[Abdulina]

Hello. Don't visit this forum much as I have 7 internationally adopted children. However, we have seriously thought about adopting through the foster care system as of late. If we do, we'd love to adopt a sibling group. Now, a know alot of things vary from state to state. I ahve a basic question though that maybe some of you have experience with. Knowing that most children would require therapies and such, do you know if you adopt a child out of state, do they qualify for a subsidy. We live in NC. Say we want to adopt out of Oklahoma or WA or somewhere else. Is it possible to receive a subsidy from a child adopted out of state? Forgive me but my knowledge of foster care adoption is limited as all my experience is with Russia. All 7 of mine are special needs. We have everything from RAD to FAS to missing limbs to probably whatever other alphabet combo you can think of --LOL. So I know that any more children coming into the home that would also be special needs, would require therapy as well. Do kids coming from foster care get medicaid coverage? I've heard this before and trying to seperate fact from fiction. Thanks in advance for any light you can shine. I do appologize if these questions seem basic/ or stupid. Just new to this aspect of adoption. And before we really and truly decide to dot his, I want to make sure I know everything about all this. Also, how long are you followed by a social worker? We are followed for 3 years w/ Russia. Just curious. Thanks again.

Take care,

[mrsred]

Yes, even if you adopt out of state you will receive a subsidy and medicaid. The states work together to create an inter state compact. I have never adopted from out of state, but there are plenty here who have. When you adopt from the foster system, generally they will receive medical coupons till they are 18, plus in the adoption support agreement they will agree to pay for mental health care till they are 18. Of course they prefer you to find a therapist/psycologist/etc that accepts medical coupons, but it isn't that hard to get adoption support to pay for therapy. You should also recieve a monthly stipend that will be based on the special needs of the child. Stipends vary greatly from state to state.
How many do you have still at home?? You are either dedicated or crazy, I am not sure which!

[Abdulina]

Thanks for the info. All 7 of ours are still at home. Ages, 4, 7, 8, 8, 12, 12, & 14. We have learned alot over the years. And yep, I think we are insane. B/c there are days that I just want to find a quiet place (greatest challenge at our home!) and forget I have kids--LOL. BUT, then there are days that we have alot of fun. I think this is true of any parents, adopted or bio, special needs or not. I know we have the frame of mind for more children. I'm just making sure finances would be okay. We spend more on meds each month than most families would spend in a year. I'm not worried about the children coming being covered medically as we have great coverage. But the meds add up so quickly that I think it would be a strain if they were not covered. Not saying all kids coming from foster care would need meds. Just saying in case they do, we need to be prepared financially. Also, adding a large sib group would require so much more food. I'm good at budgeting but I want to make sure that we don't go in the hole each month. Yet, don't want anyone thinking this is "just for the money either."" That is totally NOT it as I've heard you don't get much anyhow--LOL. Meds are my main concern just b/c we pay so much now. The new kids would be able to be on our insurance for sure. we have wonderful insurance. Reason I'm asking is we would love to find a sib group of 5 or more kids. There are so many sib groups that get overlooked. We are used to being a big family now anyhow. Plus, if we do this, we only want to adopt one more time and complete our family. Does any of this make sense or am I just babbling? If I am, I am so sorry. Just need tomake sure I'm informed before we decide to take the plunge. We have a homestudy yet would need to update due to # of kids we are considering.

As for the process, how long does adopting from foster care usually take? What's the protocol? Does there have to be a certain # of visits before you can bring them home? Again, a newbie here so bare w/ me.

Thanks again for taking the time to help us out w/ what we are thinking. We're not worried about "issues" as we've dealt w/ so much already. Most of ours have mental/ behavioral issues. RAD, FAS, Devel. delays, PTSD, ADHD, emotional immaturity, past abuse, etc. everyting under the sun for the most part. Yet, we've all learned to live as a family. Definitely does NOT happen over night but w/ time and alot of work, it can happen.

Take care,

[MomwithFive]

I believe, well at least here, there is a limit on how many children you can have and they include bio children in that. Here, I think, it is a total of 6 children in the home for foster to adopt.

[Abdulina]

Amazing! I had no idea there was a limit to fostering to adopt. I know the homestudies are thorough adn such but no idea there was a limit. I mean, this is something we've obivously been putting a lot of thought into. I was going to call our Social Services division Tuesday and start asking questions. I guess the first should be how many children may you have at home if you want to adopt through the foster care system? Thanks MomwithFive. I guess I never thought about it as I personally know many very large families who've adopted through the system. Definitely will check. We honestly can't see ourselves w/ more than 12. I think that is our absolute limit. Years ago, I thought it was 2--LOL. But we still want to be able to spend quality time w/ each child. As they get older, they don't really want too much time w/ mom and dad though. Teenagers are wanting to be w/ friends more. Though we make ours have family time w/ us at least once a week. Mandatory here. Also, we do mini family day trips at least once to twice a month. October is camping time for us.

Again, thanks for letting me know as I had no idea about there possibly being a # on how many you can have at home.

Take care,

[scandi]

I believe there is a limit on fosterering to adopt because of licensing requirements. IF you go out of state then it is usually an adoptive placement and then I don't believe there is a limit because the fostering license is either put on hold or dropped. I heard of a family in northern MN who recently got an adoptive placement of a sibling group from TX that made their total number of children to 14. So, there are ways of having larger families. There are also several parents of large families who blog - if you are interested in their sites PM and I can get you the info. One of them has 23 children mostly from the fostercare system I believe. Though some are now adults.

[jackiesbooks]

Did you call DSS? What state are you in?

[Abdulina]

Never got around to calling DSS yet as we've had some major medical issues come up here lately. My one daughter had a botched surgery job done on her arm and may lose the use of her arm completely. Long story. She is going back in on Monday for surgery. My other son(deaf) needs to be implanted ASAP but fighting the hospital to do it. URghh. So, been busy. I still plan on calling but have to wait for the fires to burn out first so to speak. And the IEP meetings lately . Just can't take many more of those!

Still in the serious thinking stages of it all. Whenever we make a decision to adopt, we always make sure we are prepared emotionally, mentally, physically and financially for another child. Still making sure we would be okay financially. That's the scary part each time. Yet, no ones gone hungry here. Instead, they eat me out of house and home!!! Sometimes, I do believe a troft would make more sense here--LOL.

Let everyone know how it goes once we get the time to call. I do know we don't want to do anything till spring of 2008.

Take care,

[Laura Milcsik]

Although I'm new to the group I feel I can give some info on this subject at least, since my husband and I were foster parents and were eventually able to adopt the little girl in our care. Rule about foster care vary widely state to state, so first you should contact the state that you live in, which ever dept handles foster care. We live in NJ, so it is called the Division of Youth and Family Services or DYFS. In NJ, the goal of foster care is NOT adoption, but reunification with the birth parents-even birth parents who have abused and neglected their children severly. For this reason, the court system and social workers from DYFS will give bio parents access to whatever help they feel will enable them to become good parents, such as anger management classes, drug or alcohol rehab, parenting classes, job training, therapy...whatever the caseworker feels will help. The bio parents are then ordered by the family court judge to participate in whatever DYFS social workers deem necessary. If they do, they stand a good chance of getting their kids back. If they violate the court order and do not follow the recommendations, most judges will give them another chance, and in many cases several chances, to comply, because again, in NJ the stated goal of the foster care system is not to have the children adopted but to reunite them with their bio parents, or at least one bio parent. A LOT depends on how the case is presented to the judge by the social worker (ie she is really trying judge but was unable to comply this month because....-whereas other social workers are much less lenient in how they phrase things to the judge) It also depends somewhat on the judge's personal feelings toward adoption and whether its better for the child to be raised by its bio parents who may not be the best of parents, or by adoptive parents which will destroy family bonds. At least DYFS here is totally honest with prospective foster parents and will tell you in effect, "We are not an adoption agency." We heard every month when our social worker visited that we are "just" foster parents or "caretakers" and that we should not get too attached to our baby because they were trying to get her back with her real mother, or as a second best alternative, with a bio relative.

This policy unfortunately has resulted in a lot of children who are now available for adoption, meaning that parental rights have been terminated, but they are now considered hard to place because they are often teenagers or part of large sibling groups. Some of them have spent their entire lives in foster care but have only recently become available for adoption, and now, because many people want children as young as possible, these kids are just not as likely to be adopted.

