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HOLLYWOOD82
I will pray for you and your daughter, God will see you through.
As for me I've been waiting for over a month now to hear from these people. I took my path trainging for Fost/Adopt in NJ (JerseyCity) and I decide to do just adoption. All my paper work is completed and all of my requirements have been approvrd by ARC.
BUT I have to agree with Hollywood82 the system in my eyes seem to miss lead people alot. and different caseworker tell you different things. like no one knows what really going on. For the pass 2 weeks I' ve been calling my casework from the ARC and I leave a message every time, go ahead and ask me has she called me back? (NO) I know that some of these people are over work but I just had a question and i can't get a hold of her.
But that's just my expereince, not everyone goes through this.
Well good luck :)
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Please be very careful when getting involved with DYFS and the fost/ adopt program. I'm not sure why DYFS even has this program as the goal of DYFS is reunification of child with birth family no matter what. My husband and I began in fost/ adopt about 4 years ago. We received twins and were lied to the entire time we had them we were told their was no family that would take them and that we would likely be able to adopt them. After 11 months the paternal grandparents decide that they wanted them and the boys were given to them without any thought to their future well being. We were cast aside like nothing and told in court by the judge that blood is thicker than water.
We decided to try the program one more time and once again it looks like this baby is going to be returned to a drug addicted family. We will not be doing fost/adopt or any other program through DYFS.
I'm not saying that this will happen to you but don't believe what your told and ask lots of questions. DYFS doesn't want you to know but there is a good chance that the child you hope to adopt will be returned to their birth family.
Thanks for your reply (warning!?). The two children we have now were not Fost Adopt at the time we brought them into our home, but it appeared very much like the case would go that way.
We've had a "normal" 2 year-old for 6 months who had been removed from his home becasue his 3-month-old baby brother had been shaken repeatedly over a period of time, almost to death. The baby arrived at a hospital in critical condition, was placed on life support and eventually ended up spending more than 7 months in rehab, now blind and severely brain-injured. The authorities were going to place him in long-term care (i.e. nurisng home) when they decided to ask us if we would train to take him---he's medically fragile, with a seizure disorder and needing a lot of special therapies. We did bring the baby home and we love him a lot.
The 2 sibs have weekly 2-hour supervised visits with the suspect and her spouse, and the court has said that we should expect to reurn them to their parents within 3-6 months. No one has been prosecuted for this crime.
Here's my question---how do you think the children will do in their natural parents' home after the sequence of events I just described?
Fortunately, we have a 3-year old daughter of our own to love, protect and nuture, which will help ease the pain if the children do have to go back. Nothing will help if one of them is injured after they leave us.
Unfortunately, yhis is not just a new jersey issue. We are in upstate NY and experiencing something similar.
This is our 2nd placement. He was 3 months old when he arrived and is now 7 months old.
He was in the custody of a relative who left him in court when she was not granted full legal custody. Both this relative and another told the caseworker that they did not want custody. He was scheduled to have visits 2ce a week with bio-mom and relatives. He spent more time with the visitation worker because of all the missed visits. They saw him, on average, once a month.
Bio-mom has health issues and drug/alcohol issues. Fson was born with cocaine in his system and had some other issues. The relatives are constantly dragging bio-mom out of crack houses and back home to try and get her to take care of the other siblings.
The relative who left fson in court had custody of 3 other siblings, but let 2 go and live with other people. Now, 4 months later they filed for custody. Why? because bio-mom is refusing medical treatment until he returns (oh yeah that's responsible). They also said they wanted him back for the holidays. So, it was fine to leave him in the summer but now we want him back for christmas!
Fson has a law guardian but they don't attend court when DHS is not the petitioner. SW'r says they will likely get him back. Our voices do not count because we are "just foster parents".
So, these people will get rewarded for abandoning a child. And fson will get to to see his bio-mom dragged home every other day, high on whatever drugs she can find.
Sorry, to hijack your thread but the system is broken on a national level and your post hit close to home.
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EvasMama,
I think I have talked to you. Are you a Just Babies family? I was a previous foster parent to D who is 2 yrs old. Is DYFS saying he's "normal"? I know when we had him last December he was delayed and had some other issues. I hope he's made a lot of progress in the last almost year.
