Completion of the 3-Hour Foster Family Orientation

February 27, 2012 at 6:01 am , by Nicole Dorsey

Up until husband Darrin and I completed our 3-hour “Resource Parent” Foster family application and orientation, I did not realize that you can be both a foster parent and an adoptive parent at the same time when you register with the county and pass their 24 hours of training. You can foster a child and apply to adopt that child simultaneously; it’s a great way to make triple-sure you are the best match for that child!

These are great definitions to keep in mind if you’re looking to adopt domestically:

• A foster parent provides a loving but temporary stable home for a child and helps them reunite with broth parents or family members.
• An adoptive parent provides a permanent stable home once it has been determined that the child cannot live safely with their birth parent or birth family.

In fact, with domestic adoption, you can be single, married, divorced or living with a partner. There is no mandated minimum income but you must be able to show how you support both yourself and a foster child. And I found out, gladly, that I can be a different race, culture or even sexual orientation that my foster or adopted child through the county process.

My worst-case scenario is hosting a foster child, applying to adopt that beloved foster child over a period of months… and then having the birth partners want her back. No way! If I had to knowingly return a child to a questionable family who might hurt her or negate all the stable love we’d provided a child for months, I might end up in jail.

I might do all kinds of crazy things to keep her. My husband Darrin wants us to write  in our application that we’re open to a sibling group but I don’t think I can handle that, either.

Since “returning the foster-child scenario” is one of my biggest fears, a cold dread stops me from signing up for the 24 hours of domestic adoption training, I need to hear a successful  adoption story from parents out there who actually fostered a child and then went on to adopt that child!

I’m begging adoptive parents to out there to send me your success story with fostering, and I will print it!

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1. by Jennifer Kyser

   On August 18, 2011 at 10:03 pm

   When we decided to take the leap and grow our family through adoption (we already had two bio boys), we explored all of the options and felt that fostering to adopt was the way for our family to go. We wanted to be a family for a girl who really needed us. Since becoming state approved resource parents, we’ve fostered two sisters (10 weeks and 2 years old) and a newborn that were initially placed with us to be adopted but were later returned to their families. It’s hard, but our faith that God loves them more than us sustains us. We have successfully adopted a now 3 1/2 year old who came to us as a foster daughter at 12 months. It took 20 months for it all to be final but she was “ours” long before that. And-we are currently fostering a nearly 14 month old that we have had since 9 months. She is on the adoption track as well, and we know things could change, but she sure feels like “ours.” People often say we’re blessing the girls but we always tell them it is just the opposite – they are a blessing to us! Fostering to adopt is not easy – social workers, visits with birth families, and the roller coaster of emotions – but it is worth it to change the future for a child who needs it.

2. by jennie schwartz

   On August 20, 2011 at 1:03 am

   it all started just about four years ago. my husband and i had completed the nine weeks of training, countless pages of paperwork, background checks, fingerprints, and a completed home study which included a youthful picture of the two of us at the age of 25.
   we started our journey with the intention of just fostering and accepted our first placement two months later. to keep this post from dragging on forever, i’ll just say this placement was as precious as a two year old can be, and his mother did everything she was asked of. his stay at our home lasted 14 months and then he returned home to
   his mother. we formed a special bond with his mother and after 3 years he still comes over to visit. it was a win win for everyone involved,yet sadly at the same time not the norm for other children in foster care.
   our next placement, was a drug addicted newborn straight from the hospital. his stay was short lived, since he ended up actually having a relative whom was a licensed provider. i was sad to see him go, however in his situation he was lucky to have a relative come forward in the beginning.
   our third and FINAL placement joined our home on august 12 2007. he was a nine month old baby boy, taken away from birth mom due to dangerous and unhealthy living conditions. we thought this would be a short stay. you know like ” maybe they can just clean the house and make some repairs”. well to say the least we were so naive.
   from day one his birth mother showed no attempt in completing any of the services that were ordered. visits were suppose to be weekly but only happened on an average of once per month. the longer a parent takes to complete services, the longer the whole process takes.
   as the days pass our bonds with the child grew stronger and stronger. days turn in to weeks, weeks turn in to months and before we knew it a complete year had snuck by.
   the judge okayed the termination of parental rights process to begin and by this time we the foster parents had formed a pretty good relationship with the birth mother and grandmother. we expressed our interest in adoption and several months later the birth mother
   decided that she would consent and said she was all for us adopting her son. sounds to cut and dry,”to good to be true”, your exactly right. after the child being in our care for almost 17 months, i received a phone call that flipped my dream world upside down. out of no where a great great aunt had decided that she wanted to adopt him. this same individual admitted she was completely aware that he was in foster care, but she thought her niece had been doing what needed to be done for his return. this same individual had never entertained the idea of visiting her nephew while in foster care and more importantly failed to offer any assistance or support for the mother through the whole process. this same individual as far as i’m concerned was a complete stranger to this child. children’s division completed her home study and even allowed her weekly supervised visits, which were at best only tolerable for the child.
   as time went on this case went onto an adoption staffing. hooray my husband and i were chosen as the preferred family for his adoption and we could now move forward and file a petition with the court. we were excited and thought their was finally a light at the end of our tunnel. just as we started to let our guards down a bit, we discovered the relative also had filed a petition for adoption. know instead of us going to court for a happy adoption day we were now faced with a trial. my husband and i both had to testify on the stand, and it was very lengthy and detailed. at the end the judge said she would rule within 2 weeks. the days passing were long and stressful.
   by the grace of god we were chosen as the forever family. the judge had ruled in our favor and seeing the name change on the court papers, and that i was listed as his mother on his new birth certificate was amazing. finally we had a new beginning to the rest of our lives. almost 26 months had passed from the day he entered foster care to the day our adoption was completed. were most days emotionally miserable at that time yes, would i do it all over again? Absolutely

3. by Hassan Arbour

   On December 7, 2011 at 9:59 am

   Thanks for the info, very useful