Although families are eager to finalize the adoption of their children, they also can feel apprehensive about the process. Although each adoption has unique circumstances, it usually takes about 12 months from the time a family first calls an adoption agency to the time when a child is placed with the family. Adoptions are usually finalized less than a year after the child is placed with the family. In almost all cases, you will need an attorney to finalize an adoption but not all finalizations take place in a courtroom. Your agency will be able to answer specific questions about legally finalizing your adoption. The National Center for Adoption Law & Policy is a resource for legal information related to adoption.
If you are a preparing to finalize an adoption and are seeking resources in your state, contact us at 1-888-200-4005 or info@adoptuskids.org.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
29 comments:
I know this isn't the right spot to place this but I couldn't figure out how to start a new topic. I was wondering if there was a way I could find out if Mercer County Ohio pays a POS fee for their foster-to-adopt program. We are in PA and the best I found was that there are SOME counties in Ohio that do pay the POS for out of state adoptions and some that do not. Is there somewhere that I can find that info a little more specifically?
Thanks!
My husband and I started our journey of adoption a year ago from today. Our adoptive son has been placed in our home and we can't wait to be in court to hear those final words!
During this process I have learned so much about myself along with my eyes being opened on how to love the unloved. I dare to say that God has given me a salt grain of emotion He has for His children.
That is so wonderful!!!(with regard to the above comment. Our family is actively pursuing the adoption process of little girl and are anxiously awaiting for this. Our homestudy was completed a little over two months ago and we are hoping that it won't be that much longer. Thanks for the positive comments.
That is encouraging. Congratulations!!!
My husband and I completed our home study in July and we are very anxious to get a call from our case worker telling us that we have a match. By the way, we are from Illinois.
I have a question for anyone that might be able to answer.
We have signed up for "adoption" only. (open to any child that has passed pre-screening) I am wondering if we should also sign up for "fostering". The biggest reason we did not sign up for fostering is because we do not want to get attached to the child and have the child taken away from us. I think this will be devastating, since we have never had a child of our own.
Any ideas ?????.
We also signed up for adoption only, for the same reason: we dont want to get attached to a child and then he/she has to leave. However, from everything I have seen and/or read it looks like we may have a better chance of getting a child if we do foster. I may have a harder time talking hubby into that one, though! Good luck to you and everyone else that is trying to get a child.
I adopted before in the past and have 4 beautiful children.My husband and I decided in January we wanted to adopt again,but because the laws changed since we last adopted you now must be a "resource family", opposed to just being a foster parent.The day before my paperwork was approved I recieved a foster care placement which sadly I had to decline.Two days later I recieved another placement,2 toddlers.That was 1 month ago and although at first it appeared the children would be a short term arrangement,now it looks like they will be with we into next year or longer.They are doing well and a joy to parent.
I guess you just never know with foster care,but I have to agree that it will be difficult when and if the time comes for the children to leave.I will have to see after this experience but my goal was and alway will be adoption so I guess I will have to see the outcome of my current situation,who knows maybe I will be celebrating my own adoption finalization soon!
For those thinking about foster care, but really want to adopt:
I know exactly what you are thinking and really willing to do anything to meet your child, but I really encourage you to pray about it and know that God is in control and that He will provide the perfect child at the perfect time. A month before we found out about our adoptive son we received a phone call from my friend who is a delivery nurse. She said that there was a baby girl delivered and the state was taking her, but parents rights weren't terminated yet, but wanted to know if we were interested in taking her. Talk about a rollercoaster....at the end of the day my husband and I decided that we couldn't say no...if we were to just love that baby girl for one day, one week, one month we were to do that. It turned out that b/c the mother found out we were approved adoptive parents she didn't want her daughter placed in our home. The caseworker at that time suggested that if we really want young children we become approved foster parents. My husband and I had a good/long conversation and came to the conclusion that we are going into this wanting to adopt- to be a forever family. Now looking back, it would have been easier to do one more thing to make our chances higher in getting a child, but yet again trying to take control of a situation that in the end we are not in control of. Three weeks later we found our adoptive son on the Dept. of Children/Family website and became a match! It is the hardest thing to realize, know and truly be o.k. that we are not in control, but yet the most uplifting, peaceful feeling we can have.
It is hard to say goodbye. However, I think you are more likely to get a potential adoptive placement that way. If you will ONLY take freed children it may be harder to get kids into your home. If a child is freed while in a foster home then that foster parent is going to have the option to adopt that child first. Even with freed children in stable homes, I have seen FP say they don't want to adopt, but when push comes to shove and the child may be moved to an adoptive home the FP will change their mind and choose adoption.
....and a lot of "resource families" wait until the children have been put on the web sites,interested families apply and some are even chosen.
