Has anyone had any good or bad experiences adopting with the State of Pa?

I was hoping for some more positive news from those who've been around the system longer than we have. Yes, I am seeing exactly what is reflected in referral status. I've been asked to consider three sibling groups of 4 (my husband panicks at the thought of a sib group of 2!), a few tweens. I'd hate to go out of state since PA has so many in foster care. I am attending a matching event next week to get our family "out there" and known.

Our family has been approved as a foster to adopt family for almost a year. When we were first approved we got several calls from social workers about children who were not any where near what we has said we coudl handle in our profile. Since then, almost nothing. I search amost every week on all the sites, inquire on ones we're interested in, ask my social worker to follow up, and then check in with her to make sure she has. We've had one call back on over 100 kids that we inquired on... and it came while we were out of the county so we couldn't follow through. Now that PA is pushing kinship adoptions, it seems like it is going to be practically impossible to adopt a child from foster care. We are getting seriously discouraged. We are probably going to start conversations with other agencies outside of PA once the summer is over.

We had a good experience a couple of years ago when we adopted our teenage daughter thru foster care. Our daughters cw & our cw was on point. Now several years later we would like to adopt again and so far, I'm not feeling the Agency anymore, it is a whole new staff, they are sooooo different from the previous staff. They are not as knowledgeable and none of them have their own children so it is hard to relate because they never dealt in their own lives certain issues that kids have in general. So their advise at times sounds nuts! I have called SWAN regarding the kids on the website and they are not who we are looking for. We personally had a couple of kids (thru foster care) that are currently showing on the website and when I called to see what SWAN had to say about them it was so different and important information was left out, which isn't good. A lot of the children I called about already had an adoption disruption. My Husband & I want to go out of state because we have so many states to choose from why should we be limited to PA? Boston Beagle, how are things going with Texas? There are a few kids on their website that we are interested in? Has anyone found an agency that does out of state adoptions yet?

we started out as foster to adopt and have inquired about several children. We are pretty broad in what we can handle and still no luck.The proccess is maddening. We even were chosen as one of three families for a little girl and were all set to go an interview when a relative stepped up. The caseworker said that it wouldn't work out and to please stay interested. Well, two months later we were at an older child adoption event and the little girl's flyer was everywhere! So, we decided to do straight foster. And we within a month we got two differnet placement who look like they will come up for adoption. Plus, we will be getting our baby's older brother soon and he will also come up for adoption. My advice is to foster. Yes, we did a children that were moved to a relative placement. yes, there is a risk of RU with every child your get. But love's a risk and we won't have these wonderful children if we didn't take that risk.

Thanks for the update and advice! My husband and I will be moving to PA soon, and we want to adopt a sib group...after all I have read so far from all these posts, the frustration amount is so high from everyone! So many children needing homes, yet PA is slow in taking care of placing them...I will definitely check out other avenues like out of state kids...

Just saw this thread- what a bummer! I saw it's been a few months since your post, has anything changed for you? My husband and I want to get started in January. I am thinking of going with TRAC, has anybody had any recent experiences with them?

Hi it has been nine years since I made my first post! I have to say we finalized on a sibling group of three from Texas recently! Adoption has not been the easiest path for my family! In the beginning I was told to adopt a child from Pennsylvania, SO MANY NEED HOMES! I but heads with so many agencies,and finally someone listenened! So we are a family of four now and don't let your dreams of becoming a family get blown out the front door!:thankyou: :grouphug:

Still looking for a sibling group. Being a single is making it near impossible it seems. I'm giving it another 6 months and I hope the agency sets my homestudy free for me to move on to other states.

I've been silent for awhile....pondering where we are at in our lives. I wanted to give a quick update. After much prayer, discussion, and even debate our family has ended our adoption journey. The end was not as we imagined. No child joined our family in the 4 years we've waited through domestic infant adoptions, then later older child adoption program. It was a bittersweet decision. We are content being a family of three (we have one biological daughter). It'd be nice to have another child, but I felt I wasn't truly enjoying the life I had. I have to admit I wasn't strong enough to put up with the ups and downs of being considered and then later the rejections from the domestic program and the system in Pennsylvania surrounding SWAN just wore me down. I may still lurk from time to time as I'm praying for all who wait on their adoption journey. Best wishes to all.

Very disappointed and just need to vent a little. I go on SWAN everyday to check to see if it gets updated with new siblings. It usually takes a day for it to update. i.e. they put new kids in on the 1st and doesn't update until the 2nd saying it was updated on the 1st. Rarely is it updated and you can see on the same day what was updated. So yesterday I see that a set of children was put in on Friday. I contact my agency letting them know I'm interested. They contact the caseworker and actually got her on the phone, which was amazