Adoption

Foster confusion

A few people on here have talked about going through an agency to foster.  I thought to foster you could only go through the state.  If you can go through agency, how would I know where to start looking for these agencies? Just google?

 

TIA :)

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Re: Foster confusion

  • In some states, the state contracts with private agencies to provide some foster care services.  In other states, the state might contract privately only for specialized/therapeutic foster care for children with special needs.  It really depends on where you live, so you'll have to find out what the situation is in your state.
  • imageGulfCoaster:
    In some states, the state contracts with private agencies to provide some foster care services.  In other states, the state might contract privately only for specialized/therapeutic foster care for children with special needs.  It really depends on where you live, so you'll have to find out what the situation is in your state.

     Ohhhh okay! Thanks :)

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  • Our agency has been a charity of ours for years but we didn't realize that they had foster to adopt until this spring when we went to turn in our donation.  I asked about fostering and they sent us to the Fost-adopt department where they explained that we foster for them but everything is governed by the county.  We are shielded from the county SW's and deal only with our agency SW's, it makes for a nice buffer since the agency SW's are friendly and not jaded.

    What state are you in?  I would love to recommend the agency we are with.

  • imagebutterflygrooves:

    Our agency has been a charity of ours for years but we didn't realize that they had foster to adopt until this spring when we went to turn in our donation.  I asked about fostering and they sent us to the Fost-adopt department where they explained that we foster for them but everything is governed by the county.  We are shielded from the county SW's and deal only with our agency SW's, it makes for a nice buffer since the agency SW's are friendly and not jaded.

    What state are you in?  I would love to recommend the agency we are with.

    We'll be in upstate NY (moving soon so we're trying to prepare)

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  • Make note that therapeutic homes are not just for "special needs" as in medically special needs. Therapeutic means that they do a lot more training on how to handle the harder to handle children that are more emotionally/mentally fragile than those that are more basic children (infants and toddlers most of the time).
  • imagecome*on*baby:
    Make note that therapeutic homes are not just for "special needs" as in medically special needs. Therapeutic means that they do a lot more training on how to handle the harder to handle children that are more emotionally/mentally fragile than those that are more basic children (infants and toddlers most of the time).

    We were therapeutic foster parents for three years (13 kids) through an agency. I get therapeutic foster care but the agency we worked with didn't do regular foster care or foster to adopt so I find myself not knowing much about it. Also because all we've known is therapeutic foster care we're a little nervous about what kind of challenges kids in non-therapeutic foster care might have.  We've lived with and worked with any thing from brain surgery, feces smearing, pica, personality disorders, autism, severe ocd, extremely violent (as in demolished half the house, had to have reinforced sheet rock put up in the bed room); you name it, we've probably had it.  I'm also worried since we have this background an agency or the state will want to try to pressure us to take the more challenging kids.  In our experience SWs have tried to "trick" us into taking really difficult kids.

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  • Our county stopped their foster care program. They now handle the kids and their social workers, but the foster parents have to go thru an agency to get trained and licensed. We basically contacted all the local agencies and did mini interviews with them to determine which of them fit our needs (training schedule, per diem, community help with the other parents, etc.)

    Katie, PCOS since May 2005, Fostering since November 2010 Adoption since December 2011 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker
    *PCOS bio* *Cold Hands, Warm Heart*
  • Ok, the agency is here in Southern CA and serves only a few counties, sorry I couldn't be of more help.
  • imageHopefulHalley10:

    imagecome*on*baby:
    Make note that therapeutic homes are not just for "special needs" as in medically special needs. Therapeutic means that they do a lot more training on how to handle the harder to handle children that are more emotionally/mentally fragile than those that are more basic children (infants and toddlers most of the time).

    We were therapeutic foster parents for three years (13 kids) through an agency. I get therapeutic foster care but the agency we worked with didn't do regular foster care or foster to adopt so I find myself not knowing much about it. Also because all we've known is therapeutic foster care we're a little nervous about what kind of challenges kids in non-therapeutic foster care might have.  We've lived with and worked with any thing from brain surgery, feces smearing, pica, personality disorders, autism, severe ocd, extremely violent (as in demolished half the house, had to have reinforced sheet rock put up in the bed room); you name it, we've probably had it.  I'm also worried since we have this background an agency or the state will want to try to pressure us to take the more challenging kids.  In our experience SWs have tried to "trick" us into taking really difficult kids.

    Most CWs don't know anything about the kids until they've entered a foster home. Its typically up to the foster parents to find out what's going with the kids, at least thats what I've decided. Everything you've listed that you've dealt with is definitely for a therapeutic home and everything our agency (our support team really) is use to dealing with. I'm sure that after reading your list of challenging children, there's no way you could get more difficult children. Some of those even sounded like they could have benefited from a group foster home. They are more like institutions but not, if that makes sense. I know our more violent/specialized children are all in the group homes of our agency. 

