[AKGAL]

My husband and I are doing our homestudy now to hopefully adopt a girl between the ages of 5 and 9. My question is I have read many different places that people are often competing for the same child. That even once you are told you are a match that they can change their minds. Also I have heard that this process of adopting thru a state that the child is currently in foster care in can take a year or longer even after the home study is completed and approved. Is this true? Has anyone done the homestudy and found a child this age thru a state agency. If so how long is the average wait?

I work in the human service field and have for many years with therapeutic foster care kids and homeless youth. I know that social workers are overworked so I can in a way see it taking so long. My question is are there other agencies besides going thru the states themselves that have a faster way of doing things. And where there are not so many families going after the same child. And I have also heard that many times you submit an inquiry and the state has already placed that child- that websites are not up to date.

Thanks.

[DianeS]

Everything you have heard is true. Matches do fall through. The process can take a LONG time. There are often many families who wish to adopt the same child. The state waiting child websites are often not up to date. Those are all true.

Whether or not you can use a private agency to match you with a child, instead of using the state agency, will depend on your state's laws. Some places you can and some you can't. Call your state agency and ask if there are private placement agencies or not - or look through the yellow pages under adoption agencies and see if any list adoption from foster care. But be sure to be clear in your understanding of what a private agency does - it may be able to help you adopt the type of child you wish, or it may specialize in something else, or it may only get to place children the state is unable to place. It may be faster or more helpful than the state agency, or it may be slower or more problematic. Be sure to check.

To minimize the number of people who wish to adopt the same child as you, you would need to choose the type of child who is not as popular. More families want to adopt Caucasian children than other races, so if you choose to adopt a Hispanic or African American child, there will automatically be fewer other families interested. More families wish to adopt a healthy child with few mental or behavioral disorders, so if you choose to adopt an ill child, or one with mental or behavioral problems, then there will automatically be fewer families interested. You get the idea.

(But keep in mind that competition is often good for the CHILD. The more families the child's worker has to choose from, the higher the chances that the worker can find a family exactly suited to help the child through their particular issues and problems, instead of the worker having to choose between a family who is partly but not exactly right vs making the child remain in foster care longer. So competition for a child is not necessarially something bad.)

You can also work with your worker to find children before they are listed on the state waiting child website. Placing children on the state site is usually a last resort for children who can not find a placement with any of the families who work with the agency that has custody of them. Your worker should know about children who are being discussed within the agency as needing an adoptive placement.

Also, more families are interested in adopting a child whose parental rights were terminated before they meet the child. The earlier they meet the child, the more risk there is to their heart - if TPR has not occurred, they may grow to love a child who is returned to birth family. But there are fewer people who are willing to risk their heart like that. So if you are willing to risk yours, again there will be fewer people interested in that child. The greater risk you are willing to take, the fewer other families there will be. In fact, if you are willing to take in a regular foster child at the highest levels of risk that the child still may return to birth family, with the understanding that the child will stay with you for adoption if TPR does eventually occur, then it may be that nobody else at all may even have heard about the child. But not everybody is willing to do that.

Unfortunately, there is no "average" time that it takes to get a placement. The process is too individual. Some people receive a placement of a child before their licencing is even completed, others search for a child for years. The availability of the type of child you wish to adopt can vary a lot, too. But the more knowledgabe you are of the process, the less frustrated you will be by any delays.

Hope that helps!

If you have not already done so, I encourage you to post additional questions in the "Foster Care and Adoption" forums, too. You should get additional comments and support in those forums.

[sak9645]

Also, remember that you can consider international adoption of an older child. In many cases, U.S. agencies will offer to reduce or eliminate their component of the fees, in order to get these kids adopted. You will still have to pay for things like the homestudy, USCIS paperwork, foreign fees, U.S. Embassy fees, and travel, but the total cost is often surprisingly moderate. And you are still eligible for the adoption tax credit.

Older children are available in a wide range of countries, such as Ethiopia, China, Ukraine, and Guatemala. In many cases, if the children are not adopted by a certain age, they will never be able to be adopted, and may wind up having to leave the orphanage with limited skills and little chance of getting an education, getting a job, finding a marriage partner, etc.

With China, there are two ways to adopt an older child. One is to go through the regular process, but to ask the China Center for Adoption Affairs to assign a child in your desired age range and to expedite the adoption.

The other is to go through the Waiting Child program, where certain American agencies are given lists of older kids or kids with special needs, and a couple can look at agency lists and identify a child that the couple feel they can parent. There are quite a few healthy children from 6-9 on the lists, and also some kids with very minor medical issues. All of the children have been abandoned and are legally free for adoption. While some agencies allow competition to be chosen as parents, the reality is that such competition doesn't generally occur for older kids. Parents for boys are particularly needed, because most Americans prefer girls, but there are some great older girls in need of homes.

Obviously, when you adopt internationally, you will usually be adopting a child who doesn't speak English, and this means some extra challenges. (In certain countries, the children may learn some English.) Also, you may not get full information about the child's history and emotional well-being -- but many people report not getting these things when adopting kids in the U.S. foster care system, as well.

If you want to talk about international adoption, I'd be delighted to talk with you. I must tell you that, as the Mom of a daughter from China, I am a huge fan of international adoption, because the need for families is so, so great and the future for the children can be very bleak if they are not adopted. Just PM or email me.

Sharon