[Melissa_29]

The homestudy is complete and I am finally registered, but still nothing. Now I am told it is a waiting game! They say I am looking at 1 - 3 years wait before I am matched with a child. I was thinking about looking into private agency too. What are your thoughts on that.

[honeybee215]

We didn't really think about going with a county agency because we were recruited by a friend of ours who knew we were considering adoption. She works for a private agency in Lackawanna County. We live about an hour away in Northampton County.

What we're finding is that the only calls we're getting are for the sibling groups rather than single children. (We're licensed for up to 3 children.) I have two theories on why this is and suspect it's a combination of the two.

1) The first is due to the distance. We are an hour away from our agency. That means the kids placed with us would need to transfer schools as well as any services they might currently be receiving. And their workers would potentially have to travel for any in-home follow-ups they would want to do. That said, because it's a private agency, they do a lot of case management types of things for the county workers. As you might expect, they typically have the best relationships with the workers from the county in which they're located so any referrals they get from neighboring counties to them only add to the distance issue.

2) The second theory I have is that the county CPS workers are more likely to work with the families that are licensed through the county. They use the agencies to find placements for the more "difficult" cases, e.g. siblings. We've had four calls since we were licensed 2 months ago. One for a sibling set of 2; the others were all for siblings sets of 3. It's probably not overly difficult for the county workers to find a family that has room for one more, but 2 or 3 is definitely going to be more of a challenge.

I apologize for the length of the post, but I think the pros and cons of private/county are going to be subjective so I wanted to lay out what our experience has been, limited as it might be. Our friend has given us some insight into her experience as well. I hope this helps you a little and wish you luck (and patience!!) in your journey!

[Melissa_29]

Thank you.

[jmd5294]

We are in southeastern pa. We go directly through our county, and are always full. Pp is correct in that the county attempts to place the child in a county home first, and if they cannot, they start calling the numerous private agencies.
Are you only taking kids who have been TPR'd?

[lyn10]

We just got started and received our Foster care license and adoption approval in Dec. We have turned down two school age girls bc they would not be the right fit. They had significant emotional/behavioral issues and we could not meet either of their needs. they were from photolistings.

We are also using a private agency and interested in adoption only.

We are considering looking out of state, and buying our HS. Agency will not be happy but our goal is adopt 1 girl and not wait up to 3 yrs to do this.

Love to hear everyone elses experiences in PA.

Lyn

[pezcmw03]

I am in Northeastern PA, in a small county. I am through a private agency with the hopes of adopting. I am licensed for foster and have an adoptive profile too. I want 2-4 kids, siblings or not. Prefer age 6-12 years. I am having NO luck. I have been licensed for 13 LONG, LONG months. I keep wanting to switch but it is so hard to know if that is the right decision or not. Good luck to all of us!

[Moldova]

We are in south central PA and have only been waiting a short time. Yikes! I am not feeling very encouraged here. I can't believe for all the pleas for families to adopt kids from foster care that everyone has been waiting so long and no luck. What gives? We are open to ages under 6. Sounds like we are in for a long wait. Anyone else out there from the Susquehanna Valley with experiences to share?

[pezcmw03]

I do not understand it either. Everywhere you turn there are kids who need homes and ads for foster/adoptive parents. Why it takes so long to be matched is beyond me!

[Melissa_29]

Ya it is crazy that there are so many kids in the system but they are not placing them. It really seems like I am not going to get place ever with them.

[mom22boys]

We are in Clarion County, went with the county....licensed to foster care with intent to adopt. Once licensed last spring, we became our own best commercial. Since we were looking to adopt, we were searching the photolistings constantly. We registered with Adoptuskids.org and waited! More action than waiting. We found our girls on a photolisting in July, confirmed match in October and home mid December. This is a straight adopt, TPR has already occurred. We were contacted by our agency in the wait for some help, said yes each time because we could but never had to because the kids were not placed. Don't be afraid to go looking outside the box. There are hundreds of county photolistings, each state does it a bit different. Don't assume that states won't consider you because you were out of state. The worker for our girls is a great one. She took our calls, got to know us and when it come down to decision time agreed we were the best fit for them even though the leg work was going to increase. We are truly blessed.

Sorry so long, I just hate to wait and to see others do so as well. Be a well squeaked wheel, have a script ready about your family when you call a worker, give them your workers contact info and then let your worker know you made an inquirey!! It worked for us!!

Good luck.....Emily

[pezcmw03]

Still waiting here in PA. My name was put for some siblings for adoption a few weeks ago and I was told placement would be soon if selected but they still didn't make a decision. The waiting for an answer is worse than the waiting for a phone call. There really should be a better way to do all this without so much emotional torture!

[7brats]

Its been awile since I was here. I had a terrible time with my agency.
They let me go.
Hoping all is fine with everyone and that you are all getting lots of placements

[pezcmw03]

7brats~

How awful!

Are you going to go with another agency?

[7brats]

not right now, i have a liitle too much on my plate. maybe later

[pezcmw03]

anything happening with anyone else in PA?

I am in the process of switching agencies. I expect to have a placement sometime after the middle of April, depending on how soon the worker with come for the walkthru after the new classes end.