Adopting From Foster Care

This is an automated transcript, please pardon any errors.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show as well as the director of the nonprofit, creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about adopting from foster care. We will be talking with Erica Jourdan. She is the founder of adoption options consulting, where she provides support to families looking to adopt older children from foster care. She is also a licensed clinical social worker associate at flourish counseling and wellness. Prior to these two jobs. She works for over a decade at Child Protective Services as a recruiter and trainer of adoptive and foster parents. She is the mom of three kids each adopted in a different way, including a teen adopted from foster care. And we will be talking with Angelica Jones. She does go by Angie. So I'm not just creating a nickname for her. So Angie Jones. She is a licensed clinical social worker, and the intensive service foster care recruiter and trainer at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services in Los Angeles. She is a current foster parent and has experience working with prospective and adoptive parents and their foster care program. Welcome Angie and Erica to creating a family. Thanks for having me. All right. So let's start at the beginning. I so often say that I think there's actually in there a song from sound and music that goes that way. Let's start at the very beginning. So what are Eric, I'll do this throw this to you what are the different ways to adopt from foster care?

Speaker 1  1:39  
Okay, well, each state's a little different. But in the end, the kids who are in foster care, the plan originally is to reunify with their families. And adoption happens when all other efforts to get the kids back home fail to provide enough safety for the kids to return to their parents or their relatives that children can be fostered, you can be a licensed foster parent, and you can try to help the child to reunify and if that does not happen, you can be the one to offer to provide permanent. So that's one path for foster care to adopt that way rather, the other is for families who would prefer to work with kids maybe a little further along in the system, where the rights have already been terminated, or they're in the process of being terminated. Sometimes families prefer to work with children who are just either what they call legal risk or legally cleared for adoption. And in some states, you are allowed to just get a home study, which is not the whole foster care licensing process. And you're still eligible to adopt children that way. And you can work with agencies directly for kids who are cleared and legally free, right then. Okay,

Dawn Davenport  2:48  
so you can either adopt as the child's foster parent if the child is not able to go home, or you can adopt a child that is legally free for adoption. Okay, that sounds right. And legally free means that their parental rights have been terminated. And just as a disclaimer at the beginning, you're going to hear a lot throughout this interview. It depends on the state. That's just the nature, we have 50 states plus the District of Columbia plus some territories, each of those states and entities has a different way that they do it. We can answer things in general. But that's just the reality of our system of government, actually, but it's also the reality of foster care. So Angie, what type of kids are available for adoption from foster care?

Speaker 2  3:33  
Yes, so there are many kids available for adoption through foster care, it just kind of depends. But you can be fostering a child and they do all of their efforts to try to reunify with family, or the biological parents. And if those efforts are completed, and it's been a couple of years, usually, that's when you can adopt that specific child from foster care. And then the other option would it be children typically on a matching list children that are typically older sibling sets of 234. I have seen up to 10 siblings needing to be adopted, so many ages, but typically, if they're legally freed, then they're older. And then all different ethnicities, Black, Latino, white, all the ethnicities and just big sibling groups and older children,

Dawn Davenport  4:33  
and equally divided usually between girls and boys, as you would expect. So yes, I

Speaker 2  4:39  
would like to add a lot of children a part of the LGBTQ plus community as well. Especially

Dawn Davenport  4:46  
we see that in older kids are teens. And there's a number of reasons for that sadly, often because they have been kicked out of their families of birth and have entered foster care for that reason. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Erica, is it possible to adopt a very young child or a baby from foster care? That's a question we get a lot. As you could imagine, it is

Speaker 1  5:10  
absolutely possible to adopt an infant or toddler from the foster care system. However, it generally entails being a foster parent first, because when a county gets a child into their legal custody, and they are under, say, five, the plan is reunification. And the families have to be willing to work that. So it might not be the first child placed with a family, it might not even be the fifth or 10th Good place with a family. But there are children who do end up going to adoption. So what I have found is that if families Hang in there, and they do this amazing community service of fostering and helping other families, sooner or later, they are presented with a case that is open for adoption.

Dawn Davenport  5:55  
Exactly. There's so many bits in there. So but but you have to know that it won't be your first second or third, necessarily, eg what are the special needs that children in foster care might have?

