Adoption
Foster to adopt questions.
I think DH and I will be going this route 
Can we ONLY foster to adopt, or do we also need to accept a regular foster? Can we still specify ages and whatnot? Would the child be likely to go back to their birth parent(s)?
I feel like there is so much research to do!
Rosie born August 29, 2013. Blessed by adoption!
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Re: Foster to adopt questions.
Check with the Child Services in your state/county. Here, we can pick the age range, sex, race, etc and do foster to adopt, just foster or both.
For example we have said we would foster, foster to adopt, would accept any race, either sex and up to 5 years old.
Every foster care case is different, so I don't think there are "odds" about going back to their birth parents, but I know here we have an adoption unit with kids that are legally free to be adopted. Maybe that is something to look into.
I would second most of what she said... However, we were told in our PRIDE classes that around 70% of children return home if they are in foster care. But that statistic is kind of skewed because a child that is removed 3 times before TPR is granted may be counted 3 times out of 4 in going home, thus would contribute to a higher returning percentage.
We are going into it though saying we will foster, but if a child in our home become adoptable, we are very open to that as well.
Adoptive daughter born 08/07/13... growing so fast
BM due again end of March 2015 so any day!
Bloggy blog
We are approved for foster and adopt through a local agency. They know we are most interested in fostering cases that will most likely go to adoption thus we have only done respite so far (several weekends, three different sets of kids) since July. . This is perfect for us to get "warmed up" to different age groups, etc. We specified age but aren't as specific now.
Depending on how court for TPR goes in two weeks, we hope to have the opportunity to adopt a sibling group that has been in our home avg of 1 time per month since Oct (for respite)....the current foster family is great but not interested in adopting.
As everyone else said - its based on the state/county you like in. Some may have it set for the whole state, others - like Texas, its set by the county or agency. Most you can be dual licensed meaning your homestudy will be for foster and foster/adopt especially if you're with an agency.
Most cases have a 12-18 month length. 12 month is the avg length of a case and what the parents have in order to complete their service plan. 18 months is when the parents appeal if CPS/DFPS is looking to terminate. The numbers are staggering. When we were in the beginning process the number was 75% were reunified, I believe it has lowered somewhat now to 55-60% because so many are related to neglect and drug use.
You can specify what you're looking to foster (sex, ages, races), just remember the more specific you get, the longer you wait. Also, the only situations you can specify (drugs, type of abuse) is really the smaller children. If its a first or even second removal, DFPS will not know the exact behaviors of a child. You most likely won't see any terrible behaviors until they've been with you for 4-6 weeks (acting out, tempers, aggression, etc.)
Our attempt to do this turned out not good, but a lot of times it doesn't work out like our did/is. Do TONS of research on both the good AND bad!
"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."