[bange]

We are a large family of 3 bio children, 2 adopted internationally and 3 from the US.

We fear being large will make it difficult for us to be matched to a child. Any advise on how to make our large family more MATCH-ABLE?

We were matched in '05 with 3 sibling boys and we already had 5 children... and we thought that was a miracle then. How will we ever be matched with 8 children in the home?

[NeedsCoffee]

I'm very interested in the response you get. We have 5 children (2 bio, 3 US adopt) and we wonder the same. Would anyone even look at our homestudy with 5 children already in the home?

[HooverMs]

I too am interested in the response to this question. We also have 5 children in our home (ages 12, 12, 11, 9 & 6) (2 bio & 3 adopt). We were recently denied a healthy infant foster placement because we already have "so many" children. I am now wondering if we have any hope of ever being matched with another foster to adopt placement?

[scandi]

I have heard of several large families placed with kids thru some matching agencies. I am not sure what I can or can't put here so if anyone is interested you can pm me. I don't know where anyone is but the agency I work with works alot with larger families.

[BubbleKeeper]

I am interested also. We have 4 bio kids and 1 FD. My DH and I would love to adopt but the county told us we would not be considered, because adoption is for people who have no kids, according to them.

[shelleyterrell]

and have 5 bio (10, 8, 6yr old twins, 1) and our caseworker has never said anything about our having a large family and adopting. I actually believed if you foster to adopt in my state if the children are tpr'd that if no family steps forward we get first choice if we want to adopt the child/ren or not.?

[Tudu]

I would suggest talking to Claudia , she is the Mother of a very large family and works as an adoption specialist. She has some links on her blog and one to email her.

.Never A Dull Moment: Adopting from Foster Care

[hunterfamily]

We have found it very hard in Florida to be matched. They always go with a family with less children. We where even told we could not foster because of the new "5" rule. You can have no more then 5 children total in the house. After almost a year of not getting anywhere, they now say that will try to liscense us for one foster child. We don't really want to foster because you never know what will happen. So we wait and hope to be matched, but I don't hold out much hope it will ever happen.

[wannafostersoon]

No advice, just curious as to what happened in your case. Our caseworker has been very anxious to get us through the process even though we have 4 bios. She said the only limitation is that you can't have any more than 2 under 2, which will not be an issue next month when our baby turns 2. She is leading us to believe that as long as we have the patience, love, time, and space that there will be no issues. I'm in NY.

[FullQuiverMamma]

We have four bio kids and just got matched with one, but we were approved for 3... I hope to get a few more, but am thankful for whomever the Lord ordains...

[ALfostermom]

we have a family in AL that has 4 bio and always has 4-6 foster at a time. They too are wanting too adopt and i believe they are in the beginning process for 2 children to be adopted coming from another foster home.

[karla-k]

This is so frustrating to read, people who want to adopt these kids out of the foster care system and social workers being picky b/c it is a "large" family that wants the kids. A large forever family is better than no family!!! It is not like there are hundreds of people lined up to adopt these wonderful kids. Really, the system makes it much more difficult than it should be. If you can get a positive home study, you should be able to adopt, period.

Karla
3 bio kids
putting together our dossier for adoption from Kygyzstan

[Robbin]

In PA you are allowed a total of 6 kids under 18. They will make exceptions on a case by case basis, but you have to request a waiver from Dept of Welfare (they license foster care agencies & daycares). We got a waiver two years ago for our foster son who came back into care.

We have 5 (2 bios 14 and 15 yrs, 3 adopted 6, 9, and 15 yrs) and never got a response from our county when we asked to foster again.

So we went to a private agency, and they have no problems w/ our kids. We are in the process of the homestudy, and we told her we'd like a sibling group of 3.

[jbee]

robbin, we're going to be in that situation soon...we are adding on to our house and would have room for three more if we could. right now we have 2 bios, 1 adopted, and 2 fosters.
so you accept a placement then they give a waiver for just them? or does it stand with the county that gives it from then on? or do they give it to the agency for you, so any county could give you kids? our agency works with several counties, and i'm afraid if we have to wait for a waiver in each instance, by the time it is arranged we could miss some good kids...

[Robbin]

JBee,

The way I understand it is that you have to get the waiver first, then you can have the extra child/children. Our situation was that we had our former foster son living with us but no direct agency involvement (we had a total of 7 kids) as a private agreement with bio dad and approval of the former foster care agency (long story, but good one!). So, of course, this teenager starts getting into trouble and we wanted to have the foster care agency involved to avoid any legal responsibilities/ramifications. The case worker requests a waiver, Dept of Welfare came out, checked out the home (remember we'd had him for about a year giving us a total of 7 kids) and gave waiver to the agency for that boy only.


My friend had 1 bio, 4 adopted and 1 foster...total of six. She wanted to adopt the foster. The agency said not unless you take the sis also. She said sure. So Dept of Welfare came out, approved her, THEN she got the sis.

I am imagining that is the way it will be with us also. Since we have five, we can only accept one (but have room for 3). So I will be looking for a sibling group. They'd have to be split up for a short period of time, but I'd take one of the siblings, request a waiver while the others were placed in another home(s), then after an approval get the other sibs.

Another option would be if a child already is in care, but needs to be moved. We could ask for a waiver and when approved, take that additional child.

I wish that we could become approved, as a home, to have more than 6, then we wouldn't miss out on a placement, but that's not the way it is.

Where are you at in PA? What agency are you with? Feel free to PM me.