[roselee]

My husband, two year old and I currently live in Ohio. We found the seemingly perfect child for our family...his profile really matches us to the tee. We found a licensed agency to do an expediated homestudy in 30 days because that is required anyway.

My agency has been trying to contact the case manager in Oregon and has left a few messages - there has been no response. All we have found out from someone else is that the child is considered legal risk and for him to leave the state it would have to go through the courts. We can't get a hold of the case manager to even get the general information. I did hear it was common in Oregon for case managers to take a while to return phone calls (I know that is very sterotypical and probably not fair)....anyone else have this experience with Oregon? I also heard Oregon was the toughest place to adopt.

What are the chances the court will let this kid out of the state in a legal risk adoption? I am a psychologist and counselor by trade so perhaps that will help in the process. This child receives speech therapy and that is my undergrad degree. I really just want a fighting chance for this child, so if I have to use my education experience to help our family at least have a fighting chance-I will.

I also don't know how many other people are interested in this child. I want to do the expediated homestudy and pay the extra money because I don't want to lose the possiblity of having this child in our life.

I am very new at this. Am I being idealistic???

Please help!

[Darci]

Don't know much about oregon except that we had our homestudy submitted on over 30 children from there and NEVER heard anything back from ANY social worker.

[aMarylandfamily]

... is known for being one of the better states to work with. Their workers generally wish to speak with your caseworker prior to speaking with prospective parents first ... and they will not even consider you as a candidate for a child until you have an approved homestudy in hand.

Now to Oregon's policy ... when Oregon has a child become available for placement they generally state in-state until that child is non-legal risk and has been posted for availability within that state (where did you see him/her posted?). After a set timeframe they identify the child available for out-of-state placement - generally via the Northwest Adoption Exchange. Homestudies are collected (each case is different - either by timeframe or amount of studies rec'd) and reviewed by the worker ... narrowed down to three families who are each presented to a Committee (different each time - made up of workers, supervisors, casemanagers, etc.) and that Committee choses the family best appropriate to meet the child's needs ... once that family has been chosen and accepted a black-out time of five days is set when the family is given additional information and either confirms or rejects the placement ... if confirming, a transition plan is then begun with ICPC (Interstate Compact) approval and once that goes through meetings, visitations and placement are designed ....

So - it is not a "I saw a child and want him" - they have procedures and policies that are followed and that "procedure" can be pretty frustrating ...

Hoping this helps and am sure this will start another whole line of questions ... please ask - lots of us here have personal experience with them and can fill in the blanks.

[scandi]

I agree with aMaryland Family. All states have a process and there is not one that will consider you with out a completed homestudy. As a child protection social worker and adoptive parent I found know that pretty much all states are required by law to first look at families in their state before going out of state. I have looked at some legal risk children and have been told that I have to have a foster care license before I can be considered. This is fine because in MN in order to get a homestudy for a special needs child you have to have a foster care license. I am not sure if that is a requirement for all states or not. Before a child can be placed from another state and ICPC - interstate compact placement agreement needs to be completed. That means that the sending state requests permission from the receiving state to place that child there.

While I don't want to discourage you from trying to find out more information on this child I am hoping that this information helps you. I would encourage you to continue to search for others that may be a good match.