[UTbrie]

I live in Medina County Ohio and just discovered yesterday at an open house that they will not let anyone take the foster parenting courses unless you will take children 12 or older. I have been talking to a social worker for months, waiting for these classes to begin. Never mentioned anything like this, and I did give her quite a bit of backround information including my age range 0-7. I am only 26 years old and single. I have no kids of my own and I believe an older child for me would be not in the best interest of the child. Has anyone else been turned down JUST because you won't take in older children?

[SweetyBaby]

Even though we don't have this situation here, but I do think they should have told you that before. I know where we live there is a great need for teens. A lot are in group homes and they move them out. I'm also looking to foster younger children due to the ages of my own kids, but would take older children if it weren't for that. Maybe they just need people to take older kids more right now. I do have to say that because you are younger you may do very well with older children. Being single may make it harder for younger kids. They take a lot of work. Just a thought. I wish you luck with whatever happens.

[mommytoEli]

where i live i believe the lowest age they want you to request is 0-9. they say in our county that there are MANY empty homes because people will only accept small children, and there just aren't many. But there is a great need to place teens, but not enough families to place them with. so i understand not wanting to license families here who are not willing to provide care for the ages needed....because it would be a waste of money and time for them to license homes they won't use. at the same time, i believe they should be very upfront from the very beginning so everyone knows what is going on. i will say that i believe where i am, they do that. we got licensed anyway because we are adopting a child from out of state, but i know once our adoption is final, that phone won't ring with a new foster placement, because we will only take placements younger than our youngest child who is one and a half. lol. in our rather large county, there are currently TWO children in foster care in the 0-2 range.

[quiescentfury]

I live in the same county!!! We do not foster through the county because we go with a private agency, I will PM you the info, and get much more support than the county provides. We did go to the info session 2 1/2 years ago. they did not tell us that, but did say they really don't place many young kids. Also the time frame the county gave to getting a homestudy was 1 year. We did not want to wait that long. I believe our agency is 3 months.

[millie58]

that's probably because of the economy. I've been hearing that kids aren't being taken from families as much and it's expensive to put older kids in RTCs. It does suck though!! try an agency. I found out recently that the Salvation Army does foster care.

[fredalina]

We ran into a similar situation when we went to our first resource parent meeting in August. We'd first called and applied last March, and talked to several people in the meantime, and heard many different stories. Originally we wanted straight adoption, but at that first meeting they said they only do straight adoption for kids 9+, with severe needs, or who are part of a sibling group of 3 or more kids. We're open to 2 kids but not 3, at least not until we had some experience. We were open to kids age 3-9, so that didn't work for us.

We went to lunch, talked it out, and decided we were okay with foster/adopt, so we still fit in the program. It was very frustrating to hear 5 months into the process, though. Of course, we're now a couple of weeks into being licensed and no placements. i'm expecting a long wait.

[wohiomom]

I think you should have been told earlier but with all the budget cuts maybe it's a new policy. I grew up in Medina county. We're licensed with our county in the western part of the Ohio. We're licensed for 0-6 for just over a year. We're open to sibling groups. We have one placement a 2 yr old girl. That being said my husband and I are already discussing what to do at relicensing since our county has so few placements. There are only 7 children in foster care total currently. Part of the reason is if we're able to adopt this foster daughter (it's pretty likely) we'd like to have other children somewhat close to her age and also it's silly to do all the work to be licensed and then be empty. There's got to be some younger kids needing homes especially since we're foster as well as adopt.
I'd love any PM about Ohio agencies.

[quiescentfury]

I pmed you. Also here is a link to Ohio's adoption guide. At the end is a list of all county agencies and all private agencies. Many of the private agencies do fostercare also. You just have to call and ask. http://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/forms/file.asp?id=54894

[laceyc]

Move to OK, in my area they are in desperate need of foster homes. Most in the schoolage range but our CW has been in contact with different community groups trying to get out the word that more foster homes are needed. There are only 5 families in our PRIDE class and there are usually 15-20.

[Ssumner]

We just met with our case worker and she said there is such a need for foster families for school age children (under 8 years old). We live in Illinois. I guess it just depends on where you live.

I also did hear that alot of times they will say that the state is only looking for foster homes to take in older children (especially boys) to weed out the families that only want young kids.

Good luck!

[polacmel]

Originally Posted by UTbrie

I live in Medina County Ohio and just discovered yesterday at an open house that they will not let anyone take the foster parenting courses unless you will take children 12 or older. I have been talking to a social worker for months, waiting for these classes to begin. Never mentioned anything like this, and I did give her quite a bit of backround information including my age range 0-7. I am only 26 years old and single. I have no kids of my own and I believe an older child for me would be not in the best interest of the child. Has anyone else been turned down JUST because you won't take in older children?

I am in Medina County, too. When I saw your post I thought I would look elsewhere to do the pre service. Have you looked in other counties? I was thinking Wayne or Summit would be the best bets.

[111holmes]

Originally Posted by Ssumner

We just met with our case worker and she said there is such a need for foster families for school age children (under 8 years old). We live in Illinois. I guess it just depends on where you live.

I also did hear that alot of times they will say that the state is only looking for foster homes to take in older children (especially boys) to weed out the families that only want young kids.

Good luck!

That’s what we were told also (we live in NC), but once we were licensed (we are just straight adoption)we have not gotten a call yet!! We have gotten a couple referrals maybe 3, but we have put our names in on these children, but still not call!! The wait is terrible!!!!

[quiescentfury]

For such a sm aller county in Ohio I am shocked that there are three of us from Medina County on here.