Details to Ponder
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Though many are familiar with some basic details of adoption and foster care, it can be hard to find information on the typical foster adoption. The reason: there is no typical foster adoption.
Every state has so many different regulations and every child will come with a different story to work through. It makes it really difficult to know what to expect. We are still wading through the politics, laws, court hearings, social workers, paper work, etc. for our Oklahoma foster adoption. I am definitely not an expert in this area, but I can speak on my own personal experience and really want to share some basics that we have learned through our experience.
Here are things you may want to know if you are considering foster adoption:
-Just because a child is in your home for foster care, does not mean they will be available for adoption. You may have several foster children enter and leave your home before you are able to adopt. Preparing yourself for this, emotionally, is vital.
-It can take many months or even years for parental rights to be terminated. You will not know if the child is adoptable until the point that the parental rights are officially terminated. In most states, parents are allowed numerous attempts at improving their situation prior to termination.
-It is very important to be your foster child’s advocate. Ways to advocate for your child include attending court dates with them, keeping in good contact with their social workers, attending visitation with your foster child, having a positive relationship and good rapport with both the birth family and social workers, and getting the child in a support or play group.
-Once parental rights are terminated, if none of the child’s family members are willing or approved to adopt your foster child, you are given first priority. You do not have to adopt the child, but your family is generally first approached, since you have a relationship with the child.
-The adoption process is often lengthy. It is essential that you keep a good relationship with your child’s social worker, adoption caseworker, and attorney. Keeping in contact several times weekly, will help expedite your child’s adoption. However, be aware that since you are adopting through the state and not a private agency, your foster child’s adoption may not be number one priority, among the many cases they see each day. Therefore, the “squeaky wheel” really does get the “grease”. Typically, state agencies are not quite as concerned with the speed of the adoption, as you may be, since they know the child is safe, which is their top priority.
-If there are other siblings currently or in the future, you will likely be asked to adopt them, as well. You are not required to adopt them, but you are usually the first asked.
Foster Adoption Logistics:
-Foster adoption in the US is generally free or very inexpensive, including attorney fees.
-Some foster children qualify for subsidies up until the age of 18.
-Some states pay for daycare up until a certain age.
-You will be required to have a full homestudy, background checks, finger printing, physicals, etc.
-Your child will be provided Medicaid until the age of 18.
-You are paid each month to foster that child, but payments will cease at the time of adoption.
-Post placement services are provided until the child turns 18.
We were very surprised to learn that this option was free for us. We had actually saved each of the foster checks in case she was later adoptable. We later realized, we would be using this for college, instead. Foster adoption is a wonderful option, but definitely an option where you will be in limbo for months or even years and it is not a sure thing. What is a sure thing, is that you are helping a child and a family through uncertain times. If you are interested in foster adoption, start your journey to get the parent better through supporting and loving them and improve the living situation for the child, first. If the end result is adoption, may God bless you. Either way, the main goal of foster adoption is to provide a loving and secure family for this child.
Aubrey also writes at her personal blog, Kingcade Kitchen, between changing diapers and playing baby dolls with her little one.
For more information about Foster Care:
Success as a Foster Parent: Everything You Need to Know About Foster Care
Practical Tools for Foster Parents
Foster Parenting: A Simple Guide to Understanding What It’s All About
I find this site repulsive especially since none of you know what Youth and Childrens Services does to the parents of these children.Some of these children are illegally removed from safe homes and lies are told and documents falsified in order to secure this agency to be able to steal our children.I hope all of you are happy at the part you take in doing this to good parents.
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so let me get this right the adopted child pays for there up keep.plus they pay forthere colledge.unlike if it was your reak child your birth child.do these kids no the foster parents are getting paid to keep them ?what i cant understand if foster parents love these childerm as there own why do theynot take care of them as there own instead of collecting money off these childerm.i dont think i would want to adoptunless i had the money to pay out of pocketforthe child.i want to do it from my heart not the money
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As an avid parental rights advocate I read your blog entry in an unbiased way but you have some of your facts about adoption out of the foster care system wrong. For one thing, most foster/adopt care providers are told upfront that the children will be eventually placed up for adoption. This is fact number one.
