Is this what should happen in foster to adopt?

monkeykitty83

I think they should be offered the opportunity, as long as they are willing to go through any additional foster parent training the state/province/country requires, and understand that the goal of fostering is different.

Fostering is meant to be temporary, with the goal hopefully being family reunification. A family should only foster if they are able to be fully and heartily behind that; if they only want to add to their own family, they should stick to placements where the children are available for adoption, even if it takes longer.

I don't see any reason why waiting prospective adoptive families couldn't ALSO be foster families, but since it isn't the same, they would need to be fully prepared for the differences, and willing to work toward the goal of fostering with equal enthusiasm as the goal of adopting.

Randy B

While I think that is good on the surface I can't help but wonder how disruptive it would be for people.

A couple gets approved and starts the wait for a placement. In the mean time and child gets moved in as a foster child and starts to settle. Our of the blue 6 months later (8,12,24,36 months, it doesn't matter) the parents get a call that there is a placement available. All of a sudden....out goes the foster child to make room for the placement.

That same foster child goes to another home waiting for a placement and then, poof, a few months later THEY get their call and the foster child moves again.

How disruptive would that be and how many problems would that cause. We just had a question posted the other day by someone telling about some child advocacy group suing in Michigan because children get moved too much and don't have stable foster homes (among other valid concerns too) and I can just see the law suits over too many moves in these cases too.

Not to mention that there is a whole range of emotions that come into play with fostering and not all people, foster parents or not, as prepared to handle that.

In my area we have a dedicated and separate "foster to adopt" program but in that case the child placed with you as a foster child is done so because it is fully expected that the child will be cleared for adoption. The people the child is placed with have already been pre-screened as both foster parents and adoptive parents and the match with the child was made with the eventual adoption in mind. Children placed in the program are there because of the nature of their birth parents issues and the lack of other suitable family members to take in the child. In our case, the 4 day old we were matched with was from a home with a long history (6 prior babies) of children being removed and no willingness or ability to deal with their issues regardless of the supports offered by the Dept. These programs, where they exist, are a hybrid program and they only work with a limited number of children in care.

Wundt

In general, agencies and social workers will ask foster-to-adopt parents if they are willing to also 'just' foster. In our case, we agreed to foster in emergency situations and/or short term fosters.

Many foster-to-adopt parents prefer to only take children likely to be placed for adoption (aka 'legal risk' cases) because they don't want to miss their chance when an adoptive placement comes available. I.e. fear that when they are looking to place legal risk cases, if already have a child in your home they will place it elsewhere. However, I think the opposite may be true, being flexible and having a good reputation with social workers may actually improve your chances.

mom of many

here in the states its a personal choice. You can get approved to do whats called foster/adopt. In wisconsin you must be foster care certified to adopt as you get to be the foster parent of the child you are adopting for 6 months before the adoption is final to be sure its a good family match.

Amy J

In Michigan, that is one of the questions they ask during the home study. They want to know the chances you are willing to provide permanent placement if no other options are available. I don't see how anyone would say no after a foster child has lived in your home for so long. Unless there was severe problems that the parents are capable of handling.

crzymmof8

I think that fostering helps a PAP get good parenting experience. It especially helps a PAP to be ready for some of the issues that a child who has been in foster care will have that may be unique to them. Such as Reactive Attachment Disorder. I know that fostering helped us to become better prepared for the kids we eventually adopted. However, not all PAP's are interested in adopting and a lot of them don't want older children (I am talking above the age of 1) as many want a "newborn" baby.

IDK!!

Here's how it works in my state:

A person going through a home study with the intent to adopt can also adopt children on the "OAPL" who are children in foster care. The is an extra 4 hours of class to be a foster parent. This extra 4 hours also makes it so PAPs can take a child/baby home on a foster basis pending an adoption.

The agency we used for our home study, encourages adoption through foster care, because only about 1% of their PAPs will be matched with a baby/child placed through them. Placing foster children helps the bottom line and their PAP/placement ratio, which in turn brings in more PAPs.

Bodhi

In my state, there are two different processes for adopting privately/agency and adopting through foster care. We were not able to use our private/agency homestudy when we moved to foster care adoption, and had to start the process from scratch.

While I understand that they do have additional requirements for the licensing and that was fine, we were a bit disheartened that they made us resubmit background checks, fingerprints, etc. that were already valid and up-to-date. They said the reason for this is so they would have been at the state's request as opposed to the Agency's request. We found that to be an unnecessary delay in the process, when there are so many children waiting.

Although we are open to any race, either gender, any child on the younger side (my husband has a pre-teen son and we're not sure how he would do with a child near his own age - we would anticipate some issues there), we were told it could be up to two years to match us with a child needing a home. Seriously. Two years. 100,000 kids in our state in foster care, but up to two years. I'd be thrilled if that wait time was a reflection of the number of people who are in line to adopt children in foster care, but I'm afraid it's not.

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