Adopting from Foster Care Recommendations

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

DH and I are considering adopting an elementary school aged child from foster care. Any agency recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

For foster to adopt, don’t you run the risk of the children being reunited with their birth parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

For foster to adopt, don’t you run the risk of the children being reunited with their birth parents?

Yes, but most kids aren't legally free for adoption until they have a guaranteed adoptive family with how the system and laws work. And, most families foster to adopt so those families adopt the kids they foster so very few kids go to adoption from a foster home not willing to adopt as if it looks like the kids may go to adoption they'd put them in an at risk foster home. Your best bet is international adoption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

For foster to adopt, don’t you run the risk of the children being reunited with their birth parents?

Yes, but most kids aren't legally free for adoption until they have a guaranteed adoptive family with how the system and laws work. And, most families foster to adopt so those families adopt the kids they foster so very few kids go to adoption from a foster home not willing to adopt as if it looks like the kids may go to adoption they'd put them in an at risk foster home. Your best bet is international adoption.

That makes sense
It is ridiculous to terminate parental rights and make a legal orphan if you are not able to get the child into a permanent home
Kids aging out of foster care do not have good outcomes
Best solution would be the family reunion when possible.
The foster system is not designed to find children for people wanting to adopt.

[Anonymous]

I adopted my son from the foster care system (in DC). Although the chance of the birth parent rehabilitating himself or herself is possible, the social workers have been doing this long enough to know which ones will never succeed.

Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

For foster to adopt, don’t you run the risk of the children being reunited with their birth parents?

Yes, but most kids aren't legally free for adoption until they have a guaranteed adoptive family with how the system and laws work. And, most families foster to adopt so those families adopt the kids they foster so very few kids go to adoption from a foster home not willing to adopt as if it looks like the kids may go to adoption they'd put them in an at risk foster home. Your best bet is international adoption.

That makes sense
It is ridiculous to terminate parental rights and make a legal orphan if you are not able to get the child into a permanent home
Kids aging out of foster care do not have good outcomes
Best solution would be the family reunion when possible.
The foster system is not designed to find children for people wanting to adopt.

That's really rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to your local county agency and foster to adopt. If you go through a private agency they generally get the hard to place kids.

For foster to adopt, don’t you run the risk of the children being reunited with their birth parents?

Yes, but most kids aren't legally free for adoption until they have a guaranteed adoptive family with how the system and laws work. And, most families foster to adopt so those families adopt the kids they foster so very few kids go to adoption from a foster home not willing to adopt as if it looks like the kids may go to adoption they'd put them in an at risk foster home. Your best bet is international adoption.

That makes sense
It is ridiculous to terminate parental rights and make a legal orphan if you are not able to get the child into a permanent home
Kids aging out of foster care do not have good outcomes
Best solution would be the family reunion when possible.
The foster system is not designed to find children for people wanting to adopt.

That's really rude.

It is true
I would define the task of an adoption agency as finding parents for children, but sadly they tend to focus on finding babies available for adoption.
Foster Care starts with the goal of family reunion.

[Anonymous]

Go to your local children and family services and explain that in time you would like to adopt from foster care. You will have to go through the Home Study and take training classes to become foster parents. In MoCo this was 24 hours of training when we did this several years ago. While the goal of family reunification is a good one, my sense is that there's more emphasis of finding a "forever" family now than there used to be. The sad reality is that some parents, for lots of different reasons, just aren't able to be the parents their kids want, and need, them to be. In MoCo, when we were foster parents, about 75% of the kids in foster care were there because their main parent was drug addicted. In our case our daughter's BM has mental health challenges that caused her to neglect her child. The BM never showed any interest in reunification, despite being given the opportunity to participate in a reunification program. The social workers have a good sense for which children will become available for adoption.

[Anonymous]

Around here it's pretty much Barker or Adoptions Together if you aren't going through your local agency and trying foster to adopt.

