortunate that parents who are capable, open and willing to adopt choose to give up on children waiting in U.S. foster care because the process itself presents as a stumbling block. I then think it is misleading to hear statements about how many children are waiting in foster care for homes when it is the *process* that turns parents to look at other adoption alternatives, not a lack of desire to become families for children in foster care.
I know I do not "fear" the process. I have great faith in God's plan for my family. :-) I do however, recognize when my efforts are not wanted and turn up a lack of fruit. In that case, if the choice is between languishing myself for years trying to convince a nameless, faceless entity that doesn't even bother to really read my homestudy that we're qualified to be parents, or to go with a system that is openly encouraging and enthusiastic about matching us with a waiting child--- we'll go where we're wanted and where our desire to be parents has the best possibility of being met.
We haven't given up on foster care yet. But, I have definitely come to realize that I walked into this system very naive and very unsuspecting of the true reality of what adopting through foster care is like.
:-)
Rene
Rene:
I agree with you. I too approached foster-to-adopt from a very naive standpoint and I trusted the sources I was referencing. I also discovered that not all the child welfare agencies are understaffed or underfunded, which is a common complaint within the industry. For instance, the grand jury report that came out Thursday here in Philadelphia stated that DHS is not only well funded but also well staffed. The problem is that too many of the SW's, supervisors, and administrators were looking for ways to avoid work. Perhaps throwing people's home studies and other paperwork in the trash is a way to achieve this goal. I've put up with a lot of nonsense from my agency, but, after a year of making dozens of requests and no placements, I have reached my limit. I'm not one to tolerate abuse, so I let my SW know how I felt about the shabby treatment I've received. I am also convinced that I was blacklisted for speaking up for the two children who were in my home last year. They get all bent out of shape if we take the initiative and call SW's who have children we're interested in but,at the same time, they won't do their jobs and help us get the kids placed so that their caseloads can be reduced. I'm exploring other options, but I'm not going to stop putting the pressure on elected officials to crack the whip on lazy and/or incompetent SW's who are merely collecting a paycheck and not helping children find loving, stable permanent adoptive families. Char
Everything that I have been thinking lately was just perfectly articulated by Rene! That's exactly how I feel!!
Renee
Wonderful thoughts!! I agree with you whole heartedly.
I think the problem with the states not letting us know they prefer to stay in state or their specific "reasons" for rejection of a family IS the fault of the system itself. Caseworkers are not legally permitted to deny a child out of state placement without extremely good cause. An example would be that I was selected for some children in WA but later the team decided since the children had sibs and were closely bonded seeing each other monthly that it was in the best interest of the children to remain in the area, not cross country. I totally agree with that and did not take issue with this reasoning. I worked with a wonderful caseworker who let me know up front that might be an issue and she kept me posted every step of the way.
However, a state or county CANNOT legally say "we dont like to place out of state so we dont". If I am wrong in that I hope that someone corrects me however it is my understanding that , especially for Title IV-E eligibility, they are required to evaluate ALL studies from ALL states to find the best fit for the child in question. It is also illegal to discriminate based on race, sex, age, income, etc BUT it is done, just under the cover of secrecy. They cannot specifically eliminate you for any of those reasons but if an agency has an "unwritten" rule within itself, these things do in fact happen and will continue to happen.
I think that this is why we either get no responses or very generic responses as the agencies are aware and smart enough not to do anything illegal. I know that certain caseworkers have a preconceived notion of the family that they want for a particular child thus are very unbendable when studies come thru their hands. I have often wondered if the majority of the workers even read the studies, too. I have contacted workers and asked them if they have read my study and they say they have and yet when we begin to discuss the family or the children, you can tell that they have no idea of who you are or what your study said.
The only real solution I can see for all of this would be to go to some kind of federal system where everything is regulated by the government so that there is uniformity across the board. The problem is, the federal government will not ever take that step as they dont like to step on the toes of the states or supercede state jurisdiction.
No matter how you look at it, the system is faulty, some states being worse than other, and no matter how you look at it, the chidren are the ones suffering from this.
Chmae
Hi all:
Chmae is right - it is illegal for any agency or SW to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, marital status, age, etc. w/o a justifiable reason. If you are experiencing (or have experienced) this, you need to WRITE a letter of complaint to the SW's boss and "cc" the boss's boss so that s/he is motivated to do something about the complaint. I would also suggest writing to those elected officials who make the laws and who are supposed to enforce them. Write down not only everything the person said to you but also the way in which he or she said it. Include date, time, location and any other relevant details. Listen, these caseworkers come into our homes writing down everything we say or do and sometimes out of context. Why not use the same method to empower your self, but keep everything in context? Char
Contact management at your local public agency and let them know of your concerns. Local Department of Social Services (DSS) social workers are county, not state, employees and also because North Carolina is a state supervised, county administered program any concerns regarding personnel issues, i.e. how a particular employee does his or her job, must be addressed at the county level. The authority of the state Division of Social Services is limited to ensuring the local agencies comply with relevant child welfare law and policy in their delivery of services. If someone has these kinds of concerns, they can contact one of our program consultants to discuss the issue in more detail.
Paul J. Waddle
Program Administrator
NC Division of Social Services
Help! My husband and I took classes to adopt a child from foster care. We are homestudied in PA, and already had an international adoption halted due to changes in international law. We are totally prepared to give the time, attention, research, and most important LOVE to one of these terribly hurt children - but all we have heard lately is about all the problems. One coworker confided that if she could do it over she would NOT.
Can someone please give some "success" stories - not after 3 years of adoption, but after a child left home, went to college - even got married? I'm feeling really discouraged - I want so much to raise a child that will love me back, grow up to be indepent, and able to have a family of their own. Is that ridiculous or naive????
Cindy
Cindy,
Here's a success story:
I know a young lady who was in a group home. Eventually, her house parents decided to adopt her. She just graduated from high school and has definite plans for college and her future. She has truly grown to be mature adult, and her adoptive parents are certainly proud of her.
