Newbie With Questions?

[78Chick]

Hi Ladies,
I am new to this website & forum.DH & I are in the process to be Foster/Adoptive parents. DH is 38 & I'm 29 Yrs Old. We've been TTC on and off and still no children so, we decided to foster-to-adopt through our county & State. (DSS)We place a application through our county DCS (Department Of Children Service) in December,2006. However, before starting the MAPP/GPS class we had to pay for our criminal background & fingerprint checks. We started the class in March,2007 & finish April,2007. Now, we're trying patiently wait to hear something from our SW with no clue with what's going to happen next. Also, we call & email her and didn't get answers. What I need to know is: How long does it take to get a placement? When do you have your homestudy completed? The worker claim's that she's waiting for a response for our application by the state. What Does this means? I thought that we were already approve by the state to be prospective foster/adoptive parents.We have copies of our criminal & fingerprint results.(It's approve)Can we search for our own child/children?In different states and/or counties.
If so, will our county or the child/children county help with fees?meaning: board,vendor Payments & adoptions assistance,WIC & medicated

Info is greatly appreciate,
Thanks!

[romake]

We had to be approved foster parents before we could adopt. We started the paper work in May and had approval in August. However they rushed our fostercare license because we had a pending adoption. We actually just received our fostercare cards two days ago. I live in Illinois so I'm sure your state has a different time frame. So it does take time to get the license

[78Chick]

Thank-you, ladies for replying.
The only thing I know to do is to call the Worker again or her Supervisor. I don't like to be in the blind. However, I know that our application is approve because we wouldn't never started the MAPP/GPS class. (The Worker says that she randomly pick us from good responses from applications.)Also,our state criminal record check unit was based on the fingerprints etc. The results found that we both meet the criteria to be adoptive or foster parents under state laws. My guess is that we're waiting for the worker to submit the rest of the paperwork to the licensure office (state) to obtain our foster home license.I know that we're going to start out as foster parents before we could adopt but also I was thinking that we could adopt a child from the foster system.
(I don't know!-- It does vary from states) Again, thanks Ladies!

Shameka (AKA:78Chick)

[78Chick]

Oh, Jess -- Your daughter is such a cutie pie. Very adorable!

[nicci]

my dh and I are foster adopt parents. we have been waiting for almost 5 yrs and no placement thru the state. we had a private adoption in the mean time. so I would say do your homework. Our social worker sucks. she never calls or email us back. so call her supervisior if need be. Thats what we have to do...good luck

[78Chick]

Originally Posted by nicci

my dh and I are foster adopt parents. we have been waiting for almost 5 yrs and no placement thru the state. we had a private adoption in the mean time. so I would say do your homework. Our social worker sucks. she never calls or email us back. so call her supervisior if need be. Thats what we have to do...good luck

nicci - I'm sorry that your Worker sucks too. Also, that you're been waiting for 5 years for placement. (Yeesh! ) I don't think that Dh & I have the patience to wait that long for placement. Is it costly to get a private adoption agency? we don't have a lot a money for that. Could we get info on a private agency through the worker?
However, I read a lot on foster/adoption process online but it does vary from states foster systems. Our worker don't call us back, netheir does she answers my emails. (besides once & no logical answer) I think that she's beatin around the bush because she's not organize. DH & I thought that it would be best to call the supervisor but then I realize she may think that we're impatience. It's killing us not knowing what's going on with the process and I feel that the worker should assure us better than she are doing. I'm going to call her back next week if I don't hear something.

[nicci]

ours adoption is not thru an agency. It happened this way...our nephew knew of a girl who was pg and was thinking of getting rid of it. Well, he said to her that he knew of someone who has been looking to adopt a baby and would she talk to us. So we meet and she said she would place with us. Well she had two other kids already her dd was only a month and half old when we meet her. We started to take the baby so she could rest because she was having a hard time. well it turned in to days weeks at a time. I would ask her when she would like to have the baby back and she said whenever we got tired of her. So we told her when she turned 18. WEll we used to joke about it. well one day she just asked us to take her so I said oh yeah i would love too. In the mean time she had m/c with the one we were suppose to adopt. Well a month later she found out she was pg again already. We didnt think much of it because we had our baby..well in aug she took our baby back because bms dad promised her cable tv for her house. Well, we heard thru the grapevine that our dd was being passed around like candy. Who ever would take her would have her...which broke my heart all I could do was cry. Well, a month later we called a friend of both and asked her to call our bm and have her call us since we were told not to call her or we would go to jail. Well, she called us and I asked her if we could please see her we had her since she was 6 weeks old and we miss her dearly. She agreed to let us see her well it started out to be a day here and there well not even a month later she was with us full time again and we had to start all over with her. she was scared of people. Well this past april her bm gave birth to a little girl. She does not have any of her kids. In may we took her to court and we got gaurdianship over our dd. So she now cant come and take her ever again unless she takes us to court to prove that she is a good mom and that wont happen. Make sure you hire a great lawyer. We didnt the first time but we did the second time around and got it done quickly...

I would say call the super. That way she can ask your worker what is going on. I would contact another agency to get infor about adoption or you can look online about it. I would say really do your homework..study everything you can. good luck to you. There are alot of kids out there that needs homes. if you want to talk more just let me know. We been waiting to adopt for over 10 years.. long time...

[nicci]

sorry forgot something. Our private adoption so far has costs us


first lawyer who did nothing for us..1500
second lawyer who did everything for us 1200
and skyler lawyer yes she had to have her own 200
not sure what the final costs will be yet..

[ssh]

I have no experience with foster care but wanted to respond to your post... there is a pinned post at the top of the adoption board (I posted it) and it has a link to state info and statutes, etc.

http://www.childwelfare.gov/nfcad/index.cfm

Check this direct link, type in your state, and then select the info you want. It should give you information on public and private foster and adoption agencies. If you have not gotten the answers you need from your social worker, I would definitely try a supervisor or maybe you will find some additional resources on the other site.

There are private foster adopt agencies (I believe) as well as going directly to the state. Some states even have photo listings of waiting babies and children. You might want to see if you can find some of these. Once your licensed, I would think you could try to adopt from a child that is currently waiting with all parental rights already terminated. Again, I don't know how it works in your state, but it's worth looking at the above web site for info.

Also, in our state, they have parties set up where the kids and potential adoptive parents can meet and mingle in a larger group. I have heard that these parties have been pretty successful in MA where I live.

[78Chick]

nicci -- I'm sure glad that you fault custody for your DD. You're a good mommie!
We're going to stick with public agency because we can't afford private ones.

Susan(ssh) -- Yeah, it does vary from states. I don't know rather or not we
have matched parties in my town. (small town)If so, it's proberly out of the county. However, I've done some reading the past weeks and found out that I could foster/adopt a child/children out of state. My state worker and child's worker, Works in partnership. (We all do)
Although, we may still pay small fees like the cost of court & for an attorney. It's better than what most people pay for private agencies. (Remind you, it's nothing wrong with it if you have the money.) Also, I've been searching the website seeking waiting children in the foster system. I already found 4-5 children that DH & I are interest in fostering/adopting from the ages 0-3 yrs. old. Most of the kids I inquired about are the ages 1- 3 and 1 was four. (she was a sibling to a 3 yr. old) Meanwhile, I just discovered earlier tonight that I got my homestudy done. The website http://www.adoptuskids.org only allowed people who had their homestudies done to be members. I registered a couple days ago & couldn't join and join today. Now, DH & I are waiting for our licsence from the state or either from our worker. (she may already got approval from the state etc.) If not, I'm going to call her next week.

Chat with you ladies later,
78Chick