Fact number 2, monthly paychecks do NOT stop at adoption. You will continue to receive monthly support of up to $900/child until they turn 18 which is went the vast majority of foster/adopt children are kicked out of their homes. This concerns me greatly because they scream and yell they’re not doing it for the money yet they kick them out when the money dries up. What does that say? They’re trying to pass a law that states if you let them stay, you can receive the monthly checks, food stamps, and Medicaid until age 21. Again, if it’s done out of love and to make a difference (other than making a difference in your bank account), then we wouldn’t need this new law nor would our children be kicked out with no money, no job, no car and nowhere to go. They can’t go home to their biological families because the foster/adopt care providers and social workers have made sure to sever those bonds and have made the child feel their own parents didn’t want or love them. Wow, they’re just wonderful people! Admittedly, that was a nasty comment. If you don’t do this, then no need to be offended as I wasn’t talking about you.
Fact #3, CPS is corrupt and out of control. They do not remove children that need to be removed but they remove children all the time from very loving and safe homes because they’re the undamaged children. They’re the white, healthy, genetically sound children that bring in the big bucks on the foster/adopt market. No one wants a damaged child. Oh, but they do need some of these types of children so that they can label them with all these mental health diseases and syndromes and put them on high powered anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety drugs because they get grants from the big pharmaceutical companies to use OUR children as guinea pigs. These types of drugs are known to cause suicide and suicidal thoughts in children. Florida is the worst state in the United States for doing this. Don’t take my word for it either. Visit my blog and cpsasystemoutofcontrol.blogspot.com or Google Gabriel Meyers. He was 7-years-old and hanged himself in the bathroom. He was only 7. Oh, guess what, Gabriel was in the State’s custody and there was no court order in place giving the State of Florida permission to have him on these drugs, which is highly against the law. Not too long after that, another 8-year-old boy hanged himself from a tree after being punished by his foster “father” for accidentally hitting his brother with a fishing pole. Why was he being punished for an accident? I wonder how bad his punishment was. They didn’t even bother to go looking for him until 45 minutes to an hour later and then the foster “father” sent his brothers to look for him. Now, if you’ve got a missing kid already, are you going to send others out that might also become missing? I don’t think so. These kids weren’t his biologically so he had no reason or inclination to protect them. Who cares what happens to them? I guarantee you the birth parents cared.
A woman is in jail awaiting trial on a number of charges, first degree murder being the most serious, for starving her 12-year-old biological daughter, who was physically and mentally handicapped, to death. What does that have to do with CPS and foster care? Let me tell you. CPS had received numerous allegations against this family from a variety of sources and they had an open case against them. Well, after she died CPS went on a binge, forging and falsifying documents that stated they had made regular, unannounced home visits. Well, that’s stupid of them because if they had visited the home, don’t you think that they should have noticed that this poor little girl, who was 12 at the time of her death, weighed only 28 pounds? To me it sounds better for them to say that she just slipped through the cracks. Now it appears that they were complicit in this child’s murder, right along with her mother. This is a very relevant piece of information in CPS’s failure to protect children on ALL levels.
Zoey Sanderbox, 3, killed at the hands of mommy’s boyfriend. CPS returned them home a few months earlier and he kicked her in the abdomen until she died. Another clear-cut case of CPS failure to protect.
A woman in the midwest killed two of her adopted daughters and seriously injured another. The bodies of the two girls were found in the freezer after running away from home, half naked, starving and abused. The woman was first a foster care provider.
I can go on. I know this comment will either not stay up for very long or else it will never be published but that’s okay. I haven’t been ugly, rude or offensive to anyone. I’m simply adding in facts and how to see things from a biological parent’s point of view. I promise you that in no city/state is reunification with the bio family a priority. I would be more than willing to provide you or your readers with documented proof of my facts here. Google ASFA or the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Google CAPTA. Google foster care abuses and deaths. Google Title IV-E Funding. I think you’ll be surprised at what you find.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions, I can be reached via email at bwalexander3@yahoo.com.
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