[just-breathe]

[quote=MilehighDad]The private agency is a pay-for-service arrangement, and they are only interested in helping you adopt from foster care out-of-state when there is money in it for them. They may be willing to do the post-placement visits, but again they'll get paid for that. The public agency is doing your homestudy and working with you, but their interest is in finding homes for the kids that are their responsibility. If you go out-of-state, they basically lose a family to place a kid with. Different public agencies have different policies on how much support they will give, but often it is not very much. However, your SW is probably incorrect in stating that your homestudy is not the "right one" to send out of state. Pretty much, a homestudy is a homestudy, the only difference is that they intend to use YOU as a resource therefore they don't want to give it away.

QUOTE]

This is exactly the situation we are ensnared in right now. Our county is refusing to send our homestudy because they don't want to lose us as a resource. HOWEVER, they also asked if we even wanted to stay with them since statistically, they don't need to place kids in our preference range often - which is completely the opposite of what they said at the beginning of this process, over a year ago. So, they don't want to waste time coming out here every month for maintenance checks or whatever they call them, since they don't anticipate ever having kids they need to place with us, BUT they don't want to chance sending out our homestudy and us getting matched just in case they do need us.

Our worker has told us we can't just sign a form authorizing release of our homestudy. She has to have the privacy form signed by the child's worker as well giving her authorization just to talk to the worker, and THEN our worker will decide if we're a potential match and send the study. Excuse me, but I think that's the job of the child's worker, not hers. She doesn't know the child so how could she determine a match? I know it's not her job to help us find a child that needs what we have to give, but it is so frustrating to be in limbo! We have taken a month to think and regroup after some intense meetings with our county and I am refreshed and re-energized so that I can begin the calling and the emails and the pleading all over again. We've realized that there's no way this will ever happen if we don't MAKE it happen. It is going to be the hardest thing we've ever done just for the opportunity to do something even harder - be parents!

[Robinyyes]

Soooooo very frustrated. I've been waiting now OVER 3 months for a matching meeting. I am the only family being considered for this child and they still can't get their act together. I was very patient until this week, when after explaining the case to the 3rd social worker for this child.....I realized its been 3 months, I've never met this child and I know more about his case then the social worker assigned to him who isn't supposed to let him fall through the cracks (again) who is supposed to have his best interested formost as part of his job, who is supposed to know more than I do about this child. I am so sad about this. I try not to think about it because it makes me angry for this little boy all over again. I wrote a long rant and rave about it yesterday and didn't post it and yet here I am again. I will wait, but I don't like it. I don't like them just letting him fall thru the cracks....ugh.

[anilorak13ska]

It's hard to believe anyone goes into the field of social work out of an honest passion for making a difference in children's lives.

just-breathe - Have you considered getting an adoption agency (not the county/state) to do a homestudy for you? You'd have to pay for it (we paid $1,300), but the HS belongs to you and you can send it to whomever you wish. Having said that, since some SW will only communicate with other SW (and not directly with families), there may be an additional fee/retainer with the agency for them to do this extra service. But they will do it. They won't tell you who you can and cannot inquire about.

We did this, though ours wasn't the best experience. Still, it beats being told we can't even see our HS to check for inaccuracies. Our county told us this, as well as the whole spiel about the child's worker having to request the HS, and then them deciding if we're a good match. As if.

Btw, why are these workers assuming that just bc you adopt a child, you'd stop being a resource family for them?

[Angelnetty]

My husband and I are also just starting an older child adoption process in California. We have our county adoption orientation on 11/19 and then PRIDE training in January.
I didn't realize that there was so many issues with out-of-state adoptions. We've been just looking through the photolistings and getting ideas of the type of child that we would love to make a part of our little family. I have some terrific questions that I now want to pose at the orientation meeting but I read that they some county agencies' weren't entirely forthright in the beginning...
I have looked at the listings for our county (and state) and I am not too optimistic about finding a match from here. I have to wonder if we should just skip working with the county and go directly to a private agency and skip all the drama that seems to be come with working with the county. Besides just paying a lot more (both my husband and I's employers offer terrific adoption assistance plans) is there any other reason to choose one over the other??

[anilorak13ska]

Angelnetty - I think in addition to the cost, the difference bw the private and public agencies is that the private ones have you as their client, so their job is to find a child for you. The public agencies' job is to find an appropriate home for the children in their care, as the child is their client. I could be wrong, and you'd think that in the end, both the child and you benefit from the match, but sometimes I wonder what makes the CWs choose one family over another for a particular child.