Then they " change their minds" and decide they want to keep the children.Great for the children but what about those families who continue to wait month even YEARS for another placement
We were originaly directed to this web site over a year ago when our local foster care advocate found out we were interested in special needs foster care and adoption. Well, thirteen months later, and our adoption finalizes Friday 10/24... We found our boys rite here on adoptuskids.org... I must say, I am more apprehensive about the finalization than I was the first day we met our boys... I know that our family was custom made, and that this is the best 'choice' that we have ever made, but all the 'what if'? and unknowns are starting to keep us up at nite. our boys are older, and adopting thru DCS, you are not given 'all' the information you would like. I all can say is that the past year has made me a very assertive person and a mother that WILL advocate for everything our children need.
Can you explain the process the case worker goes through when reviewing families who have submitted an inquiry fromt he website? What kid of time frames are we talking about? The current message says don't call us, we will call you.
Hello,
My name is Elizabeth Brescia, and I work with The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids. Thank you for asking about submitting your homestudy. This is what I would suggest:
1. Log in to adoptuskids.org. Review your family profile. Double-check that all of your contact information and all of your case worker’s contact information is still current. Go to the photolisting of the child you are interested in.
2. Click on the “add to my list” button on the child’s photolisting. This saves the child’s photolisting on “My List” for you.
3. Click on the “make inquiry” button the child’s photolisting. This sends an inquiry to the child’s case worker for you and records the date when the inquiry was sent. It also shows you the contact information for the child’s agency, which you will want to write down.
4. Wait a few business days, then log in to adoptuskids.org again. Select the “Responses to my inquiries” link on “My Page.” There, you should see the response from the child’s case worker. This response will be instructions for sending for working with the child’s agency to send your homestudy to them. You can use these instructions and send a copy of your homestudy yourself if you have a copy, or you can give these instructions to your case worker and s/he can send your homestudy to the child’s case worker for you.
5. Around two weeks later, either you or your case worker can call or email the child’s agency to verify that your homestudy was received.
6. Periodically, log in to adoptuskids.org and check the “Responses to my inquiries link” again just in case a second response is sent to you.
7. Unfortunately, most case workers are only able to contact the families who are one of the final few families being considered for a child. And, unfortunately, there isn’t an estimate of how long children’s case workers need to keep receiving more homestudies and reviewing more homestudies before they find the adoptive family who is right for the child. However, you do not have to wait for a response. You can continue to inquire about other children.
Remember: As of today, 9,870 children who were photolisted on AdoptUsKids.org are now in forever families. Adoption works! We know that it takes time to find the child you are right for, and the child who belongs in your family, but we are so glad that you chose adoption. We are here if you get stuck at one point in the process. If you have any questions about this, please let me know at 1-888-200-4005 or at info@adoptuskids.org.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Brescia
AdoptUsKids
Hello everyone,
I think this thread turned into Foster vs Adopt so I thought I would leave my commnet for you all that posted about that.
We had decided to be open to foster mainly because foster parents are given the first option to adopt and most do especially when very small children are involved. This decision was not made easily because the thought of having to give a child up was just too hard.
However we did get a call for three small children to adopt. We were selected by a comitttee of people and everything seemed to be perfect until the day we were to meet the children and the FP decided at the last minute that she wanted to adopt them. I had asked the case worker twice "are you sure the FP does not want to adopt". This was devasting to say the least.
Honestly I do think the FP should have the first right to adopt but not have the right to change their mind after a family has been selected. There are many DCS workers that put a lot of time into the selection process and the FP has had plenty of time to make up their mind before it gets to that point.
Well I said all this to say you never know either way. Like one of you said it is just out of your control and you just have to trust God's plan. It is not always easy to do that but if not you can really drive your self crazy through this process.
If anyone has had similar experience, please post.
Thanks everyone.
Has anyone adopted out of state. I live in Florida.
I'm posting to rr in tn. My husband and I have been foster to adopt parents for 2yrs. Our first child was a baby girl. We had her for 6 weeks and were told, before they even placed her with us, she was going to live with an aunt. To say the least we were devestated. I said we would never do fostering again, but I lied. We took 2 babies 2months later. We had just took them in, until they could find a foster home. The worker warned us they were going to be reunited with teir parents. We fell in love with them and told the worker we would foster them. To make a long story short, we have fostered 9 children. Some for as few as 5 days and as long as a year (but we are adopting our sons that we have had for a year). It has been torture every time we have had to give a child up. My advice for everyone is, even if someone tells you will be adopting the child it is never final until the last papers are signed. Also, if anyone decides to foster you should get to know the birth parents. Thats the only reason we are getting to adopt our boys. I never wanted to meet any of the parents, but my freind (who is also a foster parent)encouraged me to. I have met 5 of our 9 foster childrens birth parents. We have had nothing but good experiences from meeting them. I will not meet parents who have abused or exploited their children but I have met the ones who have neglect or bad parenting issues. Two years has been worth the wait, and I wouldn't trade our memories of our beautiful children for anything in the world. I'm not going to lie and say fostering isn't hard but so many kids need good loving homes. We should have our adoption finalized in Feb for our sons. I hope I was some help.