The training and homestudy and costs are similar. I got the sense that Barker is much more directive in making a match--they did more of the searching and presented you with kids whose workers thought you might be an option (some kids don't want to leave their state or only want families with/without kids, pets, a city, certain religion, single parent, same-sex parent, etc.). Adoptions Together lets the prospective parents do more of the searching and inquiries. Barker also requires that you be open to adopting a kid aged 12+, knowing that most kids younger than that whose workers are seeking out of state placement are either part of a larger sibling group or have more severe special needs. Adoptions Together will let you specify younger kids, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that if you are placed with an elementary school-aged kid who's been legally freed for adoption and their local agency can't find someone, that the kid is likely to have been through a LOT and will probably have the trauma and behaviors that come from that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Around here it's pretty much Barker or Adoptions Together if you aren't going through your local agency and trying foster to adopt.

The training and homestudy and costs are similar. I got the sense that Barker is much more directive in making a match--they did more of the searching and presented you with kids whose workers thought you might be an option (some kids don't want to leave their state or only want families with/without kids, pets, a city, certain religion, single parent, same-sex parent, etc.). Adoptions Together lets the prospective parents do more of the searching and inquiries. Barker also requires that you be open to adopting a kid aged 12+, knowing that most kids younger than that whose workers are seeking out of state placement are either part of a larger sibling group or have more severe special needs. Adoptions Together will let you specify younger kids, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that if you are placed with an elementary school-aged kid who's been legally freed for adoption and their local agency can't find someone, that the kid is likely to have been through a LOT and will probably have the trauma and behaviors that come from that.

The county does home studies and adoptions for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Around here it's pretty much Barker or Adoptions Together if you aren't going through your local agency and trying foster to adopt.

The training and homestudy and costs are similar. I got the sense that Barker is much more directive in making a match--they did more of the searching and presented you with kids whose workers thought you might be an option (some kids don't want to leave their state or only want families with/without kids, pets, a city, certain religion, single parent, same-sex parent, etc.). Adoptions Together lets the prospective parents do more of the searching and inquiries. Barker also requires that you be open to adopting a kid aged 12+, knowing that most kids younger than that whose workers are seeking out of state placement are either part of a larger sibling group or have more severe special needs. Adoptions Together will let you specify younger kids, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that if you are placed with an elementary school-aged kid who's been legally freed for adoption and their local agency can't find someone, that the kid is likely to have been through a LOT and will probably have the trauma and behaviors that come from that.

The county does home studies and adoptions for free.

Most counties won't let you use their homestudies for out of state placements, talk to workers from outside the country, know anything about icpc or out of state adoption subsidies, or how to get a kid on to your states Medicaid. So they are a great option if you want to adopt from your county, but not otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Around here it's pretty much Barker or Adoptions Together if you aren't going through your local agency and trying foster to adopt.

The training and homestudy and costs are similar. I got the sense that Barker is much more directive in making a match--they did more of the searching and presented you with kids whose workers thought you might be an option (some kids don't want to leave their state or only want families with/without kids, pets, a city, certain religion, single parent, same-sex parent, etc.). Adoptions Together lets the prospective parents do more of the searching and inquiries. Barker also requires that you be open to adopting a kid aged 12+, knowing that most kids younger than that whose workers are seeking out of state placement are either part of a larger sibling group or have more severe special needs. Adoptions Together will let you specify younger kids, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that if you are placed with an elementary school-aged kid who's been legally freed for adoption and their local agency can't find someone, that the kid is likely to have been through a LOT and will probably have the trauma and behaviors that come from that.

The county does home studies and adoptions for free.

Most counties won't let you use their homestudies for out of state placements, talk to workers from outside the country, know anything about icpc or out of state adoption subsidies, or how to get a kid on to your states Medicaid. So they are a great option if you want to adopt from your county, but not otherwise.

No, it’s not for them to do out of state placements but yes they know icicle and all that as it’s regularly done for relative placements.