Foster Care Adoption Subsidies

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome, everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am both 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 foster care, adoption subsidies, what's reasonable and how to negotiate. We'll be talking with Josh Kroll. He is the Project Coordinator for the Adoption Subsidy Resource Center at Families Rising, which was formerly known as the North American Council on Adoptable Children. Welcome, Josh to Creating a Family.

Josh Kroll  0:33  
Thanks, Dawn. Glad to be back.

Dawn Davenport  0:36  
Yeah, let's start by saying what are adoption subsidies? So if you're adopting from foster care, I know enough to know that subsidies mean money. So what are adoption subsidies?

Josh Kroll  0:47  
Typically, when we're talking about adoption subsidies, we're talking about ongoing financial support a monetary amount, it can also typically includes Medicaid, and there also can be reimbursement of non recurring adoption expenses to help with things like attorney fees or other costs related to the adoption process. Okay. But for most people, it's when they're saying the word subsidy, they're talking about that monthly adoption assistance about

Dawn Davenport  1:13  
Gotcha. Okay, so what are their names? Is it go by adoption? subsidy is certainly one. Are there some other names that you might hear it called?

Josh Kroll  1:21  
There's a lot of names. And so adoption subsidy or adoption assistance are the two most common folks who are dealing with Washington State will use the term adoption support. California people usually use the acronym AAP, adoption assistance, payment or program. But you'll also hear people talk about it as per diem stipend, and those are probably the most common terms that people use.

Dawn Davenport  1:47  
Okay. And is there any difference between those? Are they basically all the same thing?

Josh Kroll  1:52  
They're all the same? It's just, you know, it's just different vernacular for different states.

Dawn Davenport  1:56  
Gotcha. Okay. So who is eligible for foster care adoption subsidies?

Josh Kroll  2:02  
That's a great question. A lot of times people think it's about the parents. And it's really about the children under they meet the state's eligibility criteria. So it's generally children with disabilities are going to be eligible. But there also can be children over a certain age, there can be children, member of a sibling group, joining a sibling already adopted by the family. In some states, there could be a race component or ethnic minority, it all depends on the state, the states get to set who is eligible. So until a recent change it like the age was from age one in Illinois a couple of years ago, they dropped it to age six, but Kansas used to be age 12, if it was just age to qualify, and there are a handful of states that don't even have an age component, but it's based on the actual child itself, or they meet in the state criteria.

Dawn Davenport  2:56  
Do you have a rough percentage of children who are adopted from foster care that are eligible for the adoption subsidy?

Josh Kroll  3:02  
It's going to be 80% or more in some states, it's basically every child, but you know, nationwide, it's 70 80% of children are eligible.

Dawn Davenport  3:13  
Okay, so in other words, the majority of kids yeah, are eligible to receive this subsidy, are private adoptions eligible for adoption subsidies, and especially if they're adopting a child with special needs?

Josh Kroll  3:26  
Yeah, they can be it's more work, typically for a new adoption being adopted privately, but the first adoption and I'll explain why I gave that caveat there in a second, it's going to be children with significant disabilities who are qualifying for SSI. If a child is receiving SSI, the state still has to make a determination, but likely that child would be able to qualify for adoption assistance, even with a private adoption. And when I say private option, that's both attorney only as well as agency adoptions

Dawn Davenport  4:05  
and tell us what you mean by SSI. Not everybody's familiar. Oh, good question, supplemental security

Josh Kroll  4:09  
income. So that's something that the Social Security Administration we'll make a determination on. And it is an income and asset tested program. It will usually go away for families once they adopt because their income and assets will be too high. But it's the route that families and agencies and attorneys have to go through. It's like a hurdle they have to jump over to have eligibility for the ongoing adoption assistance. So it's like an extra step that needs to be taken, but it is to get that ongoing support that won't be income test, after they adopt up till the child's 18th birthday.

Dawn Davenport  4:47  
So you said that the adoption subsidy is child specific, does that mean there is no income limit because the children didn't have an income?

Josh Kroll  4:57  
So most kids these days are L will offer what's called title for E adoption assistance. And that's where the state gets reimbursed anywhere from 50 to like 75%. It depends on the specific state. States that have a higher median income will have, like 50%. But some other states that have a lower medium income can be as high as the mid 70s, that the state gets reimbursed. Children who do qualify for this title 40, the state can't say you're ineligible as adoptive parents because your Bill Gates, and you make way too much money. You know, we'd all like to have Bill Gates or Elon Musk or whoever Warren Buffett's sort of income true, but there are two states that still will disqualify a child from being eligible if it's non Forry adoption subsidy. And that is Ohio and Louisiana, Ohio has a pretty high income limit for that. Louisiana doesn't. But I believe there's exceptions that families can seek, and if it gets approved, it doesn't matter what their income is. But right now, most children who are over two at the time of adoption should be titled for eligible and any of the kids going the SSI route for a private adoption, they will be title 40 eligible. That's the mechanism that allows those private adoption, states aren't always happy when families are adopting privately and seeking adoption subsidy. But that's how the Feds how Congress wrote the law back in 1980. And they cannot exclude those families out of hand,

