Starting From Scratch

DCFS is little to no cost with Fostering. Most Infants and Toddlers. The Placement plan with Foster Care is Reunification with either the Birthparents, or extended Family. You may want to extend your age range a little!

I thought that there were kids available for foster to adopt who would not be able to go back to family.

There are 'Low prognosis' cases but very rarely with Infants and Toddlers. Genererally under 7 the Advocacy is for Reunification with either the Birthparent (s) or Extended Family!

Thanks for telling me. I guess the "foster to adopt" program is not for me.

I wouldn't give up totally on the foster to adopt. I think having an understanding of how it works can maybe help you more in how you want to handle it. First, when a child is first taken from its parents, it is placed first in what I call an "agency home". This is a foster home that fosters directly for the county. Then, when all those homes are full or noone will take a particular child, only THEN do they go to an "outside private agency". Most of those are older kids, hard to adopt kids, ones with issues, sib groups, etc. Not all, but just a little more typical. Now, foster to adopt only means that you will foster, but are open to adoption if that child becomes available. There is no guarantee that any of the children you foster will be adoptable. Most go home, if not to a relative. But there are times that it does work out. If you do not want to really go the foster route, (too hard giving children back..etc) then you can always apply to be an adoptive home only. Then the only calls you will get are strickly kids open to be adopted. To get little ones, is very hard. Most of the "agency homes" end up keeping most of the ones that do go up for adoption. But there are many sib groups of small kids, or ones with babies in them, that might be of interest. not sure if this helps you or not, but maybe gives you a little more insight as to how it all works. Good luck! :) Renee

Thanks, Renee. That was very helpful. I talked to Adoptpakids and they said almost the same thing. They said that there are foster-to-adopt kids in my age range and they usually know which kids to put in foster and which ones to put into foster-to-adopt situations. It sounded more promising than I thought. Also, they weren't judgemental about us not wanting older kids/children with physical/mental disabilities, which was also a concern. I felt better after talking to them and your post was the cherry on my sundae!:D

Glad to be of help :) You'll have to let us know how it all goes! :) Renee

I contacted adoptkidspa also. We are an AA family and we are looking to foster to adopt a young AA child. infant to maybe 6 years. What step are you at in the process, we are still researching and haven't chosen a agency ( we live in Philly).

We are still looking at agencies, too. We need to decide soon. Actually we know about a little girl who needs a home but we haven't made any decisions. I'll tell you when we decide on an agency.