The Process - And Some Explanations
A wonderful reader asked some terrific questions - and I wanted to answer them here:S/he wrote:
We will foster to adopt. We did not realize we may go thru 3 maybe 4 or more placements till we have a couple kids to adopt. 2 years ago we left the process-because we were afraid to loose the kids back to the family. If we chose the list for just kids "ready to be adopted"--the social worker said they are few and far between and we may wait a very long time.
My response:
We were "foster to adopt" also, and knew from the start that every placement would be a risk. We had met people who had many, many children come and go from their homes before one stayed. But on the other hand, everyone we met who had done foster care for some time and wanted to adopt eventually got their chance to become a forever family. It was not uncommon for people to foster children for two years or more. On the other hand, I met people whose first placements were eventually freed for adoption, so it seemed like we truly had to trust God and our social workers.
We chose not to wait for a child "ready to be adopted". There are people in our county who have been waiting for 4 years or more because they are not willing to risk children leaving.
We were very afraid. And we mourned every time a child left our home. Four children came and went. The first newborn baby stayed 23 hours, a 2 month old and her 4 year old brother stayed 10 days, and another newborn stayed 4 days. We were blessed with quick decisions by the state to send children to relative placements. It did not hurt any less. We loved every child as if they would become ours. In the end, we are better for having done that, and those children were loved passionately.
As I Believer, I must remember how many times in the Bible, it says "fear not". It doesn't mean I don't - but it does mean I don't have to.
We asked our workers to screen placements with us very carefully. They knew we wanted to adopt. Every placement we took had "signs" of eventual TPR - incarceration, drug use, or history with the cabinet. Still, it is no guarantee. Workers did their best to see that we got children with a likelyhood of staying. They did the best they could do with their "guessing" and looking for all the "red flags".
S/he wrote:
She told us there is no subsidy for fostering/and or adopting from the system unless they are special needs!
My response:
All foster parents receive a subsidy to provide for the child, regardless of the child's status. Some states are very, very low - GA, AL, and MS for example, and some are higher due to recent changes by the state legislatures (KY for example). Our per diem for Cookie is $19.70 per day. It goes up a few dollars for teenagers. This is the basic rate - it is also higher for families who are specially trained to take medically fragile children.
"Special needs" definitions do vary widely, as does the interpretation. In our state, children over age 3 are automatically defined as "special needs", and all minority children are also defined that way. Our child is defined as special needs because of drug exposure. However, we received the very same stipend for ALL the children we cared for - even a little perfectly healthy white newborn. You will too. If you tell me what county you are in, I am fairly skilled at finding out information (my career is research education!).
Our subsidy for Cookie will continue until she is 18, or finishes college. On February 1st, it will become an "adoption subsidy" instead of a foster care per diem - and instead of a daily rate, we will receive a flat $600 per month to meet some of her needs. Our workers try to get this for everyone who adopts. Even though Cookie is perfectly healthy and even advanced, we will get the adoption subsidy because of how she came into foster care. I do not know anyone who adopted from foster care in my state who does not get a subsidy. It is very uncommon for a child in foster care to not have some issue that can be used to label them as "special needs".
S/he wrote:
They said they will pay for the adoption with their lawyer for us.
My response:
This is very common, although the attorney has to be hired by you, otherwise it is a conflict of interest. The attorneys often will direct-bill the state and work hard to keep their fees within the limits of what the state will pay. These people are angels! Our state will pay up to $1000 of the attorney fees. Our attorney only charges $75 an hour above this, and there are costs for things we may end up paying for once we go over the $1000 limit. We have taken the advice of another adoptive mom and are getting her a new social security number with her new name so there can be no back-tracking. There are some costs associated with that, that others might not have.
S/he wrote:
The special needs category for Pa. is: age 5 and older, a sibling group, or serious medical or physical disabilities. We are asking for 2 children age 0-3 preferably healthy, so basically we are led to believe we'll be receiving ZERO! I read one of your notes on your subsidy and we don't hear anything close! Was it like this for you also initially???