Hello, I was in hopes that someone will read this and help my husband and I. We are from Little Rock Arkansas, we have been married for 22 years have two grown sons and permanent guardianship of our 6 year old granddaughter. We have thought about adopting for years and last year we decided it was time, after a lot of prayer we began the process.Here we are one year later and no placement I do not understand I know there has to be a child or two out there that needs us I read in the paper every day of rights being terminated. I have people ask all the time how they can start the process to adopt ,honestly I want to tell them don't waste your time, but I cant because I know there are children out there that need homes. It is so hard to not give up, I would love it if one day I would get that phone call. but after a year it is hard to keep waiting. Please tell me why there is such a strong need for families to adopt and yet there seems to be no children. I do not want to give up I know that God has called us to adopt.We have done our part so now what should we do? Tina in AR
We have been theraputic foster parents for 6 years. We have had some children come into our home that really needed help. We have enjoyed working with these children but it has not been easy. We get so involved in the children and they become a part of our family but in foster care it is hard to get help. They tell you that they will help you but it is a job to them and not really for the children at all. Everyone wants to move up the ladder instead of really caring about the needs of the children. It is very difficult to adopt the children also. Sometimes it can take years and years. Laws need to be changed. The Social workers need to change and see that the children get what they need. I have been very discouraged with the theraputic end and with DHR because of this. Need clothes or school supplies or anything else is like an act of congress. Things need to change so that more and more people will get into foster care and the children will have a chance to feel like someone really cares about their life.
Dear Cory from Wisconsin:
I’m sorry to hear that your experience thus far, has not been a positive one. Every situation is different regarding timelines in adoption matching. For case specific timelines you may want to contact your worker. I would also like to get a chance to speak with you via phone to discuss the adoption process and see if I can be of some assistance. My name is Patty Reynolds, and I am a Recruit Retention Specialist for the state of Wisconsin. If you could give me a call, we could discuss the details of your situation and hopefully find some answers/possible solutions.
Patricia A. Reynolds
RRT
Hi all:
There was a live taping of Dan Gottlieb's radio show, "Voices in the Family" on June 12. It discussed adoption with three panelists including a young man who was adopted and who found his biological parents. The show aired this past Monday and it will air on the radio again Sunday morning @ 6 am on WHYY. If you're not in the Philadelphia region, perhaps you can go to WHYY's webpage and find the day and/or time it will air in your area. Char
Hi Rene,
My name is Sarah Hunter and I am the RRT for Colorado. As you have already found out, the child inquiry process can sometimes be overwhelming and frustrating. It can also be rewarding and positive so I'm glad to hear you haven't given up! I would love for you to contact me so I can assist you and we can discuss the details of your situation further. You can reach me by contacting AdoptUsKids at 888-200-4005.
A great way to get connected with caseworkers in Colorado is to attend Profile and Adoption Parties hosted by The Adoption Exchange. These parties provide homestudied families the opportunity to learn more information about the children awaiting adoption in Colorado and to network with the children’s caseworkers.
Sarah Hunter
Colorado RRT
Patty,
You name sounds familiar. Maybe we have already talked. Are you with ARW? If so, you should have no trouble finding my contact info. They used to call monthly. Our last name starts with a C.
As I said, we were first told before and during the home study process that we could figure on a 3 month wait. Extremely unrealistic timeframe we now know. Our newest worker was over last month and she was the first person to give us honest info. She begrudgingly agreed that it is highly unlikely that we would adopt. We had already come to that conclusion but finally someone gave a straight answer.
If you would like to contact us, that would be fine but I'm not sure what it would do. I have already chalked this up to "No good deed goes unpunished" and not really doing much searching any more. Whether we continue another year depends on what my wife wants to do.
Cory
Cory
I dont mean to sound trite but I dont get it. I just went to the state by state map provided on this site and it states there are 8109 children in foster care and 1280 children waiting for permanent placements in your state. And only 10 were placed last year? If there are so many families like you waiting and wanting to adopt why were only 10 of over 1000 placed?
Many states have issues with the process and with placing children but this sounds totally ridiculous to me. And I dont understand why a caseworker would say you could probably never adopt. Is there another reason for this or just that your state isnt doing the right thing for the children? I am appauled and wonder if anyone out there has any answers as to why this is happening.
I hope you and your wife dont give up and hang in there a little longer. Maybe hooking up with the right people will have a better result than you are having right now.
Take care and keep us posted.
Can anyone help me in Georgia. I read this blog quite often and I know I am not alone in this process, but sometimes I just feel like adopting as a single parent is impossible. I have been approved since last year and still have not been matched with a child. I attend an adoptive parents support group monthly put together by the agency I am working with and at the last support group I was told all but 2 of my caseworkers families had been matched - guess what - I was one of the 2 that wasn't and since my caseworker went on vacation for a couple of weeks immediately following the meeting, I have not been able to speak with her - I called her supervisor a couple of times who left me a message to contact someone else. I have left that person 3 messages and they have not returned any of my calls. The frustration, hours of crying and heartache have been many and not getting returned calls and not being able to find out why I was one of the 2 families not matched has been heartbreaking. Do these caseworkers just not care about the pain they put the parents through - I know they are understaffed and overworked, but this is the career they chose, they knew what they were getting into. I just feel I can't get the support. Please someone help - I need advice. I am ready to just give up.
BAC
BAC
PLEASE dont give up. I dont live in GA so I cannot advise you on that but I can tell you not only do I have being a single parent against me ( and I do feel that way at times) I am also an older, single parent. (Excuse me, I am of "advanced" age!! LOL) That has not stopped me from adopting, though. I have three wonderful sons and am now in the process of having two more placed with me. It can and it will happen. It has taken me approximately three years to find my children but they are here and two more are coming. It is just a very long and frustrating process.
I would suggest that you click on the state by state map provided by this site and call the RRT for GA. This rep may well be able to answer your questions and assist you in addressing some of your concerns.
I know it is difficult and can be very emotional but there are many kids out there who need parents and you will be one of them at some point in time. Once you find your child(ren) you will realize that the long wait and all the frustration have been worth it. So, dont give up. While you are waiting educate yourself and enable yourself to be a good advocate for yourself. This will help keep you busy as well as give you tools to assist you in this journey.
Chmae
Hi BAC:
You're not alone. Across the country, there are too many of us waiting for children to be placed with us. I've been waiting for over a year and I'm ready to give up too. Although I have other options which I'm actively pursuing, I would still like to adopt, but I have to find an agency which is truly motivated to place children in permanent adoptive homes. While I try on a daily basis to be positive, it is hard. I also don't think that SW's consider (or care) what the waiting families are experiencing. I know that, like many of you, I'm an honest, decent human being who wants to help children in need; yet, we cannot get children to adopt. I have also been told by family and friends that I'm the perfect candidate for adopting children. Unfortunately, the agencies don't see it that way. I want to believe that something good will come after all this misery. I also don't want to give up because too many people tend to give up just when they're on the brink of winning. Wait a little longer and, while you wait, be an advocate for yourself as well as for the children. Char
Wow! i am so glad you didnt give up on "the system" and kept looking till you found a group who would be honest with you and help you find your boys! I too am an older mom-51, and was afraid i might not get children either-but i am happily raising 4 children from the foster care system right now! You are right, there are problems with the system-but if we love children-then we will go through what ever we have to! way to go and i hope you find more children to raise! terri
Report on visit #2.
