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How Do I Adopt From Foster Care?

How do you go about adopting from foster care? What are the steps involved? I have tried to summarize the process for you!

(Disclaimer! I haven’t researched each state or any other countries so don’t go arguing with anyone official based on what I say, haha, but this will give you a general idea of the process.)

Get In Touch

The first thing you need to do is call your local agency. If you don’t know the local agency, call your state’s department of children and families. Let them know that you are interested in adopting. They will have you attend an orientation and then sign you up for the Pride class. Of course, the class might have a different name in different states, but there will be some sort of class taught over several weeks. The purpose is to familiarize you with the system and the challenges of raising children with trauma backgrounds.

Fill Out The Application

Depending on your teacher’s process, you will start doing the paperwork during the classes or directly after. I have experienced it both ways. The application paperwork will include basic personal information, financial status, references, etc. There isn’t usually a specific income requirement but they need to know that you can afford a child.

Homestudy

You will then receive a Visit from a caseworker to complete your homestudy. The home study is just basically a detailed report on you and your family life. When you get to this part, expect questions about your family, your relationship, your job, and what you do for fun. They will also ask how you plan to discipline your child so make sure you have had that conversation. They will walk around your house; making sure it is safe and has a proper area for a child. The good news is that the homestudy for adoption approval is more lenient than the foster home study. They will definitely address basic safety concerns, though.

After the homestudy, if there’s anything that needs to be fixed, you’ll have time to fix it, before they come out again. But, it’s possible that they won’t have to come out again. In our case, for our first adoption, we had the homestudy and then were told that the supervisor would come out for the second visit. It took several weeks for the supervisor to find the time to come out. (Get used to things moving slowly!) And when she did, all she said was that she just wanted to come out and tell us in person that we were approved. Ha, it was very anti-climactic, in terms of me stressing and cleaning. But, obviously, it was very good news. But when we had homestudies for our future adoptions, they only came once. So, the point is that every situation might be a little bit different but also, essentially the same.

The Homestudy Is Done

After the homestudy is written up and all approved, they will provide you a copy. It will also go into their system but now you will have a copy so that you can inquire about specific children that you may see. In most cases, if you inquire about a child and request to be matched, they will have a meeting to determine which of the interested families is the best match. It was very confusing that there was competition for kids when there are so many out there and not enough people adopting. I don’t really have an explanation for that. Except that there are specific kids that are labeled as “identified.” These are the kids that they focus on getting matched so those are the kids that potential adopters are aware of.

Through our process, there were a couple times that they did not need to do the meeting and were more than happy to quickly place a child with us. Both those times, the child was extremely troubled. It was very sad. We knew that it was a bad idea to have an expedited placement of a child that we hadn’t met. Thankfully, my husband was the voice of reason in those cases because I may have impulsively done it anyway.

When you do finally get matched with a child, there will be visitations first. In general, they will start with supervised and then unsupervised visits. When the child comes to your home, there should be a trial visit. It may start for just the weekend and then build up to a longer visit before the official placement. Again, rules can change to fit the situation. Because in our situation, while we did have the supervised and unsupervised visits, they opted to skip the trial visits and go ahead and place the boys in our home. This was due to the fact that their foster parents were going on vacation. It was simpler to go ahead with the placement than to find respite care for them.

Heading Towards Finalization

Your caseworker will come out to see you and the child, every 30 days. Also. in some cases, the guardian ad litem at litem will visit. After 90 days, the adoption can be finalized, assuming there are no complications. Before the finalization, you will sign the official adoption paperwork and then you just need to wait for your court date. Make sure that you keep the information on the various benefits and the post-adoption services. Something as simple as attending a support group meeting could make all the difference.

Once you finalize your adoption, you are 100%, legally, a family. And you can live your happily ever after. But as any parent/caregiver knows, happily ever after is a lot of work. But, it’s all worth it.



This post first appeared on The6parkers, please read the originial post: here

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How Do I Adopt From Foster Care?

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