private and foster to adopt at same time

lala7868

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone had tried to do both simultaneously? My husband and I were discussing our choices regarding private and started to seriously discuss the foster to adopt path. Can we use the same home study with background checks/medical or does it all have to be redone? One concern we had would be the emotional roller coaster involved and the impact that can have. Also, can you take maternity leave?

Thank you in advance for ideas or experiences!

Dr.Loretta

I have not, and I can't recall anyone posting that they have.

HSs tend to be a little different from place to place, so you'd likely have to have a modified one for each track you're doing.

Maternity leave is going to be based on who you work for. You'd have to check with your HR department.

I can't imagine 2 newborns at the same time, for example, or a newborn and a new toddler. But if you're up for it, it's worth exploring.

I think your best bet is to talk to private and foster/adopt agencies, etc. and see what they advise.

GL

Cristine

We're licensed foster parents, and we were specifically told in class that they wouldn't release it for private adoption because they don't want people using the state to get a free home study and not doing foster care. At one point, we tried to adopt two little girls that were in foster care in another state and we were able to use it for that.

If you pay for a home study yourself you may be able to use at least part of it for foster care. It wouldn't hurt to ask..

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lala7868

Thank you for your info.! We wouldn't be trying to adopt two babies at the same time, but were looking at other avenues of expanding our family. We were looking at our grids and realized how open we were to medical to drugs and started to discuss other ways of adoption. Foster to adopt always seemed so unsure to us and would be difficult not being able to keep a child we fell in love with, but we were looking and some are relinquished early on. It was just another thought and we didn't know if anyone had tried simultaneously.

mysticl

I used to work for a private foster care agency and we would not work with a family who was working with another agency.  As far as the background checks and the health forms those were our property and we wouldn't even release them to the foster parent let alone another agency.  By law we had to have them in our files at all times, even if the family left our agency.  Also, a foster home study is different than an adoption one (at least in the state I worked in).  Now If one of our parents was adopting one of our foster children we would let social services use our home study as a reference for background information but that was it.  

ctbride08

We explored this and were specifically told we could not pursue DA and FA at the same time.  Neither the state nor the domestic adoption agency would allow it.

lala7868

Thank you for all the input and information!!

smash_effect

We are!

We have been waiting with our agency for over 2 years and we are weeks away from being licensed foster parents as well. 

Our goal is not to either adopt domestically or get a fos adopt placement. We did have to get 2 totally different home studies and everyone knows about each other. Our agency and the state were okay with it.

In our opinion, we have opened all doors to God to grown our family through.

lala7868

Thank you! We are trying to decide if we want to start a whole new home study for the foster to adopt route. I'm glad to know we aren't the only ones that considered it.