I just had my second visit with the 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy that I mentioned in my posts on July 28th and August 1st. We went bowling and then out for pizza, and had a great time. As we were saying good-bye, the girl tucked herself under my wing and gave me a cozy hug - after only the 2nd meeting! Her brother followed with a "guy hug." The kids' comments to their worker afterward indicate that they like me at least as much as I like them. We will be getting together again in a few weeks.
Alabama DHR is making efforts to restructure our system to expedite permanency for our waiting children and we appreciate the feedback that we receive from families who experience our system. At this point children who are adopted by their current foster families are placed and placement activity completed by their county social worker. The adoptive placement of children with adoption as a goal who do not have a resource identified is planned and completed by placement staff at the State DHR office. Alabama is continuously looking at ways to complete adoptions for these children in a timelier manner, however also wants to assure that families have the skills as well as the love needed to assure a successful placement.
For families who live in Alabama the preparation and assessment process is the same regardless if their desire is to foster and/or to adopt. This is because the children and their presenting needs are the same. To assure that information is available to make the strongest match possible Alabama requires an assessment of the family around skills determined essential to adopting children from the foster care system – children who have been victimized by various forms and degrees of abuse and neglect.
When families from out-of-state inquire about our children, the instructions provided them about home study submission makes two things very clear: (1) studies that approve a family to foster (and don’t address adoption) are not considered nor are (2) studies that lack documentation of successful completion in MAPP’s or evidence of some similar training addressing the skills needed. When families are not selected for the children they inquire about a letter is sent back to the agency that sent us the study letting them know the family was not selected.
For families not familiar with MAPP’s (Model Approaches to Partnerships in Parenting) it is an assessment process along with training. Several different curricula can meet this need. Some agencies offer PRIDE, some PATH and many others. In Alabama we utilize GPS (Group Preparation and Selection) or Deciding Together as our MAPP’s curriculum of choice. In this curriculum the family’s understanding of the following are assessed:
· Child Development
· Behavior Management
· The Process of Grief and Loss
· The Dynamics of Attachment and Separation
· The Value of Families
· Individualized Service Plans
· Identifying the Strengths and Needs of Families and Children
· Behavior as an Expression of Underlying Needs
· The Value of Partnerships
· How Children Enter the Foster Care System
· Family Implications Among Foster Parents
· Understanding and Valuing Cultural Differences
We hope this information provides readers with a greater understanding into how our system assesses a potential adoptive family before matching them with our waiting children. Not only do we consider this in the best interest of our children, but also for the families we consider.
Tiffany Anderson, RRT for Alabama
I would like to respond to Tina in Arkansas. If you have registered through the adoptuskids website in the state of Arkansas, please contact your Recruitment Response Team member and let her know that you posted these comments on the blog and we will contact the state office in Arkansas and try to get an update as to why there has been no action on your case to this point. We are presently working with ARK DHS and other families who share your same sentiment. Our goal is to do all we can to help achieve your goal of adoption. If you are unable to reach your RRT, call the 1-800 number again and ask them to put you directly in contact with the RRT covering the Ark area.
We have struggled through the adoption process for years. It is an extremely emotional process. I have been reading the posts here and see so much emotion. Joy and heartache side by side. I just want to thank every single person on here who is putting their hearts out there for these kids. The system unfortunately is not a great one and so things don't work for the children's best interest all the time but all of you are still out here trying to offer hope for these kids. I hope the people in positions to change things will take the time to read these posts and see the frustrations here. Look at all the good homes waiting and all the children waiting...someday we will match them up faster. At least that is my prayer. We have adopted 8 children over many years and none of the adoptions came easily at all. I would still struggle through every one of them for these children. I hope all of you find and can bring home the right child/ren for your homes. Keep fighting...it is for the children you are here not the system.
Tiffany
Just a wuick question. Here in PA I had attended trainings with virtually the same trainings as you have mentioned but I do not think it is called MAPP. How should an adoption worker list this on a home study coming to your state to make it clear that the training requirements have been met but just under a different "name"?
Chmae
Hi All
Just want to share some information that would apply to everyone who is adopting regardless of state.
I had asked the question a while back about adoption subsidy (yes- I am mentioning the "S" word) and Social Security. I have learned since then that funds for foster care and adoption subsidies that are reimbursed by federal Tile IV-E are in fact part of the Social Security Act. I would love to summarize it for you but I have yet to figure it all out myself. I find it very confusing as I am sure do many others.
What I have learned is that with Title IV-E the reason you cannot collect both full SSI and subsidy is because they come from the same fund thus one would be double-dipping. However, if the child meets the requirements and is eligible for SSI both can be collected as long as they jointly dont exceed the SSI maximum. EX: if the subsidy is 400.00 a month and the maximum SSI is 670.00 a month one can collect the 270.00 difference in SSI. Again, this is provided that the family income is such to allow the child to financially qualify for the SSI benefits. This ultimately would have to be determined by the SS office, of course. It is my understanding that there does have to be a determination that there is a qualifying disability for the child as well as determining the childs eligibility based on family size and income.
Social Security Death Benefits are different. I understand that since this is an entitlement of sorts, based on the death of a parent, that the disability and income requirements do not apply. I dont know if the benefits come from different "pots" within SS or not but have learned that both full death benefits plus the full subsidy can be collected without any adjustments to the SS amount.
I wish that I could explain more about the reimbursement process for children who are IV-E eligible however, I have found that it is extremely difficult to sort thru and follow. I have read information that states that reimbursement for foster care/adoption subsidies range anywhere from 50-83% and that 75% of the monies used for IV-E trainings are reimbursed by the federal government. I am not sure if those funds go to counties or states, or maybe go to the counties in states like PA where it is a county based system and then to the state level when it is state based. Again, very confusing. I do know that the federal government does audit cases and that the state of PA seems to owe money back to the federal fund due to billing for children who did not fall under the IV-E guidelines. I am not saying this was a blatant act on the part of the state of PA, I think perhaps that the regs are such that they are difficult to weed thru and follow. I had to giggle when trying to determine what was and was not paid out thinking to myself that only a rocket scientist could indeed figure out what it all meant and that maybe the reason politicians are not aware of what is going on with this funding as maybe they dont understand it either!!!!! LOL
I have also learned that some states will pay a certain rate within their own state but provide different subsidies when placing out of state. Some states will base the subsidy on the foster care rates you would receive in the state/county in which you and the child resides. Other states simply pay a flat rate regardless of the state or county the child is moving too. Another reason, again, that it would seem that having some federal guidelines in place for each state would seem quite beneficial.
