We recently had hubby’s cousin - born in November - as a foster care placement from the time she was one month old until recently. We had to obtained an attorney and go before the judge to get her in our home…even though in the SRS manual she should have been placed here originally.
And yes, I did bring the state's manual up to her. Our problem was with the agency…or rather the SW’s supervisor who refused to place her in our home. Having recently adopted and being approved ongoing for adoptions since 2001, there wasn’t a valid reason
not to place her in our home once the uncle let the agency know about us. The supervisor refused to come into our home, talk to us and our children or anything. Flat out said she wasn't going to.
Even the SRS supervisor couldn't believe that the supervisor wouldn't come into our home or do a homestudy. Ironically, just the year before, this agency approved us for adoption!
We were familiar with this agency due to our 17 year old a/son. Because of safety issues of him around children {he had choked his brother, etc} we placed him as a child of need of care.
This was the same agency that I made several complaints on as we were not notified of our son’s case plans nor anything else regarding him. The reason the supervisor gave as to not place hubby’s cousin in our home was because we had a child as a ‘child in need of care’. Never mind that *
WE* obtained an attorney and placed him there! Ironically, had we kept him in our home, they would have probably charged us with endangering our other children. Go figure!
She tried to tell me that it was a policy they
couldn’t, but when pressed couldn’t come up with the policy for me to view!
We spent $750 to do something that this agency should have done in the first place. I was on the ‘other side of the fence’ as an adoptive parent, but with what this particular agency/Sws/Supervisor has done over the last few years, I have had my eyes opened more than once. Even with the judge’s order {
AND the SRS attorney's recommendation} that the agency place the child in our home, the Supervisor
still took her time. I later learned that this same Supervisor was interested in adopting. What do you think I thought when I heard this from no other than
her own brother-in-law!
Strangely, this is the SAME agency that not even a year before emailed me to adopt two teenage siblings with major emotional issues, but yet, this supervisor didn't want to place a healthy baby in our home.
What does that tell you?
As for relatives not coming forward right away, we had no contact over the years with this uncle due to his past lifestyle. He didn’t name us the day the baby was taken as he was embarrassed. The baby was taken because b/mom had previously had three children taken and TPR on. Uncle had no idea. We, on the other hand, had no knowledge about the baby's birth due to the uncle's age and him never fathering biological children ever. Long story... I guess what I am trying to get across is…well, every situation is different, but in our case, it definitely showed me another side to all of this.