[kxl164]

RobinKay I understood what you meant.

You do not know what is in someone's mind.

You say it is wrong to agree to foster when you really want to adopt in order to get a younger child or a child more quickly. You say people should be up front and honest about their agenda and not try to manipulate a situation just to keep a child.

I agree that people should be honest. But I think you are mixing up up hope with a goal. It is not wrong to foster a hope of adoption while fostering a child.

There are very few times when a foster family even has the chance to manipulate a situation, and if it does occur it is usually coming down to a decision between a foster family and kinship family placements or straight adoptive parents.

It is never between birthparents and a foster family. (Which is what foster care is really all about.) The system isn't set up that way. If a birthparent complete thier program the kids go home. The ONLY times a decision about placement can occur which would look at the foster family vs. someone else is a kin or kith placement, or between the foster family and an adoption by non-relative placement.

Your point, if I am understanding you correctly, is that if those foster parents who have a child and did not say at the outset they would like to be adoptive parents and were just trying to put themselves in a positition to have a child placed with them sooner or get a younger child then they should lose that child for lack of honesty.

Why?

You say it is because it is wrong and dishonest to do so.

I say that even if they did it is still better for the child to remian in an appropriate and loving home.

Foster parents are foster parents first. Their job is to help reunify families. When it comes to adoption then things change. You think it is wrong to foster in hopes to adopt, or say you will foster while really wanting to adopt. I say it isn't and that is exactly why more and more agencies are dual licensing people.

You think children shouldn't be with parents who are decietful. Again, I don't think you know what is in someone else's mind. It may appear that they are trying to manipulate the system when in fact they aren't and they DID change their mind. It may appear that someone is trying to get a placement faster by agreeing to straight foster, but often times people are encouraged to foster (by social services) for that exact reason.

I don't agree with people being dishonest, but in foster care things are constantly changing. Maybe they weren't being honest with themselves and were really hoping to adopt but didn't recognize that fact, maybe they did "fall in love with a child" and changed their minds, or maybe they were out to try and adopt sooner and if they were, and it means one less move for the child, then the child benefits by being with a loving family who was willing to foster first in the hopes of adopting.

For whatever reason a foster family goes in fostering and then wants to adopt, for whatever reason.... the child still benefits by staying in a loving home with people they know, it is the adults who have to adjust themselves.

Maybe I just don't think peple are as deceitful as you do, I haven't been in your shoes. I have seen foster only parents adopt to the mutual joy of everyone involves. I have seen straight adoptive parents get a placement of a child from a foster home again to the mutual joy of everyone. I have seen people change their minds and I have had long conversations with people at social services about dual licensing. Here, dual licensing was promoted to make things easier for people who change their minds, and to help families who fostered in hopes to adopt do so.