[kannon]

Anyone adopted through the state of Oregon? We are looking for a biracial/minority baby girl. Any experiences?

[DreamsDoComeTru]

we live in ohio but are adopting our daughters through oregons foster care system.

[e&imama]

i live in oregon, am adopting from california but using an ohio based adoption faciltator.

we are adopting a biracial (asian and african american) in august. the due date is august 11th!

we used holt international children's services for our homestudy.

[kannon]

We went to the orientation for Special Needs Adoption Coalition for the State of Oregon. We signed up for the parenting classes in September. We are kind of excited!

[Barksum]

In fact, our 2nd adoption should be final any second. Feel free to email or post with any questions and I'll share my experiences.

[Mamazen]

We're currently certified foster parents and are also adopting one of our foster children through the state... it's a LONG process and we hope that we'll get to finalize before he's two. For an adoption need as specific as yours, it's not impossible but it'll be hard and a long wait... generally babies are difficult to 'find' but it's not impossible... try to network as much as possible, many babies are placed through attorneys and such. There's a shoulder to shoulder conference in portland in october I think which may be a good place to just meet people. Also, we were looking at the diversity program through heritage adoption agency because we wanted a newborn baby girl (and while w ehave two right now they will not get to stay here and we're sick of that) so you might want to try there, it's not the state but is really reasonably priced.

Best of luck!
Jen

[cj416]

I was wondering, those of you who have adopted through the state, how long after you were matched did the child finally get placed in your home? We are trying to adopt through Oregon and they are supposed to meake decision this week about 2 different children we were interested in.So, I was curious what the time frame is?

[Mamazen]

While we didn't have to deal with this issue (our son was placed with us at 4 days as a foster child) I do know that generally if you live in Oregon they try to make a transition plan when the committee makes their decision so it goes really quickly, just a few weeks. Out of state is more tricky as you have to wait for TPR and deal with interstate issues.

Good luck to you in your waiting time!!!!

[Barksum]

There is a one week waiting period after the committee reaches its decision. You will be notified as soon as the committee decides, but the child will not be told and you don't get to meet or communicate with the child for one week. After the one week mandatory waiting period, you will begin visitation.

Even tho you can't meet or talk with the child, you will be given the child's casefile to review with your caseworker and you will have the opportunity to converse with the child's caseworker regarding info disclosed and stuff. (stuff: a highly technical term that covers all the things I'm not remembering right now.)

Usually during that week you also start to make plans for transitioning the child. Since you will be dealing with interstate stuff this will have to be taken into consideration when considering the time frame from the time your match is made until the time your little Match moves in. It depends on how long it takes for the child's caseworker to file the appropriate paperwork, and how long it takes for your caseworker to file the appropriate paperwork...you get the picture.

For us (we adopted in state, so didn't have ICP's and Stuff) we were notified by our caseworker as soon as she left the committee meeting about whether we were chosen or not. If we wer chosen, we would meet with her usually the next day (or as soon as possible) to read the file, and start work to set up a visitation schedule. The visitation schedule is usually dictated by the child's caseworker, you, and the foster parents.

For instance, one of our transitions was held up because the child's caseworker had to be out of the office for a couple of weeks, and then had to be out of town for a bit, and THEN she could get to us. Sigh. But once she got to us we met the child on a Thursday and took him home on a Friday.

The other adoption was super simplistic in that the caseworkers introduced us to the foster family, told us to work out a transition plan and to let them know when the child moved. Granted, that's not normally how it goes, but that's how one of ours did!

[HappyMomAnna]

We have adopted in Oregon and our committee was held on December 18.. We knew for several weeks in advance when the committee would meet and that was a very stressful wait, but everyone had to be organized and agree on a meeting time....
As soon as the meeting was over our worker called and we knew the results. Then there was the waiting period of a week, which had to be extended because of Christmas...we understood for our children this was best to stay in Foster Care for the Holidays! But it sure was hard to wake up Christmas day without a visit from Santa!
Then we had to wait for the kid's worker to come back from his vacation! So as it turned out our little girl was only given about 48hours warning and time to look at our Family Book! Our Transition was difficult because the foster mother had a hard time letting the baby she had taken care of since he was 6-weeks old go, so our transition was actually sped up, because it was to hard for Foster mom to deal with.... We ended up at home with them on January 10. It should have taken a few more weeks in my mind, and it did end up being hard at home because I missed out on learning about some of the babies habits and likes.
Eventually, however things calmed down and by the end of Feb we had the baby on a great Schedule and his whole life seemed to fall in place. We got him 3-days before he turned one.