For children who are not IV-E eligible it seems to be up to the state as to how much or even IF the child receives a subsidy. The burden of the subsidy falls completely on the state in question without reimbursement if the child is not eligible. I think it is Senator Grassley that has proposed legislation that all children, regardless of the current criteria of IV-E become eligilble for this program and I think that is a wonderful way to start on a path to improve placements.
Subsidy is a tough issue to address. I have at times, when negotiating a subsidy felt as though I was "buying" a child. I force myself to keep in mind that the subsidy, while simply a way to supplement in the support of a child, benefits the child in question. Again, never would I turn away a child because of a subsidy rate that I thought was low or insufficient and I have to believe that all of us agree with that. However, it is in fact a part of this process and I think there are many unasked questions when it comes to this subject. I think it is unrealistic to think that the majority of us could provide for and support several other children without some financial assistance and in the long run, paying out a subsidy is less expensive for a state/county than continuing to provide the financial costs of full care for a child. It is a win-win situation for the child and the state.
There are people out there who will in fact turn a child away for lack of the right subsidy. This is how I ended up with my oldest son. (In this case, the foster parents loss was certainly my gain!!!) There are some agencies in PA that pay extremely high rates for specialized foster care, 50.00-75.00 per day. While my son had been with this family for years when it came to the adoption, they in the end refused to adopt because the subsidy did not even come close to the per diem they were receiving for foster care. The foster family literally packed him up and took him to his county DHS office and dropped him off at their door. It makes one wonder where their interests truly were. Him or the subsidy? I think it is little stories like this that make us all wary of even discussing subsidies. On the other hand, again, it is part of the process and it comes with the territory. If the money will truly be going to enhance the life of the child, it should not be a difficult subject to approach nor should it be something we fail to negotiate. There are appointments that we will be transporting children to that we otherwise would not, extra expenses for clothing, memberships to the Y, etc etc so my personal opinion is that as long as it is the child who will ultimately benefit, then these kids deserve for us to advocate for them financially. I have friends who have found creative ways in which to use the subsidy, such as one is putting away a set percentage monthly for a college fund, another is putting away a set percentage in a savings so that when her daughters want that big wedding they can do so and another who is developing a fund so that if something would happen in the future to them, the family members who take the children are not financially burdened and one who started a savings so that when the child became of driving age there was money available for a vehicle and insurance. How could one feel guilty about being able to provide that for your children? Even those of us who could in fact provide all of those things without a subsidy can find creative ways to use the money to benefit the child. I had a friend in high school that when she started working at age 16 her parents started charging her and continued charging her a small amount of rent until she graduated college and went out on her own. In all of those years the parents had been putting that "rent" aside and when she did in fact move, she had a very nice savings to fall back on to find a place and get established. And, while doing this, the parents were teaching her the responsibilities she would need as an adult out on her own.
Unfortunately, there are some out there who do put a huge emphasis on the subsidy and who do for some reason think of it as their income and this spoils it for everyone else. I just think we all need to consider the benefits to the child and not think of it as a "bad" word.
Chmae
Chmae,
MAPP’s stands for Model Approaches to Partnerships in Parenting. Several different curricula fall under this title (GPS, Deciding Together, PATH, PRIDE, etc.) Some states or agencies may certainly have their own in-house curriculum. The best thing that a social worker can do in their family’s home study document is assess and describe the skills that are assessed by whatever method of pre-service training their state or agency provides/requires. These are the skills addressed by GPS, which is the curriculum we utilize. So, we’re particularly interested in a potential adoptive parent’s strengths/needs around:
(1) Knowing their own Family
(2) Communicate=ing Effectively
(3) Knowing the Children in Foster Care
(4) Build on Strengths and Meet Needs
(5) Work in Partnership
(6) Be a Loss and Attachment Expert
(7) Manage Behaviors
(8) Build Connections
(9) Build Self Esteem
(10) Assure Health and Safety
(11) Assessing Impact Adopting has on your family/life
(12) Making an Informed Decision
Thank you,
Tiffany Anderson, Alabama RRT
Dear Chmae and Char,
Thank you for your support and words of encouragement. I have been in this process for nearly 2 years now and still don't feel like I have made any headway in adopting a child. I have been told there are children in the system that I would be a great match for, or they would not have approved me to adopt. Well, where are they? My csseworker finally e-mailed me and told me that I was not matched at the last conference and they are discussing the families, like me, who have been waiting a long time. What that means, I don't know, but I will assume we just continue to wait and wait. I know some families from my group that are meeting their children this weekend and as happy as I am for all of them, I am very sad that I am still on this very, very, very long waiting list. As the holidays draw nearer and I see other families finding their children, I feel more and more that maybe it just isn't meant to be for me. I am trying to hold out hope, but with each passing day it gets more and more difficult. Thank you for allowing me to discuss my frustrations. Unless you have been through this I just don't think you understand how heartbreaking and discouraging the process is.
BAC
BAC
Hello
I think I would be in the same position you are in had I not switched adoption agencies when I did. I would suggest you look into doing this as it has been a great change for me. I am using Sanctuary House of Chambersburg here in PA and the adoption worker does state wide so it doesnt matter where you live in PA she will work with you She is also extremely good with out of state placements and her view is that they are no more an issue than in state. The only issue with her agency, but not an issue for me and many others who use it, is that she is not a SWAN affiliate thus some counties in PA will not work with her. So if you prefer to stay in just PA that could be an issue. My worker has been in the field for 16 years and has her own agency for close to 6 years now and I cant say enough good for her. I just think you should know that there are other options and spending 6-8 weeks getting established with a new agency is much better than waiting more months or even years to find a child.
I feel the same way you do about having the support as I appreciate everyone who comments here. It is a way to vent for those who dont have friends or relatives who have experienced the process. It is a way to learn new things as well as teach others from your experiences. I really feel blessed that this site is available to all of us. Thanks AdoptUsKids and all the staff that make it possible.
Chmae
I completed my homestudy in September 2007. I searched on my own and did not use an agency. I am a white single male parent in my 40s and wanted an older while male child (8 to 15) or a sibling group of up to 3 children. The main website I used was adoptuskids. I also used Children Awaiting Parents, and a number of state and regional web sites. My search started in late October. Over the next few months I was offered 6 children from different places that I did not accept because I did not feel we would be a good match after I found out more info about them. Then in late January I found a 14 year old I believed was a good match. The process moved slowy. We talked by phone in mid-March and started visits in early April. He came to live with me in early June. There have been bumps in the road but I am very happy with my new son.
