[luckybunn]

I finally got my license, We are so happy!!!!!!!!!!

I would like some tips on what to expect now?

When the Social workers bring the children (in my case babies) to my house will they check all the rooms like my case worker did?

Do they stay long, do I need to offer drinks?

Does my house always have to be clean? (my house is clean, just not always picked up!)

If I receive a child with little to no info. how many days should I wait till I start calling the Social Workers and ask questions about the child's history?

I want to take care of infants that are born addicted to drugs and alcohol. I live in Colorado and supposedly they have quite a few babies that come in to my area. My original case worker said I should not have a problem receiving these babies, but another caseworker just told me a few days ago that there supposed to place the children under 6 in foster to adopt homes.

We have stated that we will adopt if we have a baby in our home that comes available for adoption, we are not against adoption but we are not doing foster care to get a chance at adoption.

I'm now wondering if we will not be receiving any calls because our home is not a foster adopt home. I would think in a perfect world that it would work this way. But I can't imagine that for all the children under 6 that come into care that they would have enough foster adopt homes. What do you think??

Also is any one else from Colorado? I'm in Pueblo county.

[Howdy]

I don't know the answers to your questions, but I live in Colorado and am in the foster-to-adopt (Legal Risk) program and they told us that they only place children with us if they feel pretty confident that the children will be adoptable. They said they were right about 85% of the time (though they told us we should each think of our own chances as 50-50).

So, I don't see how that caseworker could be correct to say they are supposed to place all the young children with foster-to-adopt homes, because there would be many babies that they would expect would be re-united either with birth parents or other relatives.

[jodyk]

I'm in Michigan, and each time I've gotten my fs (I've had the same child twice), I went to the agency to get him. They said they could bring him to me, but it was on my way home & easier for me to pick him up. Somebody from Child Protective Services came 2 days after I got him the first time, but nobody did the 2nd time, presumably because he'd already been in my care. He was sleeping at the time, so she just peeked in on him. She never wandered around the apt., & didn't stay more than 10 minutes.

The caseworker was the only one who had any information about him, and then, it wasn't much. My agency does not disclose much information; they say it's for confidentiality reasons.

I'm ALWAYS worried about the cleanliness of my apt. when my cw comes, but she rarely goes past the living room. Still, I make an attempt to clean before she comes, just because I don't feel right if it's too messy when she arrives. (Very hard for a person with pack rat genes and very few cleanliness ones ) But, I think it's just the licensing workers who are overly concerned with the condition of the home.

Good luck to you. I'm sure you'll be getting children; you just have to be patient.

[sharkey]

I've never had a social worker bring a child to my home. I've picked them up from the group home/previous foster home/relative. Usually the only time they look at all your rooms is at licensing although sometimes the investigator from their attorney's office have talked to them in their rooms. As long as your home looks safe and reasonably clean you shouldn't have a problem.