[RebeccaHowe]

Hi everyone, my name is Becca and I'm a student at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. I am writing a paper for one of my classes about adoption and I'd love the opportunity to talk to a few people for the paper. I'm also interested in adoption for myself and my partner in the future--hence the topic for my paper to begin with!

I'm really happy that this project has led me to this forum and to research other information about adoption and foster care, it's got me really excited for future adoptions. I've enjoyed reading a lot of your responses!

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in answering some or all of the following questions. My paper is focused on costs of adoptions/foster care/foster-to-adopt programs, and basically just talks about the data for those things, as well as the percentages of kids in foster care that don't seem to get enough placements, as well as how many of those foster kids are minorities. And I'd love to give some local focus, too, so if anyone of you have gone through this process in Philly, that's awesome!

1. When did you start your foster process, and what kind of placements did you sign up for? Did that change over time?

2. Did you ever consider using an adoption agency instead of foster-to-adopt?

3. What has your experience been as far as adoption for minority kids? How about older kids?

4. Have you seen any trends in cost as it relates to minority adoptions?

5. Have you seen any trends in cost as it relates to straight-adoptions?

6. What else do you have an opinion about as it relates to costs of adoption/the way things are run?

Thanks so much to anyone who is interested! I can send you the paper as it is right now (about 800 words), to which some of your responses would be added to give it a little bit of flavor of real people doing real care for children.

Becca
you can also email me directly at bizzey [at] gmail [dot] com.

[jbee]

i can reply to a few things that were applicable...we adopted fs2 after having him since 4mo, he was approx 21 mo when we finalized. we were not looking to adopt, we got him and bio mom as foster kids and she ran off so we got to keep him. he is biracial aa and cc.
1. we have been fostering a little over 2 years. we signed up for any kids w/o major medical (like wheelchair, cause our home is inaccessible, or anything requiring alot of 'help' because we had 2 little ones of our own) and no kids with sexual issues likely to perp on our kids. we still take the same. now we have 2 teenage boys, so we have to take older boys or young girls, cause we can't have teen mixed sexes.
2. no, because we can have more bios if we want and our son kind of fell into our laps.
3. we had no issues with family, friends, caseworkers, because our son was biracial. we are cc and nobody seemed to care about his race.
6. we were fine with the cost, we were reimbursed for up to 2k, i think, but it wasn't that much. our new stipend kind of sucks, because we were getting 40 dollars a day when our son was a fc, now we get 15. but compared to what some people on here get, we are fine with it. he also gets state insurance until 18, which is great. he has no medical probs that we know of, no mental issues either, yet. i believe if something develops we can address that in our yearly stipend signup we do annually.
overall we were happy. we just wish we could afford to keep more kids...adopting would lower the number of fosters we could have (we can have 6 kids total, up to 3 fkids w/o a waiver) and it would be hard to afford a growing family with a decreasing income.
hope this helps. sorry so long.

[AngelArrow]

Hi I have not been on this board for ages, but I like to reply to your questions. 1. We started the process in 2005 Az straigth adoption former foster parents 93 until 98. We work with older kids 12-18 boys/girls 2. they are differences here in Az among agencies some charge for straight adoption some dont foster/adoped is no fee. 3. Here in Az 35% are hispanic children in foster care and the majorty are older children. 4. I have not seen any trends regarding cost I assume it is the same across the board. 5. Yes I have some agencies charge and some dont it depends on the agency and they guidelines. 6. The cost of an adoption out of foster care is not the real issue I believe. Many of the children I work with have been in foster care for years aging out and having no where to go. Az has approx. 2700 foster/adoped homes with 3000 children in grouphomes. Why? Sw overworked and have in my opinion problems with control issues no team work with foster parents. Kids are a number and a casefile. We need more sw that care and value teamwork not I have the power attidude. This is just my view on fostercare/adoption. Good luck with your paper I wrote a paper last semester on the Effects on adolescent aging out of foster care I came across that here in Az 75% of the prison population are former foster kids and 1in 4 older kids end up homeless this goes for all ethnicty. Do I blame the case workers "No" The system "No" society? The cost of an adoption "No" Fighting for the kids "yes" Good luck

[Yash]

1. When did you start your foster process, and what kind of placements did you sign up for? Did that change over time?
I turned in my application in May 2004 and began classes July 2004. I signed up for fost/adopt placements only. In May 2006, I became open to straight fostering.


2. Did you ever consider using an adoption agency instead of foster-to-adopt?
No.


3. What has your experience been as far as adoption for minority kids? How about older kids?
My son's adoption was smooth and simple. My daughters' have been nightmares. My oldest daughter's CW was a racist and had my daughter moved from my pre-adoptive home. My youngest daughter's CW has made this placement and adoption difficult but I think this is due to her lack of common sense and the high she is experincing from all the power she has as a CW.


4. Have you seen any trends in cost as it relates to minority adoptions?
I've never adopted privately, but from the articles I've read, agency inforrmation, talking to other parents, it seems that minorty adoptions are less expensive than non-minority adoptions.


5. Have you seen any trends in cost as it relates to straight-adoptions?
In foster care, all the adoption costs are the same regardless if you do straight adoption or fost/adopt.