Here are some suggestions:
* Send out lots of homestudies. I sent out about 50. In my state I can send out these on my own. Have a cover letter for each stating why you believe you would be a good match.
* Follow up each with a phone call to be sure your letter was received.
* Determine what type of child you would be willing to take and what problems you are willing to deal with. Initally I wanted a child of up to 8 years old, but after I started making contacts I realized most children waiting for adoption are older and that an older child would be best for me.
* Decide up front if you are willing to be a foster parent or if you only want to adopt. My local social service agency would only help me if I would be a foster parent. I only wanted to adopt and chose not to work with them because of this. Don't be pressed to do something you don't want to do.
* Talk to people who have adopted children. This is probably the best way to find out about the challenges that are involved.
* Know that over 100,000 children are waiting to be adopted. Don't give up in your search, it may take a while. I can tell you that the work and the wait were worth it.
* Know that having a child will change your life forever. Figure out before hand how you will deal with the changes.
Bob
As a former Foster Child of New York City, raise in a Kinship home and having the label as a foster child lead me on my quest to erase that stigma of being a foster child. Now married and a mother of 5 kids the youngest being 6 weeks old, my husband and I was trying to adopt a sibling group. We went to an adoption fair in State College in PA and saw a beautiful and wonderful set of 5 children in a need of a home. before we knew we were pregnant with our own we wanted and still do this sibling group. We had our agency that was present at the adoption fair to release our family profile and we even had a phone interview with the case worker of the kids. it sound promising and was told of the lengthly process. We were excited and was told we are a running family of choice for the children,after 5 months we still haven't heard from anyone. We are being told to just waite and be patient.our agency is working on finding a sib group for us
After a tiring workday in the city making parcel deliveries for the U.S. Postal Service, arriving home and checking on my cases is part of my evening routine. Somehow my wife and daughter allow me to take time to sit down and make the followup calls to my mentorees. A short call usually means I'm leaving a voicemail message, while a longer call might be a conversation with someone frustrated by the process, or thinking about giving up on the dream. There are times I may come across as a coach, a clergyman, a caseworker, or even a cheerleader. Of course I am none of those, but I do my best to keep these good folks busy with the successive steps needed to complete their homestudies, and then wait along with them for that special phone call for placement. It helps to have had the experience first-hand adopting successfully from foster care, and I have also used the anecdotes and experiences of other adoptive parents who have been kind enough to share them with me. Learning about family law and admin procedures is also very empowering. But mostly, what I find time and again is that these prospective parents want a sympathetic ear to hear them cuss out the "fine public servant" who won't return their calls, or to talk about their doubts about pursuing adoption as single parents or between jobs, or to celebrate with, because this wonderful child is spending their first weekend home with them.
New cases are always special, and no two are alike, although I always refer them to their regional ADFAN office and urge them to set up that initial orientation appointment. I also direct them to our Spanish-language website, and brochures explaining the local adoption process are always sent by mail. But whereas some folks are very green to the process and open to suggestions, others pelt me with their concerns and objections in becoming one of the legendary families "that you always hear about" that have had a placed child taken away from them. That, and the fact that Puerto Ricans are talkative by nature, accounts for the lengthy calls--thirty minutes on a first call is par for the course, forty is not uncalled for. I know I cannot count necessarily on a welcoming, cooperating social worker at the other end who may have never heard of AdoptUsKids or what I'm telling these potential parents. But I tell them that they deserve professional and ethical treatment from the agency, and that they can let me know if they are treated otherwise. My role is not to judge or pre-qualify over the phone, but to inform, direct and encourage. And I feel, I know I have to convince the parents to give the state agency a chance instead of just giving up or spending tens of thousands on foreign adoptions. After all, all I'm looking for is for some good parents to some wonderful kids who could really use the love of a family and the security of a home--I keep reminding myself of this, so I can keep my head in the game.
Sure it would be nice to have more time to do the calls, or sharing the load with more local mentors. With patience and much love, Nancy does more than her share with the housework and with Natalie's homework, and I'm guilty of taking quality evening time from my wife and my child to do this. But when a family tells me that they finalized, or when they e-mail the first pictures of their pride and joy, it is a wonderful and fulfilling experience, and I feel privileged in sharing this joy as I help these families as best I can. Being a mentor makes the adoption experience ever new to me, and to my family. It has made us better spokespersons and advocates for adoption from foster care, and this has blessed my life.
One last thought I'd like to share--you need love to even begin this race toward your forever child, but you need persistence to take you to the finish line. These waiting kids are waiting for your inconditional love... never, never give up.
Sam Robles
San Juan, PR
Another story of how a caseworker isnt fully informed or has chosen to omit essential information.
I was recently called about a child in another state. I knew the child had physical disabilities and discussed this at length with the worker representing the child. I specifically asked if the child had a feeding tube since I dont feel equipped to deal with this medical issue and was told no. I had thought that I recalled in the narrative that the child was visually impaired and told no. I asked if there were issues other than what she told me and she said no. I decided to further follow thru on the process only to learn the child does in fact have a feeding tube, has a seizure disorder as well as is visually impaired. Whether this was a case of the caseworker being uninformed, which I find hard to believe since she was reading from his file, or purposely omitted this extremely important information, I dont know. What I do know is that I specifically stated that I did not want a child that required extensive medical care such as feeding tubes, etc.
The caseworker basically indicated to me that if I wanted this child it would be a go and even went to the extreme of speaking with me concerning visits. Thus, I, while I never get my hopes up too high, was a bit enthused and excited at bringing home my new child.
Yesterday I received emails from AAN and lo and behold, the child was one of them sent to me. It is from this that I learned about the other disabilites. I was disappointed to say the least and I was terribly angered at the omissions and couldnt help but wonder if in fact I would have taken the time and the money to do the visit only to learn these things when I got to the other state and then needed to "reject" this child. I am greatful I learned of it before it went any further but am wondering what in the world the caseworker was thinking.