Remember too, that some of us go to committee more then one time, and while it hurts all the waiting and disappointment--sooner then you think you will be planning a transitions. Have fun in this time, go out to dinner, do the whole whipped cream and saran-wrap gig with your mate, take little vacations, party and live it up while you wait....because really soon all that will be a memory and you will wish you could have had more fun waiting!

[kannon]

What are the classes like? How long after you take them does the homestudy occur? We are probably going to do everything through the state via Boys & Girls Aid Society. Has anyone gone this route? What is the timeline and stress like?

[HappyMomAnna]

We did our training classes through Girls and Boys aid society. We started our Homestudy with our branch of DFS and the Adoption Caseworker there. Most of the people in our class had already started their homestudy paperwork....You can actually get the DHS Paperwork by calling their offices and asking for the Homestudy Application.... it is about 26 pages of openend questions and each of you have to complete a seperate one.
We took our classes in Fall of 2001. We had our criminal history and fingerprints Thanksgiving Weekend 2001. We turned in our completed Homestudy Applications on 2/7/02...
At that point the people we had listed as our references were sent 6-pages of open ended questions and we did have to beg them to get finished... We took a few people out to dinner, as they were terrified they would say the wrong things... But eventually we begged and fed them all and they finally sent them in.. Once the references came back to DHS we were assigned a caseworker....
We did have some minor delays given some issues about info on our homestudy--it was mostly routine stuff, medically related. One of our doctors was not so great about getting our report in.... Our Homestudy was finally registered with the State in August 02. The State recorded our homestudy that took about 6-weeks... and sometime in October we were reading the bullitens and submitting our names for sibling groups we wanted more info about....
The childrens caseworkers are asked to try and get as many interested families as possible... The Kids caseworker sorts the homestudies and contacts the families caswoorker if they think it might be a match.... If the kids worker gets to the point they think you are a match you will be given more info... Then you need to decide...are these the children you want. The kids worker does his VERY best to find three families interested and a committee is held, all the workers of the kids and the interested fmilies gather and five-uninvolved members of the committee DECIDE which family will be the best for the children in question.
We did pass on a few children who had issues we were not prepared to deal with.... But we went to committee on December 18 2002....... We came home with our children a 5 year old girl and her 1-ear old brother on January 10, 2003!!! The adoption should be final in about a month!!!!!
We actually count our officail start time as 2/7/02 because when we were taking the classes, we had not completely decided we would make this choice..... We feel that things actually went very fast...all things considered.
By the way there have been no FEES of anykind. Even the costs for transition and hotel bill for the out of town 10-nights getting the children is reimbursed. The Attorney fee is paid and the children have Oregon Health Plan until 18 even after we put them on our health plan.... and the state will continue to pay a subsidy for special needs even after it is final.... The state very much wants these children to have a home....anyone who can get through the process will be ready to accept these kids and there is so much support.....
The stress can be hard at times.... but in the end you forget all about it.... We loved the classes at boys and girls aid society and decided to work direct with DHS and i cannot even remeber why? It could be that they sent the homestudy application to us the fastest?
Please feel free to keep asking questions.

[kannon]

So, if we have our classes in November, when should we expect to have the homestudy finished? We have most of our paperwork already.

[HappyMomAnna]

If you have all of your paperwork and are almost done thats great.... If I remeber correctly you have to turn in certification of the classes with the application(?) It is going to depend on how over worked your DHS caseworker is.....
I walked my papers in and then called about a week later to find out who my worker might be? There were several weeks delay for us right there as our county only had two workers.
It honestly took us 6 months from the time we turned our application is before our homestudy was certified. We had some delays. But given the holidays I would expect delays for you as well.
Once you know who your worker is be a quiet, sweet, pain in the back of their minds. We sent little Thank you notes and left nice messages on the voice mail after hours....... It feels so slow but, once it is all finished it won't seem so bad......

[lambeausam]

We are waiting to hear back regarding a sibling group. The final selections to be sent to committee will be made this week. Does anyone know how often the committees meet? I know some counties have a set day each month.