[wenrl]

Hello Everyone!

My partner and I are approved in our state to adopt. However, we're considering fostercare as a better option for us.

Has anyone ever done this before? If the requirements are all the same and they're already done, does it still take forever to be approved as foster parents?

Also, what has been your best and worst experiences in foster care? Any useful tips or important things to consider?

[madfostermomma]

We did this and we had extra classes to take when we did simply because they want to hound in to you that this is foster care so REUNIFICATION is the goal - we had no kiddos so when reunification came for the child I loved and adored after 15months to someone I dont see fit as a human let alone a mother- it tore me apart. I'm still alive and have 2 fost adopt sons but it still hurts big time. Some days are better than others for me .

[TNfostermom]

We started out with a private agency to do straight adoption of a girl age 0-9. It had been a few months with nothing happening, so we told our cw we would be open to fostering. Still nothing after a few more months (they are a small private agency), so we switched to working directly with DCS doing foster care. To switch from adoption to foster care with the private agency we just told our cw. When we switched to DCS we had to get fingerprinted again, have interviews with our new cw and have another homestudy done. Not sure why but it ended up taking about six months. We were still working with the private agency until DCS placed foster children in our care. Then we were not allowed to be with both.

The hardest part of foster care has been the sibling set of three that we took. A six year old girl, a three year old girl and a two year old boy. Their parents were very difficult to deal with and the children had a LOT of behavior issues, with some suspicion of sexual abuse. We suspected the two girls were sexual with eachother. I have two bio boys ages 11 and 8. It really scared me what might happen between the childern. After three months we asked to have them moved to a foster family that would be better able to handle their problems. I believe the three year old girl also had RAD. They have since gone to live with their grandparents in another state.

We now have two baby girls and are really enjoying being foster parents. Our youngest baby will probably be going up for adoption and we plan on adopting her if that happens. We really want to adopt one girl and then foster for several years. We will be staying with ages 0-3, as I don't feel able to handle girls that have been sexually abused until my boys are out of the house. I just can't expose them to that.

[wrekdiver]

My dh and I chose this route 2 yrs ago. We were with a private agency but decided later on to "broaden our horizons" and sign up with foster agency. Fortunately, our private agency did allow us to "dual track". We ended up getting a child that we are in the process of adopting.
We had to go through a whole different process to foster than adopt. We thought the classes were really good and felt prepared for the ulitmate goal of re-unification if that occured. NOBODY could have prepared me for how hard it was to return our first fs. I felt like they were taking away "my child" and there was nothing I could do about it. I was angry and grieved and then...we got another child--and it seems like my first placement happened a lifetime ago.
Of course, finding this site was a real lifesaver. As you can read, dealing with a government institution (social services) such as this one is fraught with all kinds of aggravations that we never had to deal with from our private agencies.
But I don't think I would do it over again a different way. I have experiences and knowledge that I just couldn't gain anywhere else.
Good luck to you on your journey