[anita hawk]

My husband and I are trying to foster/adopt my 9 and 10 year old nieces.icpc has been started,we have to start foster classes next week and do fingerprints.We live in colorado,the Girls are in washington.We have not seen or talked to the kids as of yet.caseworker said that it would hurt kids to hear from us!!How are we suppose to know what kids want if we cant talk to them?What are we suppose to do now to proceed?When will we know if we pass all the hoops they are putting up?Please Help if you can!!Any advice will be helpful

[MBelt8402]

I am not sure what to tell you. I don't understand why they feel that contact with you would hurt the kids. That seems strange to me. How long have they been in care? I would ask the CW why he/she feels it would hurt the children. Depending on her answere, I would push for contact.

[Nicole Elaine]

All I can say is PUSH, PUSH, PUSH. Push to talk to them. Don't let the system turn around and eventually say you didn't get them because you didn't contact them early on. Honestly, I wouldn't give the caseworker too much of a choice, unless CO has some kind of law preventing you from legally being able to talk to them. I would ask her WHERE and HOW you can get ahold of the children, even if it's just sending a letter.

[jackiesbooks]

Have the children been in care a long time? When is the last time you saw them? Don't know your details, but my FS aunt wants him. They will not let Aunt visit him until her homestudy is done. The reason - he does not know her (last time she saw him he was an infant). He has been in care 19 months. They are afraid that they will start visits and she will not get approved.

[mommyj]

We fostered our infant niece last year. The one piece of advice I tell everyone who is thinking about fostering, either their relatives or a foster child, is to consult with an attorney immediately. We wish we would have hired an attorney from the moment we found out they took our niece away from her parents. But don't let social services know that you have consulted with an attorney or they will make your life very difficult. They do not like to be questioned on anything (we found this out the hard way and eventually lost our niece - long story; too long to go into here).

If you can, get in touch with an attorney now. They can tell you what your rights are (if you have any) and if this is the best way to help your nieces. We were devestated when they took our niece away from us and when we hired an attorney, we found out that here in CA, we did not need to go through social services foster program to take care of our niece. We could have applied for guardianship the moment she was removed from the home because she is our relative. Now we have to wait to apply until the judge rules on reunification or TPR. And we also found out that they cannot deny us having contact with our niece because we are her blood relatives.

My best advice I can give you is don't believe anything social services tells you. Research, research, research.

Justine