[carlychan]

Hello everyone,

I need to hear opinions and experiences with moving with your foster children after TPR but before finalization. We are military and my husband has been at a school across the country since July. He will be moving to another state in August. We want to go there with him (of course). I have stayed here with our boys and FS. TPR hearing (after being delayed 3 months) is in March. It will probably go to a trial but will most likely be granted. My FS adoption worker says after that (and paperwork approval by state) we can take FS out of state with us. She said we would have to either come back here for finalization or get a lawyer in the new state and do it there. After TPR he will no longer be a foster child but an adoptive placement and that is why we can take him. We do have to get the agency there to agree to visit once a month or something to keep "tabs" on us. I think this will be fine because it is a military city and I assume they run into this more often than "normal" agencies. I LOVE our worker and she had a little meeting with my worker and their supervisior about this. I just know things don't always work as planned.

What should I expect to happen? Are there questions I should be asking or anything I should do now? Our move won't be for another 7-8 months so I do have plenty of time to plan. If it matters, our FS will have been with us for almost 2 years at that point.

Thanks for your advice and opinions!
Carly

[hkolln]

Originally Posted by carlychan

What should I expect to happen? Are there questions I should be asking or anything I should do now?

Do they have to do an ICPC? I would think in order to finalize that would be an issue since the child's court case will most likely stay in the state you are moving from. I would find out because they can take months and ours took 11 mos.

[carlychan]

My CW said that after it is an adoptive placement we do not need to do an ICPC. I thought we would have to, also. She said it is different once he is no longer a foster.

[greenrobin]

Mind you, this happened a very long time ago, but once I knew a family that had a placement of a fs straight from the hospital. When he had been in their home for about 6 months, the placement changed from foster to pre-adoptive placement. The husband was and active duty Marine and received orders for Okinawa for a 3 year accompanied tour with his family.

The family immediately went to the CPS office and started the process to take their son with them. There was a ton of paperwork and some arrangements made with the folks on the base in Oki, but the end result was that they were able to take him and do the supervisory period and finalization over there.

I would suppose that it would be much easier to move out of state than out of country. Go directly to your supervising worker. Get an attorney if necessary.

Good luck.

[mommytoEli]

i'm living the "move before finalization" nightmare now. if you are waiting until the appeals period is over after tpr, you may just want to finalize before you go. if you move before the appeals period is over, that could delay you some, as i was under the impression it could not be a true adoptive placement until that time period had passed. at that point, maybe they could get you in before you move.

our case is a little different, we moved after tpr, but prior to the appeals period and we are actually in appeals now(hearing should've been last week.), so he is still not an adoptive placement, but rather a foster child. he has to be visited by cps in our new state, but in order for that to happen, they made us re take all our path classes, redo our homestudy, prints, references, everything. we've been working on those things since JULY> our new state is SLOW....so we haven't even gotten to the part where they will come and supervise us. it hasn't worked out at all like our old state said it would, mostly bc new state seems to be the one calling all the shots. i tell my tale just to say, be sure you know what you are getting yourself into. i wouldn't do it any other way either, bc i wanted to be with the rest of my family, but man, it is very complicated! also, in the meantime, no one really acknowledges him. he has no health care through either state, new state won't even give him WIC. so be sure that your insurance will cover him during the transition period before he is your son.

good luck!

[committedsoul]

Hi All!!!

I just moved to NC from Maine and I have not had any issues whatsoever. Maine was very good about processings address changes and when I went into the Medicaid office to get B signed up, his paperwork was already sitting on the workers desk!!! Maine had already sent it!! They haven't missed a beat with his subsidy or anything else.

I do have to go back to Maine to finalize, however... Hopefully soon...

I was also told that because he is an adoptive placement, no ICPC is necessary... I don't know how true it is, but the caseworker in the Medicaid office knew he is a foster child and went along as if it was pretty common...

I hope to finalize soon...

[carlychan]

I am so EXCITED to hear your stories. Although I don't expect it to be easy it does sound competely possible. Should I get in contact with the receiving county in NC now?

[committedsoul]

Originally Posted by carlychan

Should I get in contact with the receiving county in NC now?

I didn't have to get in touch with anyone... the state of Maine did all of the paperwork and legwork... All I had to do was visit the DHHS office...

Honestly, I am VERY suprised at how smoothly things have gone... I wish the same for you...

[hkolln]

Originally Posted by carlychan

My CW said that after it is an adoptive placement we do not need to do an ICPC. I thought we would have to, also. She said it is different once he is no longer a foster.

Interesting because we had to do both a foster ICPC and then once TPR happened an adoption ICPC. Seems odd they won't do one unless they are moving jurisdiction to the new state?

[ranoutofnames]

You might find out if the state you are moving too has a waiting period before you can adopt.

FC may be different but I know my co-worker's son was living in a state that required you be a resident with the child in that state for 6 months before the adoption could go through. Their situation was a little different where he was wanting to adopt his step-son... and it had nothing to do with parental rights of the bio-dad, bdad is in jail and had signed over his rights to the child before the baby was born. The baby was conceived via a "date rape drug".... so it definitely didn't have anything to do with the bio-dad.

[carlychan]

Anyone move to NC have any experience? I may have to make this a new thread, but thought I would ask here first.

[committedsoul]

Well, as I stated earlier, I just moved to NC... Harnett county... I'm about 15 minutes from Fort Bragg. If there is anything I can answer, feel free to PM me.