My response:
I've looked up information on PA out of curiosity, and it looks like your subsidy should be even higher than ours. My advice is find another foster parent with experience in your county. You WILL get a subsidy no matter what. We couldn't do this without it! BTW - we did not find out the amount of the per diem until the very last day of our training sessions to become foster parents (and no one dared to ask - no one wanted it to even look like they were in it to make money). We were shocked to learn it was so high - especially knowing there are many states that only provide about $10 a day or less.
We also get WIC (Women, Infants, and Children - sucky name that is due for a change) and that is a God-send that will provide formula until age 1. Now we get milk, eggs, cheese, juice, and peanut butter for Cookie. It doesn't amount to near as much as the cost of formula, but it is so worth the effort to sign up for it.
Our daycare expenses are also paid for (the daycare direct bills the state) because we are both employed full-time. In cases where one parent is not employed, daycare expenses are not provided. We have been blessed to have Cookie enrolled in KinderCare - in an accredited facility with a curriculum, and a center director who is also a foster parent (in addition to at least 2 of Cookie's teachers who are also foster parents as well and many kids in her classes who are foster children).
Lastly, they will give you a medical card to get health care for your foster children. After the adoption, we can keep her medical card so until she is out of college we will never have to pay for any health care short of elective (like orthodontics or a dermatologist to treat teenage acne).
S/he wrote:
We had to show our financial statements (for our license)to prove we have gainful employment and can pay our bills---but we thought the foster care system subsidy was not based on the family income. ??? Are they just trying to be "tight" with us?
My response:
The subsidy are not income-based. If they were, many of us in the "middle class" would be out of luck! My husband and I both make a good living, and we still get the same subsidy everyone else gets.
We did have to provide financial statements for both steps - even to adopt we had to fill out the same forms. They told us in the foster parenting classes that they want to know you can provide for this child even without the subsidy. They certainly don't want a child coming from a home where the power and water were off regularly to a foster home with the same poor conditions. They want proof you can pay your bills and that your home isn't about to be taken away from you, and that you aren't a paycheck away from being evicted.
And we have debt like most other Americans - consumer debt, student loans, and car payments. But we proved to them that we can pay our bills and take care of a foster child until the subsidy check arrives. (This is actually very important in our state as checks seem to arrive late all the time for some unknown reason.) We put Cookie's subsidy into a separate account, and keep track of expenditures like clothing because the social workers will ask to see receipts. We are required to spend at least $25 per month on average for new clothes for her (not a problem, you can imagine). We try to save enough to spoil her rotten with expensive and wonderful clothes, shoes (like Pedipeds - how awesome are these shoes??), and excursions like going to FL for Christmas. These kids really deserve no less than the best anyway.
For adoption, our finances were even more important because our daycare expenses will now have to be paid up-front by us and reimbursed by the state. So even though we eventually get everything back, that money has to be free to go on a journey each month.
As a final note - dear readers - Please know we realize that our adoption has been atypical in how fast it has happened. We also never let a day go by where we do not thank God for the Commonwealth of Kentucky for its forward-thinking legislature who provides resources and supports for foster parents. Likewise, we are blessed with a Foster Parent Association as well as Adoption Support of Kentucky right here in our city. In fact, many training classes are held less than a mile from where we live - and childcare is usually provided during training classes to keep our license current. We know that many of you living in other states have to struggle to get resources for your foster children, and we are deeply sympathetic. It is a crime to put these children into foster care and not provide the necessary resources to the foster parents to give them an adequate level of care.
There is a chance we will do this all over again once the adoption is final - and if Cookie ever decides to sleep through the night (another story altogether). If we do, it will only be because we have the kind of social workers in Lexington and the resources in Kentucky that make it all somehow bearable and worthwhile.
posted by No Longer In Crisis @ 1/24/2007 01:10:00 PM
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