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We are not in NC, but if your friends are wanting to adopt a "waiting child", I suggest that they talk with their legislators if someone at the state agency told them they have to foster first. That is crazy. All states are ACHING for people to come forward to adopt older kids, as well as to foster them. (They may have to complete foster or adoption training however, even if they are seasoned parents.)
We applied for older child adoption making it clear that our intent was not to foster, but to adopt. We have had no trouble with that. We used a non-profit agency, and they worked with the state to match us with a waiting child who became a part of our family approx. nine months after we began the process. (Not unlike our bio kids!)
Our understanding is that if you are looking for babies or very young children, that fostering is the surest way to get "first refusal" when parental rights are severed. Like your friends, we were looking for older children (7 and up). These children are harder to place. However, we were also not interested in referrals of children for whom the parental rights were not severed.
While we continue legally to be our child's foster parents until the adoption is finalized, there has never been a question of our intent or the intent of the state that this be adoption and not a foster placement.
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momof4too
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