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I'm sorry to hear about that. It does seem that there's been a rash of people refused for what seem to be small reasons, lately. wonder what's in the water?
You did say that you explained about the missed court date in your appeal - but did you explain about the tickets and the missed court date in your original homestudy??? Not volunteering information that might make you look bad is considered a HUGE thing around here. If they had to find out about it on their own because you didn't explain it (or didn't explain it fully) when you had your first opportunity leads them to think that there may be other things that the family didn't mention. It's something that can get a family excluded from consideration for years around here - even if the actual infraction was tiny, it's the not talking about it that's considered concerning.
Same thing with what the explanation consists of. If in the original homestudy the family explains breaking a law by saying they couldn't help it, they had to, there was no way around it, then the agency assumes that given that same scenario again, the family would do the same thing again. The explanation you posted on this board that nobody could avoid speeding down a hill when the limit was 25 would seriously concern an agency where I live. It implies that the family knows that hill is hard to drive on at the correct speed, yet they continue to drive that vehicle down that hill - multiple times. And therefore that they would do the same thing with foster children in the car. An explanation that the family is sorry, that they know the problem and its cause now, and that they avoid that hill all the time (or drive on it with a different vehicle) or whatever - something like that goes over much better than an explanation that leads the agency to think such behavior would be repeated. They want to know that it won't be repeated, ever, even if the situation gets set up the same that you'd make different decisions.
It's tough. Some agencies are sticklers for how things are explained, and extremely zealous for the safety of the children in their care, and for the appearance of safety. If your family can honesty say that you've learned your lesson and make different decisions now, then you really might want to contact a different agency and see what they say. You could start with a phone call about the tickets and failure to appear charge - then you'd know right away if that would be an issue.
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