[GingerR]

I was wondering if anyone else here has ever changed foster care agencies, and what is involved to do so. Are Continuing Education Units that you've already acquired toward renewal of your license transferrable? Do you have to get a completely new home study done?

I won't go into the details of it all, but our Family Developmental Specialist assigned to us at our agency was upset about something we did (hired an attorney for an issue regarding one of our fd's). She felt we were trying to "side-step" the system. We had a couple of not-too-pleasant exchanges over the matter, and then nothing -- as in, she has not called in over a month and has not been to our house since March 17th. I was under the impression this person is REQUIRED to do a home visit once a month.

So, needless to say, we feel completely alone as far as support goes, and do not want to deal with this agency once our current license expires. So... what are we in for to change?

Thanks in advance for any info.

[TNfostermom]

We are in the process of changing agencies right now. We were approved with a private agency back in Sept. 2004, to adopt, and later approved to do respite care and regular foster care. For months we asked about children we saw listed on the internet. Our worker seems reluctant to go out of state for an adoption for us, though she has sent our homestudy out for all the children we are interested in. We are wanting a little girl with medical issues (I have worked with handicapped children before and loved it!). So we decided to change to DCS and do regular foster care. That way we will get more placements and see what kinds and how severe of handicaps we can handle. Our private agency transferred everything to DCS that we had done (classes, bios, physicals, all the paperwork we had filled out), but would not transfer anything they had done or paid for (fingerprints). DCS also had to come out and do two homevisits. We started working on transferring everything over in Feb. and our homestudy is being written up right now. For some reason that alone is taking a month. We hope to be approved in the next few weeks.

[smlanders]

I am sorry to hear of your unpleasant experience.
Yes it is possible to change agencies. My husband and I recently changed agencies. Although our experience has been...the licensing was all transferrable and it all went fairly quickly there was one home study. And we have not had any visits since the change 2 months ago. That is unfortunate for the children in care but I am in touch with my fd caseworker frequently to answer questions or whatever it is I need for my fd or myself. Unfortunately, the caseworkers are very much over loaded here in Oregon.
I do hope your experience with change goes well, Good Luck.

[gclvaruba]

Here in GA, our private agency lost their state contract. We were told to seek out another agency to take our homestudy or they would be obligated to find someone for us.

We decided to cut out the "middle man" and had our homestudy transferred to our county. DH and I had a placement in just a little over 3 months.

[missw005]

Due to a move, I have changed my foster care agency as well as my adoption agency. And the word that comes to mind is, "OUCH!"

The foster care transfer wasn't that hard. I had to redo the fingerprinting and background checks, but they paid for it, which was nice. However, the new adoption agency also required them - but wouldn't accept my foster care ones (how inane!) - so I did have to pay for those. (Yeah, and I have to pay for fingerprinting and background checks for the school I work in every other year - Mmmm-hmmm, somehow one group can't share with the others?) Though my local police chief (we're a really small town) thinks it's funny because the County Sherriff asked him why my name keeps getting background checks and fingerprinting done when I don't have a criminal history! I can just imagine what he told him.....

Yes, your credits/hours should transfer - my new SWs accepted the certificates I got at the end of each class for proof.

And I'm a boat-rocker, too. I seem to irritate most of my SWs, mostly my adoption SWs, because I want to apply outstate to get a child (waited 7 years trying to get a child from my own state before I started making a stink about them not letting me go outstate - funny how I got a child in less than 6 months!!!!) But I'm looking for my 3rd child to adopt so I must be doing something right!

Good luck,
Sandy