Speaker 2  6:07  
Yes, that's a really big question. But we can start off with trauma, no matter what way you cut it, adoption is trauma. So we have to remember that they have trauma. And then depending on the case, it can be anything from like learning disabilities, developmental delays, diagnoses of ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, there are a lot of other diagnoses too. So I would say generally,

Dawn Davenport  6:36  
when you speak of trauma, the fact that a child has been entered into foster care means just by the very nature that they've experienced, at the very least, but not least, I shouldn't say neglect is a big deal, but a neglect or abuse are having been raised by parents who are struggling with substance abuse. So that is a form of trauma. The other one I would like to point out that I think we often overlook, to the detriment of children is that the majority of children who are in foster care had been prenatally exposed to alcohol or drugs, it can be anywhere upwards of depending on who you're talking to, certainly over 70%, there are some experts that would say well over 90%. So just wanted to throw that out there. I

Speaker 1  7:19  
just wanted to also dive in that prenatal exposure can also be chemicals that the mother's own body produces due to her stress level of the situation. And that can be a child who's just really hypersensitive and really reactive. But in the end, you know, most of the behaviors can have our communication. They don't know how to say this bad thing happened to me, and I don't like it. They show you by, you know, maybe throwing their food across the rim. So it definitely with all these diagnoses, I hate to lose sight of the fact that the kids are trying to teach us. Absolutely.

Dawn Davenport  7:53  
That's their way of communicating. So Erica, can you adopt a child from foster care across state lines? Yes,

Speaker 1  8:01  
absolutely. You can adopt a child across state lines, there is more paperwork, people will hear the term ICPC. It's the interstate compact for the placement of children. And it is a labor intensive prospect for social workers. However, workers are not supposed to discriminate on the quality of a placement based on geography. So technically, yes, families can adopt overstate lines, I will say that my experience more practically is that workers prefer to have weight that so if they can find a possible good batch in state lines, they will do that first. So families who are adopting out of state lines do also need to ask a few more questions about like, why is the child being considered for an out of state by Smith?

Dawn Davenport  8:46  
I'm glad you said that. There's one thing that we could say something technically but practically. And also just another practical thing to consider is that many of the adoptions from foster care are by foster parents who have currently raising the child was unable to reunify, very seldom do you see that a county or state will look for a foster parent out of state, it just almost never happens for some very practical reasons. As a result, the only children who are practically available for adoption across state lines are those children whose parental rights have already been terminated, or will soon be terminated. Because as Angie pointed out, there are certain jurisdictions that they do everything but the final termination, because they don't want to create legal orphans. So for all those reasons, you can but you're talking about children who are legally free, and their responsibility for overseeing the placement is much harder to when it's from another state. So all of those reasons. Yes. But again, you're gonna hear a lot of yes buts. Angie, what should prospective parents think about when considering which age child is the best for their family to adopt? You Yes,

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
this is also a big question.

Dawn Davenport  10:04  
Yeah, you want to say yes, but here.

Speaker 2  10:07  
So when I was thinking about fostering some of the things that came to mind was, Do I have an extra room? Do I have two extra rooms? Who do I maybe have experience with? What are my friends? Families looking like and the ages that their kids are? There's a lot of things to think about,

Dawn Davenport  10:29  
do you need childcare? Do I need a child in school so that I will be you know, free to work and that type of thing? Exactly.

Speaker 2  10:37  
Yes. There's many more, Eric, I'm sure you have some too. Yeah.

Dawn Davenport  10:42  
Eric, what are some things to think about when you're trying to decide should I have preschool? Or should I do school age? Should I adopt one of the many great teens that are available?

Speaker 1  10:52  
Well, I mean, one of the things I tell people a lot of time is a lot of people want to adopt young children, infants, especially people are all about the infants, but you don't know very much about the infant, you don't know if they have fetal alcohol effects, you don't know if they're going to be on the autism spectrum, you don't know an awful lot about that baby, by the time that child was 351, you know, a lot of those answers, but you also started to get a flavor for the personality of the kid. And then adopting a teenager is just a different experience. It's much more of a negotiation. And it's a very different type of bonding, because they have to choose you back. And I also tell people, people asked me about birth order all the time, I just have to throw in my own thoughts on that, which is that keeping the birth order for your children, may be important to you and your children. And that's totally fair. For me, I would have given my back teeth to have an older brother. But you know, I was a little odd like that. But it rarely keeps the birth order for the adopted child. So I tell people, maybe you know, step back from that edge, people can get a little anxious about that, and really look at the match with the temperament of the kid.

