[FosterMom2002]

Hello it's me again FosterMom2002. We just went to CCC for our 8 month old and they told us that they will be putting our family on "HOLD" for 1 year so the kids can adjust to the adoption! Makes no since to me considering that #1 adoption will be final 9/04 and he has seen plenty of children 23 to be exact leave this house. #2 adoption we have had since birth and she doenst know any difference. Please has anyone else gone through this please let me know. I think this is crazy. Thank you! Soon to be mom of 5 instead of 3!!!!! Yeah

[HappyMomAnna]

It is an Oregon policy that once a pre-adoptive child is placed no more children can enter the home for a year....

The state is not only concerned with the pre-adoptive placements but they also have deep concern for any new children that might enter the home.

Oregon has a very low rate of disruptions with Adoptions and this one year rule is one of the reasons the State feels the disruption rate has been reduced to such low numbers.

Oregon wants your family to meld together and offer yourselves a year of fun and getting to know not only the child/children being adopted but how your family functions...

I understand how depressing it is to be told this news....But, Oregon is doing such a great job on making adoption work that it is difficult to argue with sucess!

I am sorry this is hard for you--but I think you might be surprised when the year is over and that you might actually find yourself agreeing with this policy and the reason for it.....

[riley6]

It seems insane to me that they will place both kids in your home, but you have to wait to finalize on one bc you just finalized on another? I'm so glad we don't have that insane! rule here.

Will they allow you to continue to foster while waiting to finalize #2 adoption?

[riley6]

Ok, after reading Anna's remark, I guess I misinterpretted your post. Do you mean that they won't finalize on #2 until a certain time passes from adoption #1 or that they won't place fc in your home until a certain time after adoption #2?

We finalized this year and have continued to do respite care. The longest we had children for has been a week, most are weekend Fri thru Sun. If another fc became available, they'd place him with us, but we've now changed our license to under 5 bc I want them younger than my dd. We also don't do babies and have no stuff for babies, so I guess our new ages really will be 2-5. We have had our kids for three years, so even though they are newly adopted, we are firmly a family.

[HappyMomAnna]

Riley--so far Oregon is the only state I have found which has this simple policy.

When ANY child in the houshold goes from Foster to Pre-Adopt NO MORE CHILDREN CAN ENTER THE HOUSEHOLD for at least a YEAR.

This means that from the date the caseplan changes from Foster to Pre-adoptive the HOUSE in on HOLD no new children can enter and there are actually some cases where extra Foster children are moved out of a pre-adoptive home during the year waiting period.

In fact last summer when our children had a sibling born it was only 6-months after our children were placed as pre-adoptive and when we talked with our caseworker about considering the new baby we were advised that we would have to endure a special hearing for the state to decide if the sibling could be placed before the year was over! In fact I got the general feeling that a new siblings worst time to appear was during this year waiting period time...Because had the baby been born this summer there would be NO Problems!

Many people are upset when they learn about this policy and so far I have not been able to prove it to be a LAW I believe it is simply DHS policy. Foster families who change from Foster to pre-adopt cannot have additional children placed into the home for one year.

[riley6]

Wow, a year. What happens, like in our case, that the time from placement as foster kids to adoption takes three years. Is there still a one year waiting period? I wonder what would happen if someone had a bio baby in that time period?

Do you know if ALL DCFS's in the state follow this policy or is it at the director's discretion? It really limits the available homes to foster kids. We're ready to add to our family. I'd hate to think I'd have to wait another year to do so.

[HappyMomAnna]

In your case as long as all the children were still Foster there is not a problem it is from the time the State issues the Pre-adoption placement paperwork that the year would start.

I have heard it stressed over and over that this is a POLICY and not a law in a way that makes me believe there is some wiggle room for certain situations.

I agree it is a little strict and when I have asked about it I have been told that Oregon feels this is yet again a contriubuting factor in a low disruption rate. My caseworker told me that before this policy there were several families theat just got in over their heads really fast...We had one Family in Bend that adopted 26 children in about 8 years and in the end the whole thing blew up for the family (dugh) it was all just too much. (They were once on 60-mins)

Oregon also now has a rule that there may be no more the 8 children in any household this counts bios--foster and adopted. This one is set in stone....no exceptions are made any more based on the issues of the family above...

[FosterMom2002]

Adoption for #1 age 2 will be finalized by 9/2004. Adption #2 age 9 months 2005. Since being put "on hold" we have had 2 calls and (1) 2 sibling placement for shelter care that lasted 1 week. So I am not sure how all this works. I was told that "on hold" families with younger adoptions on sometimes considered when they have emergencies which was the case we had. So go figure. Thanks for all the replies.