[HappyMomAnna]

The conditions and terms for adoption subsidies can vary from state to state. Some are more liberal then others....Texas even offeres university tuition waivers for children who have ever recieved adoption subsidies....I understand that California is much tighter with the subsidies and pays Foster Families much then most other states.

The adoption Subsidy money is part of a Federal Program called The Safe Families Act of 1996 one of the features of these laws were to provide "assistance" to families who choose to adopt children from Foster Care. Like many federal programs each state is responsible to determine how to use the Federal Dollars. California uses a large part of their money finding good families and training them....Texas is using some of it to offset a college education. Oregon uses some of our money to fund a Post Adoption Resource center including attachment and other adoption related therapy.

Each state will determine what qualifies for an 'issue; where a subsidy is granted. For example in Oregon every child adopted from Foster Care will continue to have the 'State' medical coverage until they reach the age of 18.

In Oregon a special needs child is defined as ANY sibling group, any child placed for adoption over the age of 6 months and any child who has been in Foster Care for over a year. The subsidies can be used to cover the costs of anything not covered by our State Health insurance, any service not provieded by the public school system and social and emotional issues.

Every family who qualifies in our state is encouraged to open a subsidy agreement before an adoption is finalized even if there are NOT yet to be known issues....when this is the case families are asked to open a subsidy agreement requesting $50.00 a month. Every year the agreement is renewed--if there are no changes it continues if there are changes you request more or less and it is approved or not.

In our case we had a 5-year old little girl placed with her 1-yr old brother. The little girl is receiveing attention for mental health issues through the state and the post adoption resource center. She is receiveing special attention to education and recieves tests and evealuations at the public school. And we are recieveing a subsidy to help meet her Social and Emotional need due to the fact she had no contact with people for the first four years of her life other then the ones she could see out of the shopping cart she lived in.....her issues are real and she needs many chances to be around people is many settings. We use our funds to pay for activities that give her interaction with others both her are and in other age groups.

We do not know what needs the baby may have yet---so we recieve $50.00 a month for him at this time.

You do not have to set up an account for the child....and you do not have to prove how you use the subsidies. We were advised to ask for about the same as the current rate for Foster Parents and that generally the State would approve it no questions asked. It is when we exceed the current Foster Parent level where we would need to validat our costs.

Your best advice is to find out just how your state handles thier subsidy program---