Dawn Davenport  6:39  
do they have to advocate for it differently? If you're doing a private adoption? Yeah. And you believe that your child either does qualify or should qualify? What's the process? What do you do? How do you your right, it's my knowledge states are not enthusiastic about this, you

Josh Kroll  6:55  
know, what the family needs to do, and there was a policy issued in January of 2001. And what they need to do, because some of these private adoptions, a child's born in one state, that prospective adoptive family lives in another state. And so the family, sometimes families run into an agency's run into both states are saying it's the other state's responsibility. But if you can get the SSI, that makes the child eligible for that title for E, and then it is the prospective adoptive parents state of residence when the child's not in the foster care where they apply. Okay, they need to do that before they finalize the adoption.

Dawn Davenport  7:36  
Okay, excellent. Thank you. Let me stop right here to ask if you would have heard about our free monthly e newsletter, you can sign up for it at Bitly slash C A F guy that's bi T dot o y slash C A F guide, and you will receive our newsletter every month. It's a monthly and lots of actionable items and really good content there. You will also get as a thank you, for us a free guide. That guide right now is parenting a child exposed to trauma. It's our way of saying thank you. So please sign up at Bitly slash C A F guide, and let your friends know about our newsletter as well. All right, so how is the dollar amount of the adoption subsidy determined? And by whom? Who makes this decision on whether the child should be receiving an adoption subsidy? So how much?

Josh Kroll  8:37  
Yeah, it really depends on the state. And in some states, it depends on the county. So the Feds with this title for the funding, they really have hands off on how states do things. So the Feds only rule related to rates is it can't be higher than the foster care rate for child received while in foster care. Okay, that's a federal Yep. Okay. That's the only thing the feds say about it. A state can have a lower maximum. We had that problem in my home state of Minnesota for a long time, our foster care rate was getting a cost of living adjustment, our adoption assistance wasn't. And so the rate was like 40 45% of the foster care rate. And we fix that for the most part. But right now, they're the same except for kids who go to permanency before their sixth birthday in which by state law, they can't get more than half the foster care rate. Is that national or just oh, that's just Minnesota, okay. There are a lot of states they will give up to the foster care rate. But there's some states where there's an artificial lower ceiling, that that's what families have to work with the biggest state with a lower than foster care rates is Texas with 405 45 for the tougher kids, but it all depends on the state the states get to set all that. And what gets even more challenging EAN is that in some places like in Minnesota, you're going to be offered whatever the maximum the state can give you whether it's 100% of foster care rate, or 50%, they're just going to say, this is what child qualifies for, we're going to give that to you. There are a number of states where families have to go through a whole what they call negotiation process. And in that process, they are going to have to provide information on the needs of the child, which the county or the state should already have, talk about what costs might be related to that talk about what resources that family has available, and try and negotiate a rate up to the foster care rate or whatever the maximum is, if it's a lower maximum than the foster care rate. So in those states, it can be more challenging and it can be, it can be contentious at times.

Dawn Davenport  10:49  
Yeah. Yeah, it can be Yeah. So how do you know, let's say you're live in Nebraska, or you live in Arizona? How can you find out what your state's policy is? So you at least go in knowing? Do you have the option to negotiate? Or are you going to be offered a set amount, and there's no negotiation?

Josh Kroll  11:08  
Well, I mean, the easiest thing outside of calling me which I always recommend an offer, the easiest thing is, if you start talking about the process, and they're offering, especially if you've already been fashion house a little different if you're like, looking on the exchanges, and you're being matched with a child that you haven't already been fostering. But if you've been fostering this child, and they're now becoming legally free, and you're going to adopt this child, once they start talking about the amount, if it's the same as your foster care rate, and that's what they're offering you. There's not really anything more you can do. They're giving you the max. Exactly. But if they're talking about and asking for all this documentation, they're probably negotiating, and I'm happy to talk to families about that. What's your number? My number is 800-470-6665. And my direct extension is 115.

Dawn Davenport  12:01  
All right, so we've got that 800-470-6665, extension 115, this will be included, and the information associated with this. Okay, so if you're offered what we receiving as a foster parent, for you, you got the maximum, what percentage of states have the negotiating system versus the you get the full amount system?

Josh Kroll  12:26  
Boy, that's a good question. I'm not sure. Probably 25 to 33%, maybe a quarter to and might be a little. Yeah, I'm not sure I'd have to like, look at a map and like out, yes, this one this, you know, I just I've been doing this for 25 years. So I just, it's like it's more of a I respond to the state, then I should really put that down on paper someplace. I'm a therapist.