Our state recently passes a law that is supposed to make the process much faster-and I hope it works. I think many people hesitate to consider becoming foster parents because they fear that they will grow to love their foster child, and then one day DYFS will come to take that child away. That stopped my husband and me from even considering foster care for a long long time, until we heard about our daughter, whose parents rights were "almost certainly" going to be terminated due to the past track record they had of noncompliance with court orders and due to the fact that all of their children were in foster care. So we felt somewhat more comfortable but we were only willing to foster her. We were able to specify her because one of my cousins was fostering 4 of her half siblings, and so DYFS could satisfy part of its goal of keeping siblings together, In our case, not in the same house, but at least in the same extended family so she will always know at least 4 of her brothers and sisters. It also helped that DYFS classified her as "Special Needs" because she is biracial. In fact, we learned after we adopted her that we will continue to get our foster parent subsidy until she is either 18 because she is a special needs child, according to them. We could have elected to keep her insurance Medicaid but since we have good health benefits we chose instead to put her on our family health insurance.

But every state probably has different rules-I don't know if every state considers a bi-racial child to be a special needs child for example. I also don't know if every state gives birthparents so many chances, or whether other states are more concerned with getting the child into a stable loving home as soon as possible.

And also-in NJ and I would guess most other states, the rules change when you are talking about kids with any kind of serious medical or psychological problem, or with kids in large sibling groups. They are probably going to be easier to adopt, either because the parents abandoned them, or the rights have already been terminated-so they are in effect just waiting for someone to want to adopt them. To the best of my knowledge, all of these children receive larger monthly checks which will continue even after the adoption is completed.

In our case, it took almost exactly 2 years from the time our daughter was placed with us to the time we adopted her-and that was considered to be a short wait. One of my friends was a foster parent to a 2 year old with mild medical problems but she and her husband really wanted to adopt him. They had him for 3 years when one of his bio aunts stepped forward and said she wanted to adopt him. He was taken from them and placed with the aunt, and they arent allowed to find out even through 3rd parties how he is doing. I am sure he was fairly well traumatized since my friends were the only parents he'd ever known and he was then sent to live with what was to him, a total stranger, even though she was a relative. My friends were devastated-even though DYFS warns you over and over that they WANT the child to be placed with its "real" family, its something you kind of put in the back of your mind, especially when you have a child in your care for so long. I am happy to say though that after a few months they accepted another placement of a 13 month old twins with developmental delays, and after 4 long years of court dates and uncertainty, they were finally able to adopt them last month.

I also forgot to say that if you are interested in older children or children with problems that are severe either medically or emotionally, your chances of a shorter wait to adopt and eventually being able to adopt are much better. At least in NJ

But definately every state is different-I have cousins in Indiana whose rules sounded totally different than NJ's rules.

And altough I know the various state agencies work together to try to find homes for hard to place children, I have no idea how this process works, and if those children are already free for adoption or if you would have to go through the foster care waiting game.

I think your best first step in finding out what to do, is to contact your state agency and explain that you are interested in fostering/adopting-and if special needs is what you are mainly interested in make sure that they know that. And keep after them-sometimes we got lost in the shuffle of unaswered phone calls, misplaced documents....we found we had to be a little pushy at times.

[Laura Milcsik]

Forgot one thing, NJ does have a limit as to how many children you can have at once but its based not on a set number but on the size of your home. Each child is supposed to have a certain amount of space that is his/hers alone. They also have a rule about boys and girls sharing rooms-I think they can up to age 18 months but after that they can't. Again this is just NJ and other states are probably different.

[cindmo]

Wow your life is quite a story!! I am VERY impressed. There is a child limit in foster care, BUT it is for people doing foster care-limit of six children. If you just want to adopt a sib. group I believe that rule doesn't apply to you. (= Also if you adopt special needs most will come with Medicaid (good in any state), and some will come with a small monthly $. We have adopted two special needs through foster care. I sent you an e-mail, now I would like to adopt from Russia. Gotta get the family on board. My teenage sons would like us to adopt a girl their age. lol Cindy

[mama2-8]

I think most people answered your questions already, so all I will add is thank you for having the courage to adopt.
The Journey

[timleenettesue]

You are an insperation! Please keep us updated!!!