Dawn Davenport  11:59  
And to what about with sibling groups, how to decide if you're the right family for a sibling group? Yeah,

Speaker 2  12:05  
I think with sibling groups, it's important to understand that siblings have their own stuff going on as well. And we don't know if the siblings have been separated at some point. Also, knowing how many services they may need, you also may not know that right from the jump. So making sure that you can kind of juggle that with your career, your work if you both work full time if you're a single parent, and that's something that you really want to do is Foster, then adopt two siblings, three siblings, like knowing kind of where you can juggle and your boundaries around. How do I get them to therapy? How do I get them to school? Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  12:48  
yeah. Well, how many resources you have as far as just your emotional, how much time you have? Although there are advantages to a ready made family if you've always wanted three kids, and you have none. Then there's another way. Erica, how do we find children who are currently available for adoption? I'm talking about kids who are legally free. What are your options for your family? Who wants to adopt an older child child LIS past the age of six? How do you find a child to adopt?

Speaker 1  13:17  
There are a number of websites that hosts what they call adoption exchanges, adopt us kids is a very popular one. There are some heart galleries. In some states, there's Wendy's wonderful kids. But I also because of what we talked about a few minutes ago, where some counties are moving toward the not clearing kids for adoption until a home is identified. It's also a networking process where you might need in your state to reach out to different counties and find out which kids are looking for a permanent home, but they can't post them online until they are fully legally there tend to be a kind of small percentage of the kids who are actually available.

Dawn Davenport  14:00  
But how do you network? I mean, it's a good point. But if you're a parent, who is you're saying, you know, we've got the room, we have a home, we're looking to Love A Child? How do we even begin to go about that, you know, most there's many counties in every state and each county has their own system? Well,

Speaker 1  14:17  
if I can feel that actually, I do a lot of that work with my clients. And now I'm talking specifically North Carolina. But the standards don't vary a whole lot on this one, which is if you are a licensed foster parent, you talk to your licensing worker, or sometimes they're called the case manager. And what I suggest families offered to do is to make up a one page color glossy thing about their family with pictures and bullets just we're looking for, we can consider we cannot consider and then ask the worker with help and networking the other counties in their state. Now, if a family is not a licensed foster parent, then they have to get an approved home study before workers can talk to them about the kids that they have. available, but then the same process. It's really old school, but it's about making sure people know that you're available and that you are market so to speak.

Dawn Davenport  15:12  
It is old school. And that is I think, and I'm glad you pointed that out that a lot of the kids that are available are not listed on the heart galleries are adopt us kids. So something to think about. Let me pause here for a moment to ask, do you know about creating a family's free e monthly newsletter? If not, you really need to add a great resource providing you with trauma informed, research based resources delivered to your inbox monthly, and you will get a free guide for signing up. Right now our free guide is parenting a child exposed to trauma, you can sign up and get the guide if you go to Bitly slash C A F guide that is vi t dot L y slash c a s guide. Now, back to the interview. Angie, who can adopt from foster care? Can single women adopt from foster care? Yes. Can single men adopt from foster care? Yes. Can LGBTQ plus parents adopt? Absolutely. So do you have to have a college degree? You don't have to have a college degree? Do you have to have a high school degree? No, you

Unknown Speaker  16:32  
don't have to have a high school degree.

Dawn Davenport  16:33  
What if you have a criminal background? So

Speaker 2  16:37  
with the criminal background, this depends on your state agency. And if you decide to go with a foster family agency, it also depends on that specific agency for us Vista. I know that we do not accept criminal backgrounds have a history of child abuse or violent criminal history.

Dawn Davenport  17:00  
I think that's almost universal. Yes.

Speaker 2  17:03  
So those are the two main and then I know that our specific state agency, they're a little bit more lenient, maybe not on those two. But on other things. DUI

Dawn Davenport  17:15  
DUI is one that comes up the most, or something marijuana possession or something along those lines. So what about those?

Speaker 2  17:23  
With us? It depends on how long ago it was. We asked for a lot of documentation on those things. But those things are typically okay. As long as we have resolved those issues. Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  17:38  
it was a youthful indiscretion. And you can present the case that that was a mistake in your past. You've learned from it, you're no longer drink to excess or whatever. You're usually okay, but you do need to be able to show those things. Do you have to own your own home?

Unknown Speaker  17:54  
You do not need to own your own home?

Dawn Davenport  17:57  
Can you adopt for foster care? If you're living in an apartment? Yes, you can do you have to make a certain amount of money in order to adopt from foster care?

Speaker 2  18:06  
So there is no threshold of money, but you do need to be able to financially take care of yourself. And the

Dawn Davenport  18:13  
child? I would assume that you are planning on adopting, although we'll come to adoption subsidies in a minute, but yeah, okay. Well, that begs the question, and we're talking about money, then, Erica, how much does it cost to adopt from foster care?