Dawn Davenport  12:52  
Percentage of it. That's yeah, that's enough. That's good enough. All right. Can kinship providers receive foster care adoption subsidies, this scenario being that akin grandparent aunt cousin is raising a child who has been taken into the legal custody of child welfare, and the child is not gonna be able to return home and the state and the kinship provider has decided on adoption as a permanency option. So given that, can the kinship provider receive adoption subsidy?

Josh Kroll  13:22  
Most definitely, it is a common question that I get because people think that existing relationship that came before the child is might disqualify, but it's still back to it's the child being eligible, not who's adopting the child. So not a problem there. The one thing that does sometimes happen and can create problems and sometimes disqualify from it is sometimes families get custody or guardianship, without the guardianship assistance, that's different, but they might get custody or guardianship and then go to a Das. And that may disqualify for that, right?

Dawn Davenport  13:59  
Yes, exactly. And this is something that kinship families need to but all families Yeah, but it comes up more often in kinship families need to think about when they're advocating for which permanency option they want. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type. But this is clearly an advantage to adoption

Josh Kroll  14:16  
right now, if it's through the child welfare system, and they do guardianship with title 40, a guardianship assistance they could adopt later on and then have a convert to the title for adoption assistance. But before they pursue that they should talk with the state and confirm that's going to happen because some states still have guardianship assistance programs that aren't under Title 40 and do get lost when they go to adopt. Like that was a big problem for a while before Kentucky had a wonderful guardianship program, but it wasn't the federally funded one. And so when families went to adopt they lost that support that they had been relying on. So

Dawn Davenport  14:57  
yeah. So what other things can be included in an adoption subsidy agreement, other than the monetary monthly stipend,

Josh Kroll  15:06  
well, the Medicaid should come through and the non recurring that should be the same in all states, the non recurring adoption expenses is up to 2000. Some states have a lower limit. And in some states, they will make you get an attorney, an adoption attorney, and they all magically cost that amount per child. Yeah, the advantage is in some of those states where that happens, it's so regular that the family doesn't even have to come up with the money to get reimbursed, they actually do direct pay to those private attorneys. Other things that can come in, and it really depends on the state, there may be some other services, there could be respite, there could be child care, not so much residential, there might be house modification, it really depends on the state, and what they might offer the thing that gets a little challenging, like we just had our conference in Kansas City, Missouri. And they do provide childcare. But childcare is provided through the school system, or I can't remember what it was, but it was it, it was no longer under the Social Services, it was under a different thing. So it's something that all families who have adopted from social services are eligible for. But it's not run by that program. So it's probably not going to show up in that agreement. And another state that has done it, I think, similarly has been Vermont, but that hasn't helped families who have adopted Vermont kids who no longer live in Vermont. So even if it's like you will get this benefit. It can get complicated if you have issues with multi states, if you've adopted from another state or you've moved to another state, and that benefit is provided as a program within another part of the state government.

Dawn Davenport  16:54  
How would you know? So you're adopting and they offer you X amount? How do you know whether you can even ask for respite or childcare?

Josh Kroll  17:02  
We on our website do have some information on it. We do have questions on that for each state, we do a survey a profile for each state. So if a family were to go to our website, that will probably change in the future, although I'm assuming we'll keep the website so it redirects when we get the

Dawn Davenport  17:20  
updated group. They've just changed their name. And so yeah, we're talking about it. Yes, it's

Josh Kroll  17:24  
snack act.org, which is N as in Nancy a as an Apple C as in Charlie a as an Apple C as in Charlie dot O R G. And if you go on to the website, it is find answers, you go to adoption assistance. In there, you'll see a link on the right side that says state adoption assistance programs. And so you can click on your specific state,

Dawn Davenport  17:45  
that should be your first stop. Honestly, when you're considering any of this. It's a wealth of information. So go there first, and read up on your state to find out because there's a lot of information there. You said that Medicaid was automatically provided? I think he said that was automatically provided for all children who are adopted from foster care.

Josh Kroll  18:06  
If the child is receiving title for adoption assistance, which should be almost all kids at this point. They will for sure get Medicaid? I think Virginia may I have to double check it. I think Virginia may still not provide it to kids who are title 40. And don't have a special needs like a disability that warrants it. But it's at this point, Medicaid should come for pretty much every child now.

Dawn Davenport  18:32  
Gotcha. What about college tuition? In state I would assume is that something that's included?

Josh Kroll  18:39  
There are probably about 10 states. And it depends on the state, it typically is for that state school system. So like if I adopted a like I was just talking earlier today, a woman adopted in Florida and she just moved up to Tennessee, if she's going to take advantage of that for her child in the future. They're going to have to go back to Florida schools, you know, a state college or university to take advantage of that program. There's only about 10 states that have it in some states. There's some age limits, like it's for older kids, and it may only be community colleges and may not be state universities.