I have specific reasons for not taking children with this type of disability. I have very specific preferences regarding certain issues. For one, when I was doing foster care I had an older child that was very severe RAD and during my care, the child committed suicide. The child left my home one morning, which he was permitted to do, and 6 months later, just short of what would have been the 18th birthday, he was found dead. As far as they could determine, he had been dead all of that time. He had chosen an isolated place in a wooded area to end his life and there were no indications ever in his history that he was in fact suicidal. I no longer wonder if I could have stopped it or avoided this happening as I know that I could not. However, it left a very emotional scar on me and I dont think I could ever knowingly deal with a RAD child again. I also did long term respite for a young child who had a seizure disorder. I was very close friends with his foster family. The little guy hadnt had seizures for a very long time but started having them again and while the foster parents and I teamed up to try to find some answers. The seizures became so bad that it was effecting the emotional well being of the foster family's other children and they had to request he be moved. Within a couple of months of being moved we learned that he had died. It turned out that his seizure meds were actually causing the seizures, that his kidneys became toxic due to the meds and by the time the medical professionals figured this all out all of his organs were failing and he went into a coma. The foster mom and I both presented this possibility to the doctors and one went so far as to tell us we needed to quit researching on the internet and leave the medical to the professionals as we were "overreacting". Thus, while maybe unusual and not typical of children with seizure disorders, I dont feel comfortable knowingly taking a child with seizures. Again, whether rational or not, the experience has left scars.
I guess I relay these happenings simply because I think that caseworkers need to keep in mind that if we opt to not take certain issues with children there is always an underlying reason for that. And, this is not the first time that I have been asked about a child that pertinent information has been omitted. In the case of one child I learned that there was a condition that had various degrees of severoty and when I confronted the caseworker, after much research, as to what "type" of this condition the child had, the caseworker hesitated and while she stated she would find out and call me back, she never did. It turns out that he had the most severe type and in a few years he would have in fact been total care, 24/7. The bad thing is, had the caseworker been honest from the beginning, it was a condition that I may have been willing to accept and deal with but for her mis leading me, I no longer felt comfortable dealing with her or the situation. I feel for these children and know they are difficult to place but attempting to place them with someone who is not equipped or willing to deal with the "omitted" issues only leads to disruption and devastation for the family. I just think it is a horrid thing for anyone to do and while I would hope that it doesnt happen often, it does happen.
I just talked with the ex foster mom of one of my children yesterday and we were discussing the fact that while my child was represented to me as "normal" there were many things she had reported to me, based on her own experiences with her own adopted children, that were ignored by the caseworker. I am sure that having what she reported in his files would have made him more difficult to place. I am in it for the long haul and have no intention of giving up on the child but I do wonder at times if I had been fully informed if my decision to adopt him would have been the same. I am not stupid nor am I naiive so I am fully aware that none of the children from the system are truly "normal" however the issues this child has are far beyond what I could have imagined. Had I not had the experience in the field that I have and been so willing to continue to pursue his issues and whatever treatment he needs, it might well have ended in a disruption.
I think even when we are careful and advocate for ourselves, ask all the right questions, etc we can still be mislead. Whether it is intentional on the part of the worker or not, it does happen. So we all have to be careful and very thoughtful, especially when accepting a child with unusual and specific needs.
I would like to add that I have also dealt with caseworkers who do in fact fully disclose and who are actually appreciative when you tell them you are not equipped to deal with a situation because they arent looking to find a place for a difficult case but are indeed looking for the a great permanent home for the child. I respect and take my hat off to these wonderful people.
Hi all,
I too am going nuts waiting, long story but I'll skip it for now :) Thx everyone for sharing your commitment!
If it's any use to hear, a friend who worked in the system for a year helped me understand what a tiny part of the workers' jobs the adoption inquiries are. They had SO much work to do each day they couldnt do it all and the things that were emergencies that day were what got done. They had to go to court a lot, and got in trouble if they didnt make all their monthly home visits, and then someone would hand them a 6 week old baby that nothing was known about etc etc etc. Anything that wasn't actually in flames at the moment was not the priority.
Adoption inquiries were not part of the required tasks for child protection, although the same workers are expected to deal with both. They may only have one short phone call to you and they have to read the whole homestudy really carefully first, which takes a lot of time, so it may get put off. Some of the kids have "recruitment workers" too, but their only role is to pass your contact info on to the child's worker. The child's worker has to call your worker before contacting you. And then it sometimes doesnt pan out, so it's not going to be as exciting to them as you'd expect.
It's frustrating for them too. Their mandate is to keep the kids "safe", not to work on getting them adopted, no matter how beneficial that might be. It's great that there are lots of "recruitment workers" now but the bottleneck as far as I can see is, the children's workers themselves are pulled in too many directions.
I'm trying to use the annoyance and helplessness to feel a bit of what it must be like for the kids themselves.
I have met people who got relatively quick placements- some of it was luck, some was being proactive, some were open to "legal risk" or "foster adoption". To the writer who asks for any longterm inspiration stories, a friend of mine's daughter whom she fostered for 8 years just graduated college!
However one of the best things I've heard from an adoptive parent of many teens, was "you will not get the child you want- the child you get is the one you should have" I think she meant, not to go into it with a wishlist for the child's accomplishments or how it may turn out, but to meet the kid where they are and try the best you can to meet that child's needs. For example, I go kayaking a lot and would love to share that with a daughter or son, so I am hesitant to find a teen who can't swim. She said "you'll teach them to swim". It helped me be more realistic about what I expect to get out of it myself.
I'm considering doing emergency short term fostering while I wait.
Keep going to trainings and meeting the workers, and going to adoptive support groups, I have got great info that way.
LG
Hi All
First of all there seems to be a lull in the activity on the blog and I am disappointed in that. I really look forward to reading all of your comments as I learn new and different things with each blog I read. I hope that even if no one feels they have anything new to add that they will continue to make comments even if only to let us all know of any progress they are making. (or not making)
I agree with the last post that talked of the caseworkers being over worked and not able to handle their caseloads. Not only do I think it is a burden to the workers and probably causes a high turnover rate with these jobs but it is a shame for the children that those willing and able to do their jobs have their hands tied by a system that wont invest a little more money into seeing that the staff is sufficient to handle all of the cases. I know especially now the economy is in a crunch however when you are dealing with human beings I think the "budget" should indeed make the children a priority. I am willing and able to live with a few bumpy roads that need fixed or without an extra body sitting at a desk at the DMV but not willing to allow the children to become statistics of a failing system. I think we all can make a difference by contacting our elected officials and voicing our concerns.
I understand and agree that the first concern for any caseworker should be to keep the children "safe" however our system by allowing the caseworkers to be so overworked that they cannot make homevisits etc is allowing children to continue to be abused by their bio families and some are not making it into the system without serious injury and some dont make it in the system at all due to being killed by bio families. I truly understand that parents have rights and that reunification is the primary goal however I think we have become so focused on parental rights that we have ignored the rights of the children.