I too have experienced foster parents at the last minute deciding to adopt when before they were sure they did not want this at the beginning. Of course it is the best thing for the children not to have to move again and remain with a familiar family in a familiar setting. I dont think that anyone would object to that statement.
I feel this is just another of the many faults in the system. I know that by law counties/states are have certain requirements to meet, such as for Title IV-E they are required to search for a family that is willing and able to take the chilren without a subsidy. They are required to document this as well as document why the family chosen is in fact the best match. I know in my state there is an appeal process that if the foster parents decide they want to adopt and for some reason they are not chosen as the adoptive family, they have the right to appeal if the child has been in their home for 6 or more months. I would assume that many times if the foster parents simply state that they will appeal that the placing agency will in fact allow the children to remain in the foster home as adoptive children as this appeal can take time and money.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that we have a tendency to blame the caseworkers which is not always the case. Just like any other employees, they have rules and regs they need to follow.
It does seem horribly unfair to those of us not in foster care that our studies are simply thrown in the pot for "fill in" when it is already known that the children will be staying in with the foster parents, but it is the nature of this process that causes this, not the individual caseworkers.
I think the system as a whole needs studied and revamped to make the process a little more speedy and productive in order to cut back on the time and money invested in the adoption process but to make it more productive for the adoptive parents and most importantly the children waiting.
To jmn515 I know this comment may be a little late in coming but I think the best way to find out if Mercer County pays POS is to simply call Mercer County and ask. I dont think there is any specific information out there. When researching various states one will find that even counties within the same state do things differently thus you cannot even depend on state specific information. Again, I think a little more uniform system on a federal level would make this whole process a little simpler and much more productive. However, I will say that while Ohio's website is very lacking in being updated, the info given on this site is in fact a little more up front as far as the status of the children. It may invite you to inquire on the children but most often will also let you know that the foster parents are planning on adopting thus at least you know where you stand.
To the family from Illinois. We are from Illinois also and new at fostering. I would recommend that you do fostering to adopt. From what I have seen your chances at adoption will be many times greater even though you may have to reunite the kids with the birth parents. Remember the goal in most cases will be reunification but realizing that may not always be possible. From what I have seen the state will bend over backwards to reunify even if it doesn't appear to most sane people to be the best for the kids.
Thanks for posting everyone. I hope I didn’t come across too negative in my last post because we absolutely love our case worker and everyone at the local DCS office. They all seem very dedicated and I know much of the time their hands are tied in certain situations.
We only completed our home study in September so we are just getting started. Our case worker will be sending our home study for the first time after we inquired about some cute little boys that are listed on this site. I can’t imagine how many people inquire about these children and how they process all of the home studies they receive. Does anyone know the stats?
Keeping our fingers crossed in TN,
RR in TN
I don't understand how people/couples can be waiting over 2 years to adopt?? I thought we had so many children in need of families....
We are from Ohio & were selected for 2 beautiful children in Texas. Now however the hold-up seems to be with our local DJFS not approving a contract with the State of Texas (I think for supervision once they are here). We can't seem to get an answer as to when they may 'approve' this contract. Has anyone had similar problems?
It depends on your state, the child you are approved to accept as well as other factors that can determine how long your wait may be.
I have been waiting for over 4 years now to adopt. This has been one of the biggest nightmares I could have ever imagined. I have been pressured out of accepting a child (11-14 boy)because the workers did not want the child in their area. Another worker matched me with a child to then "pull the rug" so to speak,and placed him with another family and never told me. This one occurred in South Carolina. Another one in PA placed a kid on adopt us kids website and inquired on him, she wanted to keep him in adjoining counties of where the child lived. Why post on a national web site if that is the case. I have mentored and sometimes parented kids in the age range I sopke about and all have done very well for themselves. I was hoping to adopt one or two and try to help a kid out, but with all the aggrivation and workers really not wanting to do their jobs, there is nothing else left to do. I work in communications and have psa's sitting here waiting to be aired from adopt kids. Not until some things really change with the workers in the adoption process, those spots will never air. I connot in good consience put someone else through the dissappointments and heartaches I have been through. It's not fair to the kids either I know, but something has got to change.
Best wishes to all who have now have a child and best of luck.