Dawn Davenport  19:16  
Interesting. Thanks. I thought that was more universal. I did not realize it now.

Josh Kroll  19:19  
It might be 12. But it's it sadly, not as many as we should do.

Dawn Davenport  19:23  
Yeah, it seems like that should be universal. Yeah.

Josh Kroll  19:25  
What's interesting is I think there's been a move for state schools, for more students whether adopted or not to be eligible. Like in Minnesota, we now have a program to help kids over third teen when they were in foster care at age 13 or older. But we just passed a law this session that I think will make it free for families that make less than 80,000, which could hit a lot of foster adoptive families.

Dawn Davenport  19:50  
Okay. Does the money have to be spent directly or solely on the foster child? Or can it be used to benefit the whole family or the foster child only tangentially such as adding a bedroom to the house so that the kids don't have to share are going on a family vacation, you know, because they feel like it benefit the family. Yep,

Josh Kroll  20:09  
the states are allowed to require or request. And as a part of that whole title 40 rules that come with that federal money is they are allowed to ask that the family is still financially supporting the child. Sometimes the child may be out of the house, maybe with another relative or something. Just for you know, sometimes behavioral shows might be safety issues. But the states can ask for an accounting of how every penny spent, there's no itemized list. So the families are allowed to spend the money as they see fit to incorporate the child into the family. That's language out of federal policy.

Dawn Davenport  20:48  
So although you may have to account for it, there shouldn't be a limitation that this money was just used to buy clothing for this child. Right. Okay. I want to thank adoptions from the heart for sponsoring this podcast for almost 40 years, adoptions from the heart has helped create over 7000 families through domestic infant adoptions, adoptions from the heart can also provide home study only services. They work with people all across the US and are licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Virginia, and Connecticut. Thanks, adoptions from the heart. And now back to the show. So what about situations where the child is either too young to be displaying needs, or is not displaying needs, but the parents have reason to believe that the child will have needs as they age, a classic example of this would be prenatal substance exposure. So how can they negotiate for future needs? Well,

Josh Kroll  21:49  
the question might have come out of Iowa, because that's what they call it in Iowa, they have a future needs agreement. A lot of states, not all, but probably more than half have like $0 agreements that can be called future needs in Iowa, dormant deferred payment, high risk, I think, Missouri and Kansas may call it guarded prognosis, they can provide a $0 agreement, some states where there's the risk factor will actually provide a monthly payment. But that's very uncommon. Most of them will do a $0 agreement typically will come with a Medicaid and the reimbursement. It's better for the states. And it's better for the family. Because if problems arise, later diagnoses come in, they can go back to the state of very easily say, state, we have this issue. Now we have this diagnosis, we need help. And the state will be able to more easily begin that if there are some states where that doesn't exist. What would happen if they did not have an adoption assistance agreement, they would request it, the state would have to deny it because Federal regulations require that adoption assistance agreements be in place prior to finalization, the family then could appeal it. They might succeed. But it's a longer process. It's more work and stress for both the state and the family. That's why it's great that a lot of states are doing these high risk deferred doormen guarded prognosis, future needs agreements, because it's just, it's a great safety net for the families in the child.

Dawn Davenport  23:18  
Do you have to have a specific diagnosis in order to go in and renegotiate and say, okay, it was $0? Matt, well, we need more. We need money now. Because therapy is costing?

Josh Kroll  23:28  
Yeah, not necessarily. I mean, I think a couple said, it has to be something that's spelled out in the original agreement as something but that's pretty uncommon. Most of them are pretty generous. And to say, I mean, in this is like, even if you don't know, the prenatal, like, if you adopt a kid under five, a lot of times, unless it's like an obvious physical disability, they're like, Well, you know, get the child in early childhood learning and, you know, see if that will help with things. There's a lot of things that doctors will not diagnose before their school age. So I think, in general, it's not as rigid as it could be, thankfully, because you just don't know. I mean, you know, a lot of the families that kids come into the system from those families, the birth families have had a history of trauma themselves. And they may have a lot of undiagnosed things that might be going on that it could be hereditary. So I think in general, it should work out fine for families. But once again, they can always call me if they're struggling with getting that activated.

Dawn Davenport  24:28  
So if you are adopting, and this usually only comes up with young children, so if you are adopting a young child, you have no idea whether this child you have no reason at this point to think that they're going to be issues, but you don't know if there aren't, we do recommend then always asking for a $0 amount agreement. If they're

Josh Kroll  24:45  
not offering other things, I would ask for that possibility. For sure, because it just makes life better for everybody. And I would also say sometimes there are people who are like, well, I don't need help for this child. They seem healthy and all that I would always encourage that had family even if they thought, Oh, it'll be fine and we make good money now, you know, who knows what their life's gonna be like in the future as well as the child, I always would say, take the $0 agreement. If you want to put the child on your private insurance, go ahead, put the child in private insurance, keep the Medicaid as a backup. Make sure that you have this safety net in place in case life throws you a curveball whether it's you, yourself or your child.

