Intro - "No Legal Risk" Adoption through the State of CT

JWinCT

It's weird to be back on the Bump after all this time, and it's especially weird to be on the adoption board!

DH and I have been married for almost 10 years and have two little girls, who will soon be ages 7 and 5. We had always said that we'd like to adopt a third child if we were in the position to and we recently decided that we wanted to go ahead with that plan. It's important for us to adopt through the state, for reasons very personal to DH.

So, two weeks ago we attended the required informational open house with DCF and filled out the initial paperwork. We feel that going the "no legal risk" adoption route is best for our family, rather than foster-to-adopt, so that's what we ultimately decided to go ahead with. They are supposedly in the process of doing the preliminary background checks and are supposed to contact us soon to schedule a home visit. I'm hoping this happens soon because we had been told that the classes start in March for our area. I've been told by others, who have adopted through the state of CT, that the licensing process takes a lot longer than DCF tells you it's going to... more like a year rather than six months. This is kind of discouraging, but at least we won't be surprised if it does take that long.

Good luck to everyone - I look forward to getting to know you!

CruisenBride06

Hi! I have no advice but wanted to say Welcome!!

irismorning

Welcome to the board!

 

msditz00

We started classes in July 2011 and weren't licensed until October 2013. (We are also in CT). We had absolutely NO contact for months at a time. It was so difficult getting them to continue our homestudy, we finally had to contact a manager and escalate the situation. They switched our social worker finally and then less than 2 months later we got our license.
We originally thought we would go the No Legal Risk route, yet here we are in a legal risk situation where TPR hasn't even been filed yet. Life has a crazy way of taking over sometimes!

JWinCT

msditz00 said:

We started classes in July 2011 and weren't licensed until October 2013. (We are also in CT). We had absolutely NO contact for months at a time. It was so difficult getting them to continue our homestudy, we finally had to contact a manager and escalate the situation. They switched our social worker finally and then less than 2 months later we got our license. We originally thought we would go the No Legal Risk route, yet here we are in a legal risk situation where TPR hasn't even been filed yet. Life has a crazy way of taking over sometimes!

Wow, that is awful and extremely discouraging! What county are you in? Our regional office is Manchester.
Good luck to you!!

msditz00

We are through the Waterbury office. Licensing was such a nightmare, and from what I'm hearing has not improved at all. It was so bad that the day classes were starting we were still waiting to find out if we got in and where to go.

ctbride08

Hi jan!!  The trouble comes down to DCF being waaaayyy over worked and the SWs have so many fires to put out, licencing new families often falls to the bottom of their priority list.  And, unfortunately, supervisors are similarly overworked so there isnt a lot of oversight and accountability.  When you are getting licensed, when you are fostering, and when you are adopting, which SW you/the kids are assigned to will the be main factor impacting your experience of the process. We had horrible SWs and great ones. 

JWinCT

ctbride08 said:

Hi jan!!  The trouble comes down to DCF being waaaayyy over worked and the SWs have so many fires to put out, licencing new families often falls to the bottom of their priority list.  And, unfortunately, supervisors are similarly overworked so there isnt a lot of oversight and accountability.  When you are getting licensed, when you are fostering, and when you are adopting, which SW you/the kids are assigned to will the be main factor impacting your experience of the process. We had horrible SWs and great ones. 

I understand that's the case, but it's so unfortunate.

I just got a call from them and was told they didn't get our paperwork (that we completed on 2/4) until February 18th and she just submitted it for the background checks on that day. She also said that there's not going to be a March class because they don't have enough people.

msditz00

Can you request to be put in a class somewhere else in the state?

JWinCT

msditz00 said:

Can you request to be put in a class somewhere else in the state?

I think we can take the classes anywhere in the state, but we live in northern CT, right by the MA border, so it's tough for us to get to the other locations after work. I have a feeling we'll end up having to take them elsewhere, though. I'm willing to go wherever!

lorifromwi

A shame that they will cancel the class if there aren't enough attendees.  It's not like it's a revenue source for them, so in my blissfully ignorant opinion it sounds like they should still have the class!