    As far as agencies, all the ones I know of accept basic to specialized, but again, when a child comes into care, they are all basic level. If the child(ren) go to a straight DFPS (CPS) home and prove to be a more moderate or specialized child, they are moved to an agency/therapeutic home to get their needs taken care of. So its not really like they were "tricking" you. They just really may not have known how bad the child was. (and I don't normally defend CWs because I've only had 2 out 6 that I've really liked). Its not really that your agency doesn't take regular foster care children (possibly), its that the therapeutic homes DO get the more challenging children. And honestly, most foster children could really benefit from living in a therapeutic home over a "regular" foster home because let's face it, most, if not all, foster children are challenging in one way or another.

    Most agencies have started doing foster to adopt. The only difference is that if the child comes up for adoption and they are in your home - you are given the choice to adopt after every avenue of family placement is exhausted. You have to be a licensed foster to adopt home in order for that to happen as well. It also means that if another a child comes up for adoption and they aren't in your home, but in foster care, you could adopt them if you were selected. (at least that's the way it works here in Texas). Our oldest son was in another foster home that chose not to adopt him because he labels attached to him as far as possible autism, brain damage and mental retardation and that's something the previous foster home was not willing to deal with. We have since removed those labels just in working with him in the stuff we've been trained in. Not to say the other home didn't do it, it's just he didn't "click" with them or any of the therapists they had coming in and working with him.

     

    Its early, so I don't know if I made complete sense of the difference in the foster to adopt stuff. :)

  • imagecome*on*baby:
    imageHopefulHalley10:

    imagecome*on*baby:
    Make note that therapeutic homes are not just for "special needs" as in medically special needs. Therapeutic means that they do a lot more training on how to handle the harder to handle children that are more emotionally/mentally fragile than those that are more basic children (infants and toddlers most of the time).

    We were therapeutic foster parents for three years (13 kids) through an agency. I get therapeutic foster care but the agency we worked with didn't do regular foster care or foster to adopt so I find myself not knowing much about it. Also because all we've known is therapeutic foster care we're a little nervous about what kind of challenges kids in non-therapeutic foster care might have.  We've lived with and worked with any thing from brain surgery, feces smearing, pica, personality disorders, autism, severe ocd, extremely violent (as in demolished half the house, had to have reinforced sheet rock put up in the bed room); you name it, we've probably had it.  I'm also worried since we have this background an agency or the state will want to try to pressure us to take the more challenging kids.  In our experience SWs have tried to "trick" us into taking really difficult kids.

    Most CWs don't know anything about the kids until they've entered a foster home. Its typically up to the foster parents to find out what's going with the kids, at least thats what I've decided. Everything you've listed that you've dealt with is definitely for a therapeutic home and everything our agency (our support team really) is use to dealing with. I'm sure that after reading your list of challenging children, there's no way you could get more difficult children. Some of those even sounded like they could have benefited from a group foster home. They are more like institutions but not, if that makes sense. I know our more violent/specialized children are all in the group homes of our agency. 

    As far as agencies, all the ones I know of accept basic to specialized, but again, when a child comes into care, they are all basic level. If the child(ren) go to a straight DFPS (CPS) home and prove to be a more moderate or specialized child, they are moved to an agency/therapeutic home to get their needs taken care of. So its not really like they were "tricking" you. They just really may not have known how bad the child was. (and I don't normally defend CWs because I've only had 2 out 6 that I've really liked). Its not really that your agency doesn't take regular foster care children (possibly), its that the therapeutic homes DO get the more challenging children. And honestly, most foster children could really benefit from living in a therapeutic home over a "regular" foster home because let's face it, most, if not all, foster children are challenging in one way or another.

    Most agencies have started doing foster to adopt. The only difference is that if the child comes up for adoption and they are in your home - you are given the choice to adopt after every avenue of family placement is exhausted. You have to be a licensed foster to adopt home in order for that to happen as well. It also means that if another a child comes up for adoption and they aren't in your home, but in foster care, you could adopt them if you were selected. (at least that's the way it works here in Texas). Our oldest son was in another foster home that chose not to adopt him because he labels attached to him as far as possible autism, brain damage and mental retardation and that's something the previous foster home was not willing to deal with. We have since removed those labels just in working with him in the stuff we've been trained in. Not to say the other home didn't do it, it's just he didn't "click" with them or any of the therapists they had coming in and working with him.

     

    Its early, so I don't know if I made complete sense of the difference in the foster to adopt stuff. :)

     

    Thank you so much for all your information, it's very helpful!  I feel like the info out there on foster to adopt is really limited compared to other forms of adoption!

     

    Just to clarify since we worked with a very unique agency; it felt like CWs were tricking us because our agency is essentially the last line before lock down facilities.  None of our kids are ever trying out foster care for the first time; so CWs do have experience and know the behaviors of the kids because they have already essentially been "kicked out" of other programs.  We only took on the most challenging out there.  Sometimes CWs would flat out lie or gloss over issues to attempt to make sure they would be able to place the child. Because of this the agency actually has a section they make you sign that makes you completely unable to adopt them while you work with the agency.  I've never heard of any other agency doing it that way; but they do.  That's part of why we recently left.  We wanted to adopt our last FD who was 7 and couldn't while still fostering her through them.  We would actually have had to stop fostering her... place her in a new home.... begin adoption process with the state... homestudy etc all over again... and so on before we could adopt her.  It seems like our old agency needs to get with the program!

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