Adoption Information

In response to your request for information, we need more information ... such as age, race, etc. that you are interested in adopting. Are you working with Charles County DSS? We are in Calvert County but worked with Adoptions Together out of Silver Spring (301-439-2900) who were wonderful - they have the state contract for adoption of children in the foster care system but also facilitate infant - domestic and foreign adoptions. Services on this end of Maryland are scarce so it usually means doing some driving for training/homestudy completion. If you work with DSS, they do more foster care-to-adoption placements which work well too - the main word in this process - no matter what your desires/dreams are - is PATIENCE!!! These boards are wonderful sources of facts, opinions and informatin ... give us more areas to direct your questions, thoughts, etc. and we'll be glad to reply.

We also adopted through Adoptions Together. But an FYI - they no longer have the state contract to place foster children in the Maryland system. They still do foster children placement, but the child will more than likely be from out of state. We adopted a 6 yo from Pennsylvania. Adoptions Together has been wonderful to work with. I would whole heartedly recommend them.

As FYI for anyone else in southern Maryland, I learned the other day that Charles county has a moritorium on DSS adoptions at this time. They're still looking for loads of foster families though.

After posting on these boards for quite some time, working with Wicomico co. DSS (nightmare in the greatest sense) and anothermarylandfamily pushing us to call Adoptions together, we found our little angel. I haven't heard a bad thing about Adoptions Together. They are wonderful and we feel so blessed that anothermarylandfamily led us to them. If i had to do it all over again, I would go straight to AT. WE thought we couldn't afford a private adoption (we choose to do a private infant adoption after waiting 2 years with DSS to do a foster/adopt placement). AT's sliding scale and willingness to work with us in some special circumstances made a wonderful adoption experience. My advice would be even if you choose to work with your local DSS, contact Adoptions together and find out how they can help you. I also have learned recently that going with a private agency for a foster/adopt is safer because they will help you through any problems if there are any (specifically false allegations which happen in an alarming rate of foster/adopt and older child placements). DSS has a policy of stepping away and offering no help, you must then seek your own legal help and fight alone. I don't know if AT assists in legal help in problem areas, but it would be a question I would ask early on. I have friends who have had a false allegation and they have spent so much money now to fight the legal issues that they could have done a private, infant adoption by now. And don't feel as though you shouldn't ask questions of your agency. When we started this process we just wanted to be approved. But after a few years we realized we should have asked things like, how often will you contact us to let us know how things are coming (I would want a bi-weekly update next time), are you going to give me a copy of the homestudy? or at the very least make sure you are able to read and approve the homestudy. I have know several people who had huge mistakes in their homestudies and they were written poorly. This is really the only represtentation of you there will be to approve or dissaprove you for a child. So make sure it is something you would be ok with someone else reading. If you are interested in a transracial adoption, get their point of view on it. We found that our origional agency was very anti-transracial adoption. (even though that stance is illegal). We realized that they were not going to place a child of color in our home unless it was the very last resort. Which is another reason we waited so long. And if you decide the issues you can and can not accept, don't bend on that no matter how much the worker tries to sway you. Ask to talk to other adoptive families who have adopted through that agency. And if there is a support group in your area join it. We learned the most from our support group and also made wonderful contacts that way. Good luck

Stormy, Is your support group through Adoptions Together or it is one local to your area. My daughter has RAD and I know Adoptions Together has a support for parents of RAD kids and I'm wondering whether to attend.

Actually our support group is on the lower shore (ocean city area). I would love to be a part of some of the AT stuff but the drive is so much other states are closer than their offices :(. But that doesn't mean I don't think it was the best agency we could have gone with. Can I just say, from some small experience with RAD (we had a foster daughter for a few months with attachment issues and have a cousin who has full blown RAD who we do respite for) get all the support you can find. I couldn't imagine going through helping a child overcome RAD without lots of support. I didn't know AT had that support group, but by all means I think you should go. (And that is a friend to friend opionion). I know with our foster daughter we felt like the meanest parents in the world, but we knew we were doing the best by her. And after talking to the cousin's parents we found that they felt the same way. There is something really comforting about others who really get you. Good luck!

K, We, too, are using Adoptions Together. We have such a wonderful experience so far with them. I would highly recommend attending one of their informational meetings. We have been waiting 10 months now and just found out there are only 20 waiting families for newborn domestic adoption. Good luck with your informational search.