I think of that poor little girl from Philly, Danyeal, and know that if the system was not as it is and if less emphasis was on the rights of her mother, she may well still be alive. It is also another case of not having sufficient and/or efficient abuse/neglect laws in place. If we had better laws regarding the treatment of children it would make it much easier for those agencies that are there to protect the children to see to they are safe as well as make it easier for judges to order the children into foster homes, adoptive homes or state custody of some kind to avoid further abuse and even death. Again, the laws that are currently in effect tend to lean towards the rights of the parents rather than the rights of the children. Honestly, it is a sad state of affairs when one watches these Animal Cops shows on TV and you realize that these animal protective agencies tend to have more power to remove an abused/neglected animal from a home than the protective services have to remove a child from their home. Judges or the court officials can easily turn over the custody of an animal to humane society custody and even order that the people involved are never again permitted to own animals yet we tiptoe around bio parents who have been extremely abusive and have proven over and over again their lack of willingness to do what they need to do to properly raise their children or who dont have any kind of capacity to do so.
I have heard over and over again about the "15 month law" that supposedly states that if a child is in foster care for that length of time and the parents do not comply with goals set by child protective services that TPR is a given. In the cases I have witnessed this is just not the case. It seems the parent(s) need only to do something minimal between each court hearing and the judges have a tendency to keep giving them more and more chances while the children linger in care living in limbo thinking they are going home then not going home etc.
Child abuse and neglect are just that no matter what state one resides in. It would seem to me that there should be uniform abuse/neglect laws in place mandated by the federal government that all states are required to follow including the courts for determining cause for TPR. This may result in more children coming into the system which is not necessarily a good thing but in the best interest of the children. These laws should focus on the rights of the children and not the parents. The children are the innocents in all of this and they literally have very little say in their lives or their futures. It is no wonder to me that young adults in the criminal system do not adhere to the law or care about breaking the law as they have to wonder where the law was when they were being abused or neglected. Who cared then?
I think there needs to be a big push to revamp the current laws and see to it that the children have very specific rights of their own. By doing this we are allowing the courts as well as child protective services to truly protect the children. If a family is under the protective services of an agency but for some reason wont allow access to their homes and children for whatever reasons the caseworkers should be permitted to call the police and enter the homes regardless. If families refuse servcies that are needed in the home for the children the courts should be able to either force the family to accept the services or remove the child from the home if not accepted. Every accomodation possible should be made to parents, transportation, whatever so that they have no excuses NOT to participate in parenting classes or any ordered requirements and if every opportunity has been given over a short period of time and those are not met by the parents then do TPR and give the children the rights to live a normal, loving and stable life. There should be very strict laws in place so that judges either do not have to be in the position of making the decisions or so that judges that indeed lean towards the parents rights have no choice but to follow the letter of the law.
We are in Iraq fighting right now partially because we are fighting for basic human rights yet we dont afford our children right here in the US any basic human rights not to mention civil rights. They seem to be more "objects" than living feeling human beings. It is no surprise to me that considering the way our system treats the children that we are seeing so much more crime and immoral behaviors. If we cannot as a whole value our children they will never be able to value themselves. Our country is so full of the "haves and have nots" that young people see no future and it is easier and more profitable to deal drugs or committ crimes for profit than to work two minimum wage jobs and be "respectable and law abiding". We have schools that literally are falling down on the heads of the students but we still expect them to learn. If our government doesnt care that this is happening then it sends the message that the children and education are not important enough to be a priority. In many way, too many to go into here, our own welfare system is so faulty that while supposedly designed to assist those in need it forgets and elimiantes helping people who are genuinely trying to help themselves. My opinion is to start helping, even in small ways, to make things better for those who are working hard and for those who sit back and do nothing contructive, let them fend for themselves.
I fear for this country because as long as we continue to ignore the social issues that will help our children grow into responsible caring adults things will become much worse. Politicians need to understand and accept that investing in our young people to see that they have all the advantages, a stable home, loving parents, education, those are the important investments for our future, not bailing out huge corporations or paying farmers not to produce crops. We wont have a country to invest in if this continues.
Chmae
OMG. I have not read anywhere on about the true story of adoption--you highlight the postive; walks in the park, family dinners, etc. PLEASE. Adopted kids have issues! Big issues. You are not prepared for this--no one is. Adopted kids have a chunk missing from their psyche. CHECK YOUR MENTAL HEALTH COVERAGE. Most health insurers are so cheap on this--some have a maxium benefit for the entire family--you are the one who ends up needed mental health assistance.IT IS WHAT ADOPTED CHILDREN NEED THE MOST OF AND IT IS THE LEAST PROVIDED OF ANY SERVICE. PLEASE--REALLY REALLY INVESTIGATE THE CHILD'S BACKGROUND. YOU CANNOT CHANGE GENETICS, NO MATTER HOW BIG YOU BUILD THAT TREE HOUSE. BALLET LESSONS. SWIMMING. SUMMER COTTAGES = THERAPY THERAPY THERAPY POLICE THERAPY JUVENILE COURT PROTECTIVE SERVICES THERAPY POLICE. DID I MENTION THEY'LL STEAL YOUR WEDDING RINGS? THREATEN YOUR PERSONAL SAFETY? I could go on and on. I am a bit of an expert. I've been an adoptive parent for 17 years to 9 children. Before that I was a foster parent in Lansing, Michigan. I began my journey with all of this only because I WANTED TO BUILD A FAMILY. My reproductive system was wacked--I experienced menopause at age 24. I am now almost 52. What started out as the most rewarding (challenging yes) thing I had ever done with my life and turned into a nightmare that has lasted 6 years and going strong. I am reduced to a screaming idiot over a mountain of medication that I must faithfully (not willingly) dole out every morning to a family of mentally challenged (they are handsome teenagers, you'd never know they were emotionally challenged) young people that I think love me, but they hate me too. They are abusive physically and mentally to me. My weapon is my broom--and I go through alot of them. I have a house full of ADHD, Manic Depressive, Bi-Polar, Explosive Behavior, Learning Disabled, Ashma, Sleep Disorders. Therapy? Ha Ha Ha. We're on a year long waiting list for a psychiatrist (did I spell that correctly?) oh what does it matter. To think I used to care what people thought of me. I don't care anymore--about much--these kids have sucked the life out of me and my husband. Please, don't ride in here and tell me what I need to do. I already know. I need to tell other people so they know. Brad and Angelina are fools. And they get all the glory but someday, and you heard it here, those kids will turn on them. They have the best intentions and right now is the best time in their lives but as those children grow--so does that big hole--of being adopted. Our society is not kind to adopted children. Our society thinks it's funny to say things about adopted kids in cards (Hey Hallmark, it's offensive) and movies (Unaccompanied Minors, I should sue you for wrecking our day at the movies) school projects asking for birth information, heritage etc (many attempts to school districts to widen their approach to such things)and to no avail. Every month and I do mean every month I have problems with the pharmacies filling the 11- 18 different medications I pass out daily. It sometimes takes me 5 trips to the drugstore to retrieve these meds (what about the price of gas?)--meanwhile I have the schools (I deal with 5 schools and approximately 25 teachers) calling me because Johnny did this or Johnny did that. I want to be 72 and have alzheimers--I want to forget. Anyone interested in adopting, really really research what you're doing--and listen to only those that have been there and have experience. I expect comments from somewhere out there to say "that woman shouldn't have been allowed to adopt!" Yeah, watchout. I had the best intentions too. I even kept 2 families together. BAD IDEA FOR YOU. You then have adopted the whole family of children that are going to have issues. The whole family. Enough. My kids are gone to school and my house is quiet and I believe I've said enough. Good Luck.