Dawn Davenport  25:26  
Exactly. You don't know what the future is going to be. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you don't use it, you don't use it. Right. Yeah. How receptive are states to parents coming in asking for these future guarded diagnosis, future payments, that type of thing.

Josh Kroll  25:42  
Any state that has those in place are very receptive to it, because it's just like I said, if if I didn't have one, and then problems came later on, it's a whole extra process. It's time in state money, staff time to do that whole appeal process to try and get it afterwards. So the States, I honestly think part of what drove it was to make it easier, not just for the families, but also for the state to just like, turn it on, instead of like having to go through this onerous process for everybody.

Dawn Davenport  26:14  
Yeah. And oftentimes, when states are really putting up resistance, if you come back in and say, well, we've, we're seeing a lot of needs. Now he's 13. We're seeing we hear from parents at the states who are not particularly receptive to then, you know, you've adopted this job, this is your child now that so they're not receptive to and then starting to pay. Have you seen that as well?

Josh Kroll  26:34  
I mean, it depends on the state, I see that as much, not with the $0. And then activating, I see that more with some of those states that are more challenging to negotiate with.

Dawn Davenport  26:44  
So those are the states where they have the 25 30%, whatever, have the negotiating,

Josh Kroll  26:49  
yeah, some of them negotiate very fairly, but some of them are, are challenging. Like, I won't say which state but a few years ago, probably a decade at this point, because I've been around forever. I talked with her grandma and a more rural part of her state. And she was up here, three grandkids, and she was being offered. I think, at the time the state was around 19 $20 A day was typical for basic kids. And she was being offered for her three grandkids. $3 a day, $3 a day, and $7 a day for the tougher grandkid.

Dawn Davenport  27:21  
And that's just wrong. Yep. I agree. Because the states have a built in incentive to I'm assuming these children were not going to be able to reunify so they have an incentive to seek permanency for these children. Yeah.

Josh Kroll  27:33  
And I mean, this is a grandparent, you know, it's like, I don't remember if the grandparent was close to retirement age or not. But you know, some of these grandparents are looking at that on fixed income. So, you know, there might already be on fixed income, and like they stepped up, but they didn't plan on this,

Dawn Davenport  27:49  
right? Yeah, they haven't saved, they've already raised their kids. And so a question we often get is how to get the state to pay for residential treatment. Let's assume the adoption is gone. And the child is really struggling. And the family thinks, well, our best bet is residential treatment. And they want the state to help defray the costs because it can be astronomically expensive.

Josh Kroll  28:16  
It's a real hard thing. It's a real challenge. And it's expensive for the states to when they step up. Yeah, my general advice. There's some exceptions out there. But my general advice is you're going to want to work with your state or county social services. And what I tell people just in general, is take the adoption blinders off, because you're probably going to be looking at mental health. There might be some other departments or behavioral health, it all depends everybody's different language. It's kind of job security for me. You know, people all use different language, but generally I you know, I just say, talk with Medicaid, Medicaid, may be paying for the treatment portion of a placement. So you've got Medicaid, and if they're fighting that they say they don't want to pay for it. Each state has a disability rights group. If you go to n as a Nancy D as in David, ours and Robert and as a nancy.org. It's National Disability Rights Network, you can look up your state's thing. They are helpful in getting Medicaid to do what they sometimes don't do. I generally I think they do a good job. But you know, sometimes families need that extra push you on track to the schools, they might be obligated to pick up some educational costs with a residential treatment, and talk with social services and talk with the adoption unit to see what they can do because it's usually going to be a team of different components, funding silos trying to help with that costs. Hopefully, it's not needed, but it's hard to get that help and sometimes families have to place the child voluntarily back into foster care, get the services. If that happens, the family likely not always but likely will be referred to child support. But the family can continue to receive the adoption assistance, and they can use that money to pay the child support.

Dawn Davenport  30:09  
Let me restate what you said, just to make sure that it is clear to everyone. So you have a child that in order to get the proper treatment that they need, that you need residential, very expensive, so it is not unheard of for families. They can't afford it. But they can't keep the child at home because of the degree of the disability, usually almost always a mental health disability at that point, they would then say, we are relinquishing custody of this child back to the state and adoption, dissolution.