I think once you are chosen as a family to adopt a sib group, the placing state should move the paperwork along faster. Workers should actually RESPOND to emails and voice mails. The poor children are waiting and waiting and it has been almost 6 months already! They are not here yet! The oldest child heard in court that they would be moving to our state by the end of November. The workers do not say anything, they know it will take longer, and they do not prepare the child to wait longer. Then the child asks us what is taking so long? It is so frustrating. November is National Adoption Month - HUH! I will believe it when I see it! I keep hearing the paperwork needs to be signed, but nobody knows how long that will take, then ICPC needs to approve it. They have been saying that for 5 weeks now.....
Patience is very hard when you are waiting for your children - will they be here for Christmas???? Please everyone pray that they get here SOON!
We have been extreamly lucky to have had a no longer existent "private adoption." No adgency. No department of children. Just us, them, a lawyer and court.
We are scheduled for finalization with our currently 11 week old 12/5/08. Everything is suppose to be done. Home study's in, our state's time for changing mind on TPR has expired, petitions filed, ect, but I am still nervious. Anyone offing any rah rahs?
I am also curious about where to find out more about adoption tax credit?
My name is Dora Sterling and work for Ohio Family Care Association, the Ohio RRT for AdoptUsKids. The financial assistance available on behalf of adopted children are listed in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Adoption Guide that can be downloaded at http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/forms/interfind.asp?formnum=01675.
For specific details about what is available from Mercer County DJFS for adopters as well as funding questions about your particular child, please email cuppj@odjfs.state.oh.us or mescht@odjfs.state.oh.us or phone 419 586 5106 and ask for the PCSA placement supervisor.
I couldn't find the right topic to leave a comment so I put it here. My husband and I would like to know what questons to ask about a child we are interested in and questions to ask about the adoption agency. Can anyone help us out. Thanks
Hi. I've written a lot about our process on the longest thread on this blog, the one that started out about the perfect parent ads. I'll say some here too.
The first and most important thing... We started this process in February of 2006. And in January of 2009, in just several days, we will be finalizing our adoption with our little boy!!!!
It has taken so much, we have been through so much, to get to this point. And yet we're here. We came very close to giving up but didn't. And the blessing we've received because we didn't give up... That blessing just gave me a hug.
When we decided we were ready to adopt this time, before he was placed with us, there was no way I could foster. But once he came home, and it was made clear that he was ours, we started to do respite- just a few days or weeks at a time. At that felt so good to just be there for children and families who needed our help.
Now that we're finalizing (Oh my God!!!!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!), we've told our agency we're open to either adoption or foster care. We definitely want to adopt more children, yet at the same time, we feel so fulfilled by our new son, we're ready emotionally to be there for whomever comes our way.
If you're being pushed to foster in order to get an adoption, and fostering doesn't feel right to you, DON'T DO IT. It can be a devastating experience, especially if it's not something your heart is really ready to do.
There ARE children out there, and the system stinks big time, and you have to be SO incredibly proactive in order to find those children who are meant for you.
When our homestudy was almost finished, I designed and printed up thousands of fliers about our family and who we were looking for. I had a beautiful photo of us and of our home, and the basics of why we'd be a great resource for the type of child we were looking for. After our homestudy was completed, I sent the fliers to every single worker and agency in my state and surrounding states, and to every worker I could find listed on Adopt Us Kids. When I inquired about a child, I included an email or cover letter stating that if we were not chosen for that child, to please consider us for the other children in their care.
We were told over and over that we'd never find a child that was within our search parameters, but we DID!!!! And he is now our little boy!!!!!
To those who have been searching and waiting for a long time, what type of child are you looking for? As a successful veteran of this process (two times over), I'd love to help you learn from my experiences.
Rachel
I would like to say congrats to all the adoptive parents. I to am adopting in Feb. My journey started in Sept of 2005 with a 3yr old girl who was placed 2 different places before here. Then one month later came her brother into the world then her sister so I have 3 of children from one family. I went into this just to take foster children come in fix them and their families and then back they go . I never wanted to adopt . I have had children of all ages and I have sent they home to be successful but there are a few. So the question is should you foster to adopt or not my answer is yes. As many have stated in other posts it does better your chances and well it makes you a better person . I am not a religious person but I do believe in a path and a plan for all of us and I believe God only gives us what we can handle. My children have came to us and then back for 3 months then back again for 3 weeks my birth parents did nothing more then not have the skills that it takes to be a parent so believe you me it was hard and a lot of tears but it has made me who I am today and I know what I can and can not take.I am very active with the foster support group so i would also like to stress How important that group can be for all of you. That is how i got past the back and forth of children and it is a great outlet of support. KL from Iowa
TO CONTINUE THE DISCUSSIONS ON THIS BLOG . . .
go to the following blogspot:
www.adoptionproblems.blogspot.com
Post a Comment