To Anon
Your pain and frustration come thru very clearly in your post. I am so sorry that things have worked out for you in that way. It is sad and I feel for you.
It sounds as if you need a serious break and I am wondering if there arent any respite services available for you so that you can get some regular alone time. You need to find a way to take care of yourself also.
I also wonder if you feel that the life has been sucked out of you and your husband that you havent thought of disrupting with the children. It does not sound like a healthy situation for you or the children so maybe you need to make a choice. This just cannot be a good relationship if you are being physically abused as well as emotionally to the point where you are using a broom for protection or a weapon.
Please for your sake and the sake of the children call Childrens Services or someone who can help you either sort this out or assist you in placing the children elsewhere before someone ends up seriously hurt. Please dont allow this to go on for another moment.
hi - please email me so we can talk. i'd like to help you. we have support services and resources available. you must feel tired and frustrated and disappointed. your story is not typical but it is still very real to you and i would like to talk to you more.
kate k.
kkirkpatrick@adoptuskids.org
Until I read all these post I never realized how lucky I was in my adoption quest. I started my journey in the spring of 2004 and by August of that year had completed my homestudy and been matched with a sibling group. I was looking for children between 8 and 12 and was undecided on their sex. My children were 9 & 10 and a boy & girl. They had issues, multiple placements, one adoption disruption, prenatal drug and alcohol exposure and all kind of mental health diagnosis. They also lived 1400 miles away but we started preplacement visitation and they came home April of 2005.
I have seen every behavior I had been trained to handle and then some I never could have imagined. Therapy was and is a very important part of our lives. One thing I learned is never take the negative behaviors personally. I still see lying, stealing, hoarding, rages but we are making progress the negative behaviors are decreasing and the positive behaviors are increasing. I have been very lucky in that all their psychiatric bills have been covered by the state insurance. I have never experienced problems with meds, doctors or therapists.
Now four years later my children have learned how to trust and enjoy being in their own family. They both play sports and have developed into excellant athletes. They are active in many clubs and activities in Chruch and School. They have normal social lives and friends. My family, friends, coworkers and teachers who once questioned my sanity in adopting these children, now can't believe the change in their behavior. The best decision I ever made was to adopt. I take pride in my childrens' growth and development over the past four years. Adoption is a rewarding experince and I would do it again.
My husband and I are licensed foster/adopt parents and we currently have two children in our home. I can say that we started this journey in hopes to help children, but ultimately we want to have a forever family.
We are unable to have children of our own. I had miscarriage after several painful fertility treatments. Then after that we were scammed by a birth mother in which we did everything we were supposed to and we still got taken. It has been a very rough roady but we both have kept the faith.
I knew that being a foster family would be hard, but I never thought of how attached we would get to these gifts from God. We advocate for them everyday and struggle with behaviors and pray that when they go back that the samethings will not continue which had them removed in the first place. To top that off they have a caseworker who really isn't there for them... to her it is just a job it seems. It is just frustrating.
With all the ups and downs we still know that there is a child or children out there for us. We have all the love and paitence for hope is something we can't give up on.
I just want to know how long do you have to wait. We have been waiting and waiting, we have inquired about at least 100 children and we have not even heard back from 99% of the agencies? What do I do next? Loosing hope in NYC. If you have an answer please write to me!
Hello to waiting in NYC,
Here is a link to some information on Finding a Child and Speeding the Process: http://www.nysccc.org/Adoptive%20Parent%20Info/waittoadopt.htm. I also recommend Finding a Fit To Last a Lifetime on the AdoptUsKids website: http://adoptuskids.org/images/resourceCenter/FindingAFit.pdf. These resources will help you understand how the process works to find families for children. Best of luck to you!
Sarah Gerstenzang
NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children
NYS RRT
Disappointted and dejected in Southern California.
Our story is much like all those others on here- miss-matched children, lost paperwork, unhelpful social workers. You name it.
My husband and I decided we were "ready" for children in 2003. We started our homestudy process as I knew from previous experience I could not have children. We were of course put on a big parade float thinking that we were the perfect couple and would be placed right away. 2 years later, we finally received a successful match and brought home our boy. We were told to wait a year before adopting again, and we always knew we wanted two.
We waited longer than we should have, and got sucked in by an unethical social worker who led us on for over 8 months, when we found out what that SW was doing was not right, it almost cost me my job, and it lost us the child we had so been longing to bring home. After a year invested, we are now back at square one, waiting again for a child.
My husband and I are both frustrated, and aggrevated, as we watch couples around us being matched and place with children, or couples becoming pregnant, while my four year old STILL asks about the child that didn't come home 8 months ago.
I would never trade the heartache we went through to get our son, but I'm loosing that focus as the months run on waiting for the phone not to ring.
I know this is not a new story, but to all those others out there- you are not alone, and it doesn't matter what state you are in, it is difficult dealing with the overworked and underpaid social service system.
I think that every person interested in becoming a parent should have to go through what WE go through to be a parent. Most biological parents would appreciate their children more.
Anonymous,
I am sorry to hear that you are disappointed and dejected. While I don't know the specifics of your case, it sounds like a challenging ordeal. I would suggest that you ask for a meeting with the Adoption Program Supervisor of the agency that you are working with so that you can all get on the same page about what steps you need to take from here. Hang in there!
Mark
California Recruitment Response Team
"I hope you and your wife dont give up and hang in there a little longer. Maybe hooking up with the right people will have a better result than you are having right now.
Take care and keep us posted."
To keep you posted, our home study expires in a few days and we are not renewing it.
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