If it is D who you have. Then I know most of the case. I can't believe that DYFS would reunify D with his bio-parents. The bio-parents made it to their first visit and took presents for him, but all the presents in the world can't erase what they did to his baby brother.
Why hasn't anyone prosecuted them yet? It really seems like someone has dropped the ball with this case.
feel free to PM me.
-LeenaB
Hello. My husband and I have been using an attorney for several months in the process to have a semi-open private adoption for more children to our loving family. A friend told me yesterday to contact Morris County Foster Parents and become a foster family to save $ and get a choice of babies faster. But after what I am hearing I am terrified. I am awaiting my packet of info. and think this may be worth looking further into or taking what ever path they tell us, provided it's free, but is all the training worth it? Is this program filled with political crap or can we actually learn something from joining the program? We have 2 young children and can't have more babies of our own. Adoption is in our future, we're just trying to not spend $20,000 to adopt one baby and miss out on having anymore children or putting them through college easier.
Thanks for any helpful info!
Samantha at wants2adopt@earthlink.net
A number of families who were in our NJ Just Babies class for Foster and Fost/Adopt training received beautiful so-called Boarder Babies and are having happy lives without major obstacles, so it really does work out very positively much of the time. On another positive note, many of the children are young babies who have not endured some of the neglect traumas that some of the older children may have been through, so you start with sort of a "clean slate." We believe is nurture!!!! Their new families are adopting these darling babies. One pretty little girl we know went home with her fost/adopt Mom when she was 9 days old---right form the hospital. She's thriving, and as sweet and smart as can be.
The Boarder Baby term ---that just means that the home of the natural parents wasn't for them for one reason or another and the baby was just living at the hospital since they were born. The baby may have been born drug-positive, their mothers may have already had their parental rights terminated with several previous children so they don't get a chance to neglect the new baby---the child is just not given to them at all because the hospital and DYFS intervene to get immediate custody.
Sometimes the baby is born and just abandoned by the mother. Once in a while there's a child with a completely fixable medical problem who is abandoned/legally relinquished because their families don't feel equipped to handle their medical problem. One really beautiful girl baby we know, adopted by a local family, was born with a heart defect that was (routinely) surgically repaired after she was abandoned, essentially, by her family of origin. The adoptive family brought her home at 2 months of age right out of the hospital, and she's thriving ---she doesn't even need any medication!
Use the boards as words of caution. Our Just Babies teachers have been great about helping us sort through who (which child you are offered) is a good candidate for your family based on your needs and desires. Really most people in out class who wanted to adopt babies have done just fine and have avoided a lot of aggravation.
From what I hear, unfortunately, there is a steady supply of these babies. Perhaps you should consider saving yourself $20,000 and enrolling in the classes---easy, fun, and educational----and be there for a child who needs great parents like yourselves waiting to receive them! All the best to you and God Bless.
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My family IS going to start the Morris County Foster program with the intent to adopt. Since making this decision a lot of people have said "Keep a record or write a book of your experiences for us" and I am. Amazing things happen to everyone, good and bad. It's how we interperate and learn from these happenings that's most important. Thanks for the assistance!
Just Babies is an organization which is contracted by DYFS to teach PATH training. But Just Babies also covers a lot of information on boarder babies. Most people in my Class, Oct 2004 were listed then as fost/adopt for infants. A lot of people have adopted and some haven't yet.
Something to let you know though, the majority of fost/adopt children are African American or a mix of AA and something. There are very few caucasian children and there is a waiting list.
Also depending upon which county you live in also makes a difference in how long you'll wait for a placement. We used to live in Essex county and had our sons placed with us relitively quickly,5 days and 1 1/2 months (time it took from BOL). WE now live in Brulington County and have been waiting for 2 months for a daughter age 1-just under 4 yrs. With the new reform plan things are moving to a county system, no longer a state-wide system.
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I know someone personally that took the class in April 2003 was done in May, had a baby by July 1, 2003 AND IS NOW GETTING READY TO ADOPT this child. He was a five months at the time of placement and he is AA and very healthy. She will sign the paper work next month in April. So it took her a less then a year to complete everything and I also know that she will receive money and health coverage until the child is 21 even though he is healthy. Just Babies caseӔ