WOO HOO!!
Im really trying to get DH to seriously consider foster/foster to adopt - do you have to apply to be one or the other? What happens with daycare for foster children? Does a foster home have to have one parent/adult stay home or can both work? Any tips or hints or ???????
(My apologies to those who may not be interested in this, but it's a bit of a passion of mine. Please forgive the long, off topic post)
As has been said, every state is different- in fact, every AGENCY is different as far as rules, regulations, etc.
One thing I would suggest is speaking with lots of other foster parents in your area. A GREAT place online to start is
www.fosterparents.com. There is an amazing support group there (though like anywhere else, there are those who have had bad experiences with the system) and you can learn a LOT. They can be especially helpful letting you know which agencies (either non-profit privates or DHS) are the most supportive. If you want, PM me and I'll give you my user name over there, too.
In our area in my agency, you are more the welcome to work. In fact there are even many single foster parents, of more than one foster child, who of course must work. The only difficulties would be that you have to use licensed child care, and only the "State rate" is compensated- and there may not be many places in your area where the state rate completely covers the cost.
Also, especially if you're hoping for a newborn placement, remember that most daycares will not accept a child under six weeks old. This is one reason why families with one parent at home are more likely to have newborns placed with them. I have, however, heard that it is possible to use time under the family leave act to be home with the baby. There are many employers understanding and supportive of the situation.
The one "standard" I've found among states/agencies as far as working or not is that you must be able to prove that your income WITHOUT the foster care stipend is sufficient enough to pay your bills (in other words you aren't RELYING on foster care money to survive- and believe me, that's darn near impossible to do anyway, and it could never be your SOLE source of income. In fact my first piece of advice to any new foster parents is to SAVE and have a nest egg for when your first "placement" (I hate that word, they're a child not a placement- comes along- you never know how much they will come with, or how long it will be before the agency provides anything! Our little guy had one nightie someone had donated to the NICU, and that was the ONLY thing he had to his NAME. And as our agency said "Oh we don't get babies" all my clothes, etc, started at about two outfits for each size from 2t to 4t, and we had NOTHING for newborns, I'd given away all my baby things YEARS ago, so you can imagine the stuff we had to get, as well as a month of driving 45 minutes each way to the NICU- not that he wasn't worth it, just that you can never anticipate the expense, and unlike expecting a baby, you don't know for sure who will be joining you, what size they will be, etc. And yes I think that was the world's longest run on sentence ever, very sad since I used to teach English).
Many areas also handle the "Foster/Adopt" issue differently. With our agency you did not have to be labeled as one or the other. We were VERY upfront with them about our desire to find our son (I KNEW he was out there some where, I'd known that in my heart for more than 10 years, even as I was eventually able to have biological children I KNEW I would adopt a son!). In fact, when we went through all the paperwork to become foster parents we also did everything to be approved to adopt. Our reasoning was that when/if we found our son, we didn't want him to wait in foster care a moment longer than he needed to. Some people, though, just become licensed foster parents, and when/if a child becomes available they feel is a good fit for their family, THEN they take care of being approved to adopt.
Even being approved for both does NOT mean that any child placed with you will even be available for adoption, nor does it mean you have to adopt a child that might not "click" with your family even if they do become available.
There are also those that for personal reasons decide they cannot be foster parents but still want to adopt from foster care. That's a bit more difficult but it IS possible. The one thing to keep in mind is that if you go for straight adoption from the system, you are pretty much last in line for consideration of a child's permanent home. The goal is ALWAYS to make the home situation one that the child can return to. It can be heartbreaking, but we looked at it that even if we never found our son, we'd have the knowledge we did help a child/children in any way we could, and did our part to keep a family together. If it isn't possible for the child to be returned home, and particularly if the child has been with you less than a year (in most states) they will then search for any biological relatives who may want to adopt the child. Third in line would be the current foster parents, and only then, if none of these are viable homes, would it be open to people interested in adopting without fostering first.
This was probably way more information than you were looking for and I hope I didn't say anything to scare you off. Any honest foster family will tell you it can be a scary process, but honestly if you don't give your whole heart and soul to a child, regardless of whether or not they stay with you forever, you aren't doing it right. And as scary and hard as it all can be is just as rewarding as it can be. Even with all the challenges we did decide this was the right choice for us (we started looking at international adoption, then private adoption, then international with a different country, then foster care/adoption).
Feel free to PM any time with questions.
Marah
We start classes in June.
Thank you Cindee.....!!!! I am so excited!!! I need to celebrate at WDW...don't ya think??? LOL!!