Josh Kroll  30:41  
No, not necessarily adoption, dissolution, and not necessarily relinquishment, sometimes in families generally, not all are some are at the end of the ropes. But a lot of families are committed to that child, it's just not safe to be in there. So even if they dissolve the adoption, they still want to be there. But they don't necessarily have to dissolve some are forced to voluntarily place into foster care, but not terminating parental rights. So it's not a dissolution. Lot of places don't do that. But it does happen. So I just want to do good.

Dawn Davenport  31:13  
Depending on what state you may have to dissolve the adoption, but they may also be able to turn the child back into foster care, and still be having your legal relationship with the child remain intact and your emotional relationship as well.

Josh Kroll  31:28  
Yeah. And you might not even have to place a child into foster care to get the service. It just It all depends. But I just want to use that as an extreme example, even if you didn't place the child back into foster care to access these services, you may run into a situation where they do refer you to child support. But you can keep that adoption subsidy. If your parental rights have been terminated, you can keep that adoption subsidy and can use that to pay

Dawn Davenport  31:54  
they may ask for more than that. But assuming that's all they're asking you there are

Josh Kroll  31:57  
some states I know Minnesota and Wisconsin are capped out they can't actually ask for more than the adoption subsidy. And I'd like to see that spread. Yeah, we'd say yeah, in Missouri, they have a really good program, but they require families to voluntarily suspend the adoption subsidy payment for that, but then

Dawn Davenport  32:18  
they're not coming after you for Johnson. Exactly. Yeah, six to one half dozen. Yeah,

Josh Kroll  32:22  
exactly. And the weirdest one, and it really struggles like my general like talk to these different groups, it makes it really hard for families who live in California, but didn't adopt from California, California's got this really weird thing, where it for up to 18 months, they can increase the subsidy to six $7,000 a month for up to 18 months per incident to help pay for residential treatment. But then, like if I adopted Minnesota kid, I moved to California, like what I call the neural pathways for normal way that I suggest people to navigate. That's not usually how California families access residential treatment. So it's like it's a harder struggle for those families living in California and eating this that don't get California subsidy or AAP. But the other thing that's really challenging, even if Medicaid will cover a place is families sometimes struggle with finding what they think is the best fit for their child's needs. And is that place Medicaid approved. So sometimes, some people look to the west, there's like, I think Utah has a fair bit of them, the wilderness boot camps, like some of those places don't have enough of a treatment part of their plan, and those won't get approved. So that can be a struggle that families even if you were like working with, you're gonna get all this ton of support, you may run into a problem of like, I think this is gonna be the best fit for my child. And, you know, bureaucracy says we can't pay for that, because it doesn't meet our requirements that can happen. So

Dawn Davenport  34:00  
yeah, yeah. All right. So we've laid out a number of situations where you might be negotiating, you might be negotiating for adoption assistance, subsidy, because that's what your state does. They're one of those states that automatically you have to negotiate. Or you might be negotiating for how to pay for residential treatment that you think your kid needs, or perhaps you're desperate for respite? What's a parent to do? I mean, you're a one individual and you're facing a bureaucracy. Should you consider hiring an attorney, as if you had the money and I'm not even sure what type of attorney would specialize in this. So where do parents go for help in figuring out how to approach this faceless bureaucracy in order to get what they think their child needs?

Josh Kroll  34:46  
So there's sort of a front end and back end questions. So if you're a state that does negotiation, and you have an attorney, you might want to ask them and you know, there's a couple that were negotiation half Friends and families have to get an adoption attorney and they all you know, magically cost that amount. When you talk to that attorney, you want to ask them? Is this just filing the paperwork? Or does it include negotiation like Indiana has been a state that has been a challenge at times with negotiation there. These days, it shouldn't be less than 50% of the foster care per diem, that should be the basement for negotiation should never be less than that. But I know the last time I was in Indiana, like one of the adoption attorneys I was talking to, he said, I want to say like, I think it was more than half the time, if it wasn't more than half his time, it was at least 30 40%. But it might have been more than half his time of what he does for each adoption case was actually negotiating not all the filing paperwork and stuff like that. So on the front end, if you're negotiating, you'd want to ask your attorney if they know this, and you know, some people get a little understandably concerned, because sometimes those states were you have to get an attorney, they'll give you a list of attorneys who, you know, will cost you exactly this, so you don't have any out of pocket costs. But then sometimes families are like, Well, are they really gonna fight for me, or, you know, they want to stay good on this list. And so they have sort of media grabbing in

Dawn Davenport  36:15  
the pocket of the state? Or if they're too difficult they're gonna get, I don't

Josh Kroll  36:19  
think that they are generally. I mean, they do have, as we learned with other news out there that they are supposed to represent their client, but it is always a question that people have, there are definitely attorneys that do specialize this probably 10 or so across the country. But I would say even ones I don't know are if it's a state that needs negotiation, they should be pretty solid.

