Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just keep in mind that foster situations almost always have reunification with some form of familiar biological family as the first, best goal. The child has gone through trauma, and the goal is to find the safest, healthiest familiar relative. Ideally parent, but if not that, then an aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc. If that's not an option, then foster to adopt becomes the next goal.

Kids don't want to be adopted, they want to be reunited with their family. There is not a whole lot of support for a mother when her kids are in care.
She will even have to be able to provide each child with a bedroom before she can get them back. Even if the kids have shared a bedroom all their lives

There is support depending on the agency and social worker assigned. However the court system sucks and there are really good and really bad social workers and evaluations who can set up folks to fail. Kids don’t need their own rooms.

Foster care will not return the kids to parents until they meet that requirement
It is really hard to get kids back from foster care.

Move to another state. My friends adopted 3 kids in infancy via foster to adopt in New England. It was easy and fairly quick, in the adoption world. It would never have happened in the DC area. Check out other states' stats and procedures.

Having said that, Adoptions Together has been well respected for decades. I adopted my 2 girls from China (single mom by choice) 2 decades ago so I did not use them, but the domestic adopters used AT all the time.

I would go with the County program. The foster kids "farmed out" to AT have very high needs. The County is free; AT is not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just keep in mind that foster situations almost always have reunification with some form of familiar biological family as the first, best goal. The child has gone through trauma, and the goal is to find the safest, healthiest familiar relative. Ideally parent, but if not that, then an aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc. If that's not an option, then foster to adopt becomes the next goal.

Kids don't want to be adopted, they want to be reunited with their family. There is not a whole lot of support for a mother when her kids are in care.
She will even have to be able to provide each child with a bedroom before she can get them back. Even if the kids have shared a bedroom all their lives

There is support depending on the agency and social worker assigned. However the court system sucks and there are really good and really bad social workers and evaluations who can set up folks to fail. Kids don’t need their own rooms.

Anonymous wrote:Just keep in mind that foster situations almost always have reunification with some form of familiar biological family as the first, best goal. The child has gone through trauma, and the goal is to find the safest, healthiest familiar relative. Ideally parent, but if not that, then an aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc. If that's not an option, then foster to adopt becomes the next goal.

Kids don't want to be adopted, they want to be reunited with their family. There is not a whole lot of support for a mother when her kids are in care.
She will even have to be able to provide each child with a bedroom before she can get them back. Even if the kids have shared a bedroom all their lives

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

They are talking foster to adopt and not infant adoption. Very different programs. All foster to adopt cases are through the county and the county outsources when they cannot find families. Generally most kids who to to adoption are adopted by foster parents.

This.

OP if you are interested in this route you should ask questions like which agencies refer children to them and then follow up with those agencies and ask why they outsource placement child to an outside agency. When I went through foster care training, the county outsourced placement for children who required therapeutic placement i.e. complex and more involved needs

If other jurisdictions outside MoCo are placing kids through Adoptions Together, its because they are either very large sibling groups or very high needs kids as this person is describing. MoCo only outsources therapeutic placements when they don't have any and group homes/transitional living for older kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

They are talking foster to adopt and not infant adoption. Very different programs. All foster to adopt cases are through the county and the county outsources when they cannot find families. Generally most kids who to to adoption are adopted by foster parents.

This.

OP if you are interested in this route you should ask questions like which agencies refer children to them and then follow up with those agencies and ask why they outsource placement child to an outside agency. When I went through foster care training, the county outsourced placement for children who required therapeutic placement i.e. complex and more involved needs

Though not recent, I have heard many positive things about this agency.

Foster to adopt is nothing like infant adoption. And experience from a decade ago isn’t particularly relevant to today.

Foster to adopt is admirable but don’t kid yourself about how difficult it is. Kids get to foster care due to trauma and no family willing or able to care for them. There is a lot of baggage. That being said I have a successful foster to adopt situation that started almost 18 years ago. So if you’ve got the desire, energy and willingness to work at it, it can be an amazing and wonderful way to form or add to your family.

Just keep in mind that foster situations almost always have reunification with some form of familiar biological family as the first, best goal. The child has gone through trauma, and the goal is to find the safest, healthiest familiar relative. Ideally parent, but if not that, then an aunts/uncles, grandparents, etc. If that's not an option, then foster to adopt becomes the next goal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

This is OP. Thank you!

They are wrong.

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

They are talking foster to adopt and not infant adoption. Very different programs. All foster to adopt cases are through the county and the county outsources when they cannot find families. Generally most kids who to to adoption are adopted by foster parents.

Anonymous wrote:Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

This is OP. Thank you!

Ignore the PP. most foster cases that go thru the county have then goal of reunification with family. Not all but most. We used adoptions together for infant adoption and just celebrated our 10 years as a family yesterday. They were helpful and professional throughout the whole process.

Usually they only get the very hard to place kids. Your best bet is foster to adopt with the county.

Does anyone have any recent experiences working with Adoptions Together for their Foster Care Adoption Program? If so, can you please share. I'm strongly considering them for my adoption agency.