Speaker 1  18:26  
Before I answer that, just real quick, I want to add on to an NG sash or for LGBTQ families. What I'm running into is two things with that, which is some states do not allow LGBTQ couples to adopt that they only will allow an individual to adopt and then the other parent can later adopt as a step parent adoption. And I also wanted to comment that single parents actually sometimes for kids are a better match. And people always think single parenting is a detriment because you're less support or whatever. And that can be true, but there's a lot of kids that are coming out of domestic violence situations, and they're in a two parent home, they're always on edge waiting for the shoe to drop. So for some of these kids, single parents is a huge plus. And I always like to throw that little plug in there. Okay, so shifting gears. Well,

Dawn Davenport  19:14  
wait, just one second, before you shift gears. Let me interject to say that there are likely still some private agencies that are hesitant to in actual fact place with LGBTQ plus families. Unfortunately, yes, even though it's legal, you may run into just kind of a slow roll, slow walk type of situation. I honestly don't see that happening that much anymore. But that's something to think about when you are choosing which agency to work with. Okay, now, please answer the question that I keep taking you away from how much it actually costs,

Speaker 1  19:52  
adopting from the foster care system is just about zero. And I say just about zero because then maybe occasionally Some counties or some states, a filing fee, some court fees that are reimbursable. But you may have to pay them upfront. And they're usually fairly low, they're $100 or less. But essentially, compared to private adoptions, there's really no cost to adopting from foster care. And

Speaker 2  20:17  
at least in in our county in Los Angeles, you can hire a private attorney to do it instead of an attorney from DCFS. So that private attorney, they have their own fees, it can be a couple $1,000. And if you use your own attorney, then DCFS will reimburse you $400. But yes, if you use the DCFS appointed attorney, then it's pro bono. And

Dawn Davenport  20:43  
you will be eligible for the federal adoption tax credit, we have an entire annual show we do on that we always cover adopting from foster care. So I recommend that however, the very bottom line would be that whatever the federal adoption tax credit is, that year, it's usually around right now it's in the $14,000 range, it's a direct credit off of any federal tax liability you have. And if you are adopting from foster care, almost always, although not always, but the vast majority of those, you do not have to have incurred that cost. So you get the tax credit, even if you have paid nothing. So it's actually quite if you have federal tax liability, it's a it's a substantial thing. In addition, as long as we're talking money, and you tell us about adoption, subsidies, money that the state pays you to help offset the cost of raising this child. Yes. So

Speaker 2  21:38  
when you are fostering the child, you get a monthly stipend, which depends on their basic level of care. So if they're a typical child, they will get again, it's different in every state. But right now, in Los Angeles, it's around $1,200, a month for one child and a basic level. And then it can go up if that child needs more resources, occupational therapy, physical therapy, mental health services, and those go up a couple $100 every unit of care that you go up, and that can change at all times. So if you end up adopting that child, specifically, they will continue to get that same subsidy until they're 18 years old. And let's just say it's a basic level, right? So let's just say it's the $1,200 a month in

Dawn Davenport  22:33  
the 1200, let me say is not the same in all states. She's in Los Angeles. So she's giving you that rate, it does depend somewhat, but just she's using this by way of example, go ahead. And yes,

Speaker 2  22:43  
so for example, it's the basic level in Los Angeles County $1,200 a month. And let's just say you adopt the child and a few years later, they start having a medical crises, and that you can actually get reassessed. And that basic level of rate can change even after adoption, which is really great. And

Dawn Davenport  23:07  
something I will throw out, especially if you're adopting a much younger child, you may not know what the child's needs are going to be, it is not uncommon at all for the child's needs to become greater are just different as a child ages. So as this is especially we often say with prenatal substance exposure, we know the child was exposed, but we have no idea until eight or nine before we see some of the problems. And there is a way that they say that the child has no actual needs special needs at this time. But you anticipate there is a way to keep the file open, so to speak. Different states call it different things it could be zero amount are to be determined. It goes by different names. But you would negotiate that and say I want this to be something then if we find out later the child has needs we can come back and renegotiate. So something important and not uncommon at all. And the other thing before we leave subsidies if you have any significant questions on subsidy Are you feel like the subsidy that's being offered is not fair or whatever. I would recommend that you call the North American Council on Adoptable Children. They have a wonderful service where they will take your phone calls, and they work in all 50 states and I would recommend that you reach out to them if you have any significant questions big questions. Creating a family has a terrific resource to help you train foster adoptive and Kid families or write a support group for these families. It is an interactive training that can be done online or in person and it is a turnkey meaning that everything you need is included in the curriculum. We have 25 curriculum available. You can check it out at our website creating a fan li.org hover over trainings and the horizontal menu and click on curriculum. All right, so let's talk process. Erica, what's the process? So I could be wanting to adopt a legally free child or I would be willing to go in as a foster parent and work to try to help the child reunified, but would accept the option of adoption if it became available. What's the process? Where would you begin? That is a very

Speaker 1  25:29  
large question. Okay. So because those two processes can look very similar, or they can look very different. So I'm going to start with someone who is willing to become a foster parent and help other families on their way to their own adoption. In that situation, a family would find an agency it might be their local social services, or in most states, there are plenty of other agencies that have popped up to kind of meet the need, that the social services can't handle the overflow and the level of need the numbers. So there are agencies that they could go with that are not social services, once they pick an agency, there's training that's required, and it varies per state, around 30 hours, I've seen everything vary from 20 hours to like 35 hours for basic family foster care, if you were to become licensed therapeutically, there are additional training hours that are required. Again, the training is free. And since COVID, a lot of it's virtual, too. And at that point, when the training ends, you sit in the USS, you know, I learned a lot is this for me? Is this a good match for my family? Can I commit to this? Do I have the time energy resources, whatever? If the answer is yes, then you are assigned to a worker who takes you through all the paperwork of getting licensed. And getting licensed as a foster parent is, in many cases, much stricter than getting a home study to be an adoptive parent for, say, a private infant adoption agency. And so they're going to ask you everything about your life, they're going to ask you about your childhood and you live with growing up, they're going to ask you about your community and about your religion, they're going to ask you about your finances, they're going to ask you all sorts of questions. In the end, you have these wonderful documents that I kind of join up with a great family heirlooms because no one would ever write up all that about their family on their own. Once they have all of that stuff, they submit it to their seat, the state makes a second level assessment asks any questions gets any doctor's notes that might be needed, checks, references, all that stuff. And then once the family is licensed, a number is issued, kind of like when you get your driver's license, you can only have one people asked me that all the time, one license at a time. And then you are eligible to start taking placement of kids who are in the foster care system. And then we talked a little bit about picking what type of placements you're interested in, you work with your agency, they walk you through all of this, you get a lot of support when you work with the foster care agency. And they help you select age range and siblings and all those questions we've covered. The other option is if you don't want to become a licensed foster parent, and as I said, Some states allow this, then you go and you get a adoptive home study. And it's a lot of the same questions I just discussed. It's written up into a home state approved home study, which is sometimes called a pre Placement Assessment. People hear the term PPA they get very confused. It's the same thing. That's what is legally required in order to adopt whether from foster care or privately. And so their home state agency would do all of those does usually cost money and depends by the state, of course. And then they would start networking with foster care agencies to find those kids who are legally clear or about to be legally clear for adoption.

Dawn Davenport  28:50  
Okay, so that's the general process that we would have to follow. Andy, let's talk a little about the home study requirements. I think people get very uptight, understandably, they feel like they're going to be judged, and there's going to be the white glove test. So what is the home study? Like when you are going to adopt or foster depending adopt for foster care or become a foster parent?

Speaker 2  29:13  
Yes. So the part of it is all of the documentation that Erica just talked about. And the other piece is the interview with the social worker, and they are going through, it's an assessment of you and your family. So they're going through your whole background childhood, they want to know about the trauma that you've experienced and how you've dealt with that. So that will be hitting a few heartstrings while you're talking to your social worker. And it's not a pass or fail situation which I think a lot of people think like Oh, am I going to fail it and it's not about that. It's about talking and, and being truthful and honest about your life and everything. It is But

Dawn Davenport  30:00  
people are asking you questions and it's hard to not feel like oh, you know, all my answers? Are my answers correct is if there is a correct answer, right? Correct.

Speaker 2  30:08  
Yeah. So we just have to remember to remain open and honest. And it will all go smoothly, you may need a breather afterwards. But other than that, it's not a pass or fail situation. Another part of the home study is the home inspection. And this is, I think, where people kind of get a little scared, because they're like, What are they going to be doing? What are they going to look at? I

Dawn Davenport  30:35  
live in a mobile home are you know, I, you know, I'm in an apartment are, it's not the greatest home, but that's not where we put our values, you know, bah, bah, blah. Yes,

Speaker 2  30:44  
exactly. So with the home inspection, we are making sure that it's safe for the child. So in Los Angeles County, and I'm pretty sure it's probably every most places, but you do need to lock up your knives, your cleaning supplies, your medications, your guns, your weapons, any weapons, you may have guns, swords, BB guns, anything like that. So all of those things need to be locked up, and the ammunition has to be locked up separately in a different location. So those are the big things, you need a fire extinguisher, you need a first aid kit, if you live on a second level or your bedrooms. On a second level, you need an escape ladder, a lot of agencies want you to have an emergency kit that has extra food and water in it. Those are the big things, I think unless I'm missing anything,

Dawn Davenport  31:35  
I don't think so those are kind of the well, and sometimes you have to have a bedroom for every child. Or you can have the same gender, children sharing a bedroom, depending on the age. And the bedrooms often have to be a certain size, we don't want it to be you know, the Harry Potter situation of a child sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs type of situation. So there are things like that, if you are a relative adopting a child, some of those if they're non safety, most states will give you a waiver on the non safety requirements. Yes.

Speaker 2  32:10  
And if you are in a one bedroom, and you say, Can I do this, you can you a child, at least in Los Angeles County, I'm talking about the child can be in your room up until age two. But at the age of two, they do need their own room. So you can start the process in a one bedroom and foster a child and or two, but then once they turn two, if they're still in the foster care system, even if you're kind of on the route to the adoption, they need their own room at two. And then in a room again, it just depends. But there can be up to four kids in a room, I think even six, but for as long as it's big enough, as long as it's big enough for you know, the kids to have storage for their clothes, bunk beds, things like that. And the sack situation, if they're siblings, you can also get a waiver. It just depends on the situation.

Dawn Davenport  33:09  
Yeah. Eric, anything to add to that? Actually, I

Speaker 1  33:13  
wanted to add something about the home study thing in general, which is that people are when they're doing their home city and answering all these questions, they tend to put their world of perfect life into the home study. We want, you know, seven year old girls named Sarah, whatever it is, but I would just really encourage anyone listening to this, that keep your options as wide open as possible, a lot of agencies will let you put ages zero to 18. As long as again, the space requirements, all that that he was mentioning, are met, because you never know who you're going to fall in love with. And if that child is to and you do your homestay for zero to two, and in the process and the port work and all the other paperwork, the child turns three, they better be doing your home study. So I just suggest keep things as flexible and open as possible. Unless it's a hard note for you. In which case, that's totally fair. But really, you don't want to be updating your home study just because there was something you hadn't thought of.

Dawn Davenport  34:07  
That's a good point. Yeah. Excellent. So Erica, do you have to use the state agency or which would be then a county or parish agency? Or can you use a private agency to adopt a child from foster care? And then what's the difference between the two?

Speaker 1  34:24  
That's a great question. Well, and again, each state is a little different. Some states are kind of quirky, but what I've mostly seen is that there are the state social services, whatever they called in your state, and it's called something different in every state. Yes, that way, all the acronyms. But those agencies can almost never keep up with the volume of need. So there are these I call them semi private agencies, but they are private agencies, working with kids in foster care, and they pop up like mushrooms because, look, there's a need. There's kids, there's families who want placement and they pop up to me that need. So in a lot of cases, the private agencies are a better match for a family who is willing to look at a slightly older child is wanting to look at kids who are cleared or almost cleared for adoption. Because those semi private agencies are not tied to a county, they can network, the entire state for the kids that might be available are coming up Ella Hall. So the local counties tend to be a better match if you are wanting younger children. Or if you want to stay within the county for visitation purposes, stuff like that. So there are pros and cons to each of them.

Dawn Davenport  35:35  
And anything to add to that. Yes. So

Speaker 2  35:37  
with our I'm going to just call it child protective services, because I feel like that's the umbrella for every one. But yes, I think what Erika was saying about them having a lot of overflow, like the timeframe of getting approved might be shorter with a foster family agency, which is what we call them over here, versus going with the state agency, CPS. So that's kind of the difference in our area. So the timeframe. And then I would also say, which Erica alluded to foster family agencies provide a lot more support. So once a child is placed in your home, we are in your home every week, for three months, and then every other week after that. So if you you know, like we're really holding your hand throughout this process. So I think for newer foster families, it's really important because you don't know the process you can learn. And this is what I learned from working in it, and then becoming a foster parent, you can learn it all you can go to all the trainings, do all the stuff, know all the things, but then when you are the foster parent, it's completely different. And you're learning about all the courts and all the court hearings, and all of this and all of that. So there are a lot of things to learn through the process. Hands on.

Dawn Davenport  36:56  
Okay, excellent. I hope you're enjoying this interview. I know I am. And if you appreciate this content, you will be happy to hear about our three courses that we offer. On our website, they're provided to you with the support of our partners, the jockey being Family Foundation, you can access them at Bitly slash JB F support, that's bi T dot L y slash j, b f support. All right, now I'm going to run through a list of questions that we encourage families to ask when choosing an agency, assuming they have a choice. And there are a few states that probably you don't have a choice because the state does not have a contract with a private agency, but the vast majority do. And so you likely will have a choice. So what questions should you ask? I'm just going to run through a list of questions. One would be how long have you been placing children from foster care that would obviously be for a private agency or a foster agency? How many foster children have you placed in adoptive homes in the last year in the last two years? What's the average age of a child that you place in an adoptive home? Generally speaking, are you looking for adoptive homes for children? With more involved special needs are less involved special needs? Because some states say that their private agencies are allowed to place children with less involved special needs, and others do just the opposite? How much does it cost to adopt a child using your agency from foster care and as to make sure they're including the home study any of the adoption education in a post adoption support that they might charge any agency fees you want the total costs? How long does it usually take from an application to a placement? Now, this is obviously at this point we're talking about not going in as a foster parent. What is your agency's policy for how soon you're required to return phone calls or emails? Are you open to accepting calls and emails? If we have questions? What type of post adoption support do you provide? How often are your pre adoption education classes? And do you have them online? Are they offered in the weekends or on evenings? Things such as that? Those are some of the more practical questions that I think we need to be prepared when choosing? Do you have to have anything to add Erica,

Speaker 1  39:25  
just a quick one, which is I encourage people to ask agencies at all ratios of the staff to families that they are working with. And I should have covered in the previous question, which is just that social services or child protective services tend to have much higher caseload greater number of families per worker, then a lot of the private agencies have much smaller caseload. Okay.

Speaker 2  39:50  
So a couple of things when we were looking my family specifically was one error, your trainings so in the beginning and He's in LA County, they have specific trainings like over zoom that you have to do like it's not an on like you click online and do something online, it's in person. So sometimes they were on Wednesday nights when we work full time, and you probably don't want to be sitting, you know, down for three hours and learning about trauma right after work. But, you know, some agencies like our specific agency had it on Saturdays, which was perfect. Right. So that could be a question that you can ask about when their trainings are another one that was huge for us, for my LGBTQ plus families, is Are they human rights campaign accredited? So Vista Del Mar is and there are a lot of other agencies I know in our area that are as well. And they do extra training on LGBTQ family, youth, foster kids, all of that stuff. So we have to do that every year to be accredited with the Human Rights Campaign, meaning that we are so open to all families and all children. That's

Dawn Davenport  41:01  
a good one. Yes. And if they're not Human Rights Campaign accredited, Are they friendly, too? Are they accepting of? Yes. Okay. Excellent. All right. Second, last thing I want to talk about, and this point, this could be an entire course on its own. And that is, all right. So you want to adopt from foster care? How is it best to transition a child into your home, that's assuming you aren't the foster parent, if you're the foster parents, the child likely has already been living with you very likely been living with you for quite some time. But if the child has not been living with you, what is the most child centric way to transition the child into the adoptive home or the soon to be adoptive home? Erica? Okay,

Speaker 1  41:46  
that's the I'm gonna try to get us my elevator speech version of this. But it seeing it through the kids point of view, you know, for the adoptive parents, this is exciting. This is forward motion. This is an adventure and happiness and dreams fulfilled. But for the child, these are complete strangers, usually that they're being told that they're going to be going through a virtual strangers. And that's really terrifying. And having probably moved into foster care, and then maybe moved a time or two into foster care, there's not a whole lot of trust there that this is going to really be all that different. So I suggest that families start by trying to think about it from a kid's point of view. And that's a lot based on their age and developmental standing. But out here, if a kid is 17 years old, you want to start with the basics, like a photo book that can be presented to the kid ahead of time by the worker labels everywhere to talk about, you know what the house looks like, what the family likes to do who they are, because in most states, I think it's age 12, that kids have to actually consent to the adoption as well. So it's important that the kid feel comfortable with you, I would encourage the kids to ask and make up a list of questions with a trusted adult in their current life for you guys so that they can cross interview you so that they feel some level of empowerment and control over the situation. And then if they come for a visit super basic stuff, okay? If they get up in the middle of the night, and they wake you up if they need you, how do they wake you up? If they need you? Where's the bathroom? Do they have to ask to go to the bathroom? basic needs like I'm hungry? Can I just go get a snack? If you answer these questions on the front end, kids feel a lot safer. And they feel a lot less stressed, even if they don't even realize they're stressed. And then silly things like, Hey, do you like bubblegum toothpaste? Or do you like mint toothpaste? You know, come pick our bed in a bag, your room doesn't have to be decorated by us, you know that the hip, pick the colors they want and let them know that that's theirs. They're a little bit of this world. So that's, I mean, just off the top of my head. Those are some ideas. It's really about the kid feeling safe.

Dawn Davenport  43:50  
Okay, Auntie anything you want to add for the transition into a new home?

Speaker 2  43:57  
Yes, so going back just a teeny bit, and I'll try to wrap this up. I'm talking about LA County. So this may be different in other counties and states. But we start off with the matching event. And if a family is interested, they get to learn a lot about that kid. If they eventually get matched with that kid, they learn all of the information on that specific child or children. And then it starts very slowly. So what they typically do is you meet the child at their current placement, and they get to show you around, and then maybe the next week, you hang out at a park for a couple hours. And then the next week being consistent. If things are still going well. You get to go to their house and hang out in the backyard, keeping a child centered and how you know slow or quick they want to do this. Maybe they'll do a sleepover after a few weeks and then maybe they'll do a weekend sleepover and then eventually they'll move in. So it is a really it can be a really slow process and they really try to do that transit Session as much as they can, sometimes it's not possible because they do have to leave that current placement. But if we can do it in that timeframe of a couple of months, it typically is better for the child

Dawn Davenport  45:14  
it is I always want it to go slow. I'm always saying, Oh, don't go quick, is not always possible. But children need time to adjust. And honestly, the family needs time. Everybody, all of us together. All right. So my last question is, How common is post adoption, contact or openness with birth parents, or siblings birth grandparents birth extended family? Let's start with you. Angie, how common is that? And how accepting do adoptive parents need to be? Yes,

Speaker 2  45:49  
so I'm really big on this. I do think that children have a birthright to know their biological family, whether that's a bio parent, a bio grandparent, somebody in their bio family knowing that in some way. Now we know that there are some situations where they couldn't go back to because it was really unsafe for them. But there are still ways to create that connection, whether that be letters, pictures being sent, things like that, like it doesn't have to be meeting in a private place, it can be meeting at a public place, my big thing is bio family like that connection, whether it's once a year, in photos in letters, also child centered right, there can be times where the child is like, I don't really want to go see my first mom today. And that's okay. And then maybe a year later, they say I want to see her every month, it should really be child center in that as well. But as adoptive parents, we are that foundation and laying that foundation. So I think it's also a really good idea if you're fostering that child to create a positive connection as much as you can. And I know in some states, it's different. But if you have, you know, maybe you're dropping the child off at a visit, and you say hi, and you use language like see what we made for mommy today see what we did for Daddy today. And and create that positive relationship with the bio parents, that creates a foundation of if adoption eventually happens, there can still be that level of positivity and openness and connection for that child. So once a family adopts, there is a post adoption contract, at least in our state that we will fill out. And that is up to the bio parent or family and the adoptive parent. And it can be anything from seeing the child three times a year and sending pictures four times a year. And that really just depends on its case by case.

Dawn Davenport  48:01  
Not all states have that as a contract. That would depend on the state and the desires. Erica, anything you want to add to post adoption contact?

Speaker 1  48:12  
Yeah, just really quickly, at least in North Carolina, a lot of times when kids are removed from the home, it's because the families are not safe to be around like Angie was saying. So that contact would have to look like letters and pictures, you know, at least until down the line. But that openness, I call it a social contract. I'm not sure that's a real term versus a legal contract. Because most states adoptions are closed. This is not co parenting. This is shared parenting where you understand that your child already has a family and that their bond with their family allows them to go make healthier bonds with other people. It gives them a foundation from which to jump. And siblings are a huge part of that. But unexpectedly, you'll find it's a random aunt or uncle, you'll find it's a grandparent. These are very important people. And I also have to do a shout out to the fact that a lot of kids are most bonded with an adult who is not a relative daycare providers can be the person that child most season their waking hours. So anytime a family is able to keep those connections, it really helps the child find stability and identity.

Dawn Davenport  49:19  
That's a very good point. And also sometimes it's not bio parents but it is bio grandparents are so are somebody extended, and it could be fairly removed. But that's sometimes where you can find a connection. And you're right it doesn't have to be a relative. Well, thank you so much. Andrew Jones and Erica Jordan for being with us today to talk about adopting from foster care. We are so happy to have the support of adoption from the heart to help bring you this show. adoptions from the heart has helped create over 7350 families through domestic infant adoption, they've been around for over 40 years. adoptions from the heart can provide home study services only or they can do full service and they work with people all across the US and are fully licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Virginia and Connecticut.

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