Dawn Davenport  36:41  
And doing attorneys you're doing you're saying yeah, okay, there should be pretty

Josh Kroll  36:44  
familiar with it. But families need to be their own best advocate, because they're the ones that know, the kids, you know, after adoption. I mean, like with respite, or anything else, I still encourage people to take off the adoption blinders, like if I have a child with fetal alcohol, what sort of fetal alcohol resources are out there, like we used to have, they changed the name, to proof Alliance, it used to be the Minnesota organization on fetal alcohol syndrome, anybody who called me from Minnesota, and mentioned that about their child, I would make sure they knew of that organization, because I know a lot about adoption subsidy. That's why you have me on here today. But I also know there's a lot of things that I have no clue about. And so I want people to reach out to organizations that may know of other resources that I just don't know. So I encourage people to take off their adoption blinders. But hiring attorney after adoption, generally, unless you're really fighting, especially over the monthly amount is probably not worth it. I mean, you're better to talk with folks who can help you navigate me the other thing, even if I don't know the answer, a lot of states have, like state foster adoptive parent support organizations, almost all states have that. Yeah, some are more robust. And others and a lot of them have very robust Facebook groups. The one we have in Minnesota on our state contract has about 2000. But I think an Oklahoma one has about 8000. And there's one in Indiana, that's like 12,000 folks on it. And there's a lot sometimes there's some bad information. But there's a lot of information out there. And I mean, even here in Minnesota there times people ask me a question. I'm like, Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. Maybe ask it in the group. Because there's I mean, parents are a wonderful resource.

Dawn Davenport  38:30  
Yeah, they absolutely are. And there's also lived experience they've gone through. Yeah. All right. So how are adoption assistance or adoption subsidies handled? If you're adopting a foster child in another state?

Josh Kroll  38:42  
Oh, that's a great question. And I've been getting this question a lot lately. So if I'm in Minnesota, and I'm adopting a child from let's just say, California, the child's criteria for eligibility, the rates, they pay, all of that is going to be set on what California does, because they have the legal and financial responsibility for the child.

Dawn Davenport  39:03  
I always tell people, once a child is in foster care, the state is stepping in as if they're apprentice loci for that child. So the state where the child was living, born, maybe or just living when the child entered foster care, that state has the responsibility, because it's if that child was theirs,

Josh Kroll  39:24  
yep. And I even take that analogy a little further and say, you could think about adoption subsidy as sort of being the child support payments to the family. Yeah. So in this example, California would be the responsible state and I would look at all of their rules. What would happen when I talk to the child is I would get a Minnesota Medicaid card for that child because a California wouldn't wouldn't work. And the state does that. No problem. There's a whole system called the interstate compact on adoption, medical assistance where state folks California they have county folks the only one that does it with county folks, but The State sends that information to the other state and gets the Medicaid set up. Now, let's say I adopt the California kid live in Minnesota and I decide Minnesota winters are way too cold. I'm gonna go move somewhere. I'll move to North Carolina because I'm not moving to Texas or Florida. That's too hot. And I don't want to deal with hurricanes all the time. Just

Dawn Davenport  40:21  
chicken people off here. Now I'm just saying our audience is going to be up in the uproar now. Wait a minute.

Josh Kroll  40:27  
I sent too hot. I mean, it's been hot down there. I'm just doing weather nothing else. Okay, so yeah, I mean, I there's a lot of people who would never move to Minnesota. I mean, I've seen minus 53 Windchill? So

Dawn Davenport  40:40  
yeah, I've been there when they have all the tunnels that you have to walk underneath where you know, in Minneapolis, I'm going anyplace where you can't walk outside most of the year. I'm just saying. That's, if you don't mind, frostbite.

Josh Kroll  40:53  
Oh, yeah. Or you just get the right code. But yeah, I moved to North Carolina will ignore all the wide and pick other places I moved to North Carolina, my Medicaid in Minnesota is not going to work in North Carolina. So I don't go to North Carolina and say, Hey, North Carolina, I need Medicaid for my child. Now, I'm going to say California, I have adoption assistance. For my child from California, you need to send paperwork to North Carolina, where I live now, and get the Medicaid set up there. So if you already have it, and you're moving, you're just gonna give yourself endless grief. If you try to apply yourself when you move to the new state, you need for many reasons, including letting them know where you live. But many reasons, you need to let the state that's paying the adoption subsidy know where you're moving to. If it's a new state, they need to send that Medicaid documentation over so you can get that set up in the new state.

Dawn Davenport  41:50  
Gotcha. Because ultimately, the responsibility is always going to stay with California.

Josh Kroll  41:55  
Yeah, I mean, they're the ones that have the contract. So they're the ones going to have the information to fill out in the form to set into it.

Dawn Davenport  42:02  
Gotcha. All right. Well, Josh, is there anything that I haven't asked you about with adoption subsidies that I should have?

Josh Kroll  42:10  
The one thing I would say is, I mean, there are a lot of weird things out there. So I'm going to throw in a couple of ones just so people have it. You know, we talked about the grandmas adopting or you know, grandparents adopting, it's outside of Maryland, for non federal kids that on 40, families who start to get social security benefits for themselves. Like if I became disabled, or I was closer to retirement age than I am, I could get Social Security benefits for the work that I did the payroll taxes I paid. And if I have an adopted child or birth children, I could get dependent or family benefits for them, that can get added with adoption assistance. And that could also include survivors benefits from a birth parent, or from an adoptive parent, the states can, and some have policy that they must, they can reduce the amount of the adoption subsidy, because of that benefit in negotiating it, but they can't change it. If I have a signed contract. So like, I adopt a child, I'm getting $500 a month in adoption subsidy, I now become disabled, and I'm gonna get $600 a month in family benefits for my child, I can get both. And because my contracts already signed, they can't change my $500 subsidy. Gotcha. But if that child was getting 600 in survivor's benefits, and they're like, well, that's more than the subsidy, we're not going to give you any subsidy, what they'll do is they'll give you a $0 agreement with the Medicaid. So it's a little complicated, but I wanted to throw that one out there. It's a good point. The other one is, and you can check out our other radio show on this with Becky, Wilma, this adoption assistance, if you qualify for it, even if it's a $0 as long as it has either Medicaid or reimbursement, which I believe charges still doesn't. But every other state does, to my knowledge that does the $0 agreements that will qualify as special needs for the Federal adoption tax credit.

Dawn Davenport  44:19  
So the $0 agreements do allow you to be able to partake of the special needs adoption aspect, which means that you don't have to have incurred costs to get the full credit.

Josh Kroll  44:32  
Exactly. And if anybody were ever looking at that tax credit and the IRS or asking proof of special needs, you should keep this anyways. But the adoption assistance agreement is the proof that you would send a copy of you would send to the IRS,

Dawn Davenport  44:48  
right. And that would count even though there's no money associated with it. Excellent.

Josh Kroll  44:52  
Yeah, just figured since people might be hearing this so it'd be good to get an extra reminder about the special needs portion of it.

Dawn Davenport  44:59  
Right Adoption Tax Credit. I'm singing it all the time. And I can't tell you the number of people who adopt from foster care and it has never been mentioned to them. That's a whole topic of another show. But it drives me crazy.

Josh Kroll  45:12  
Well, it drove us crazy in foster care. They're required by federal law to notify families, it doesn't mean they have to do a good job. But they're supposed to tell them about the adult. Yeah, that's where the problem lies.

Dawn Davenport  45:22  
I have talked with child welfare workers who don't know about data on tax credit.

Josh Kroll  45:26  
I've done trainings IT administrators or supervisor like you can't give tax advice. And my response when I'm especially face to face I'm like, but they can give out our information. Right? And they're like, yeah, so I'm like, That's all I'm asking.

Dawn Davenport  45:38  
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they say they won't get exactly yeah. I hope you are enjoying this show with Josh talking about adoption subsidies. I know I am. And every time I talk with him, I learned stuff. It's speaking of learning stuff, I want you to know about 12 free courses we are offering at Bitly. Slash J B F support. Our partner, the jockey being Family Foundation, are sponsoring this library of courses. And they're terrific, you can receive a one hour credit towards your see if you need that with a certificate of completion. But if you don't need that, you can still take the course and learn a lot. So check it out at Bitly slash J B F support. Okay, Josh's phone number is 1-800-470-6665. Extension 115. Josh, what is your email?

Josh Kroll  46:36  
It's Josh k. So J OSH K, at NASDAQ Na, c, a c dot o RG

Dawn Davenport  46:48  
and I've included it in the information accompany this interview. So that will be in there. Thank you so much, Josh Crowe for joining us today to talk about what is a very important topic and one that you really know up one side.

Josh Kroll  47:02  
25 years of doing this kind of Yeah, yep. Yep. And thank you for letting me continue to be the most frequent guest on The Family Radio Show.

Dawn Davenport  47:12  
You are actually yeah, no. Yeah. Right now you're holding it really firm. You've got that place.

Josh Kroll  47:18  
Yeah. Well, I just increased on Becky by one more. So.

Dawn Davenport  47:24  
Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Josh. And everybody. See you next week. Calling out to all trainers are people who are being trained, or support group facilitators are people who attend support groups, and that's foster adoptive and kin support groups are training for those demographics too. We have a creating family a resource for you. It is a turnkey, off the shelf curriculum that you can use for training or for support group curriculum. This is a high quality support group or you're doing some skill building. You could check it out at our website, creating a family.org hover over the word training at the top and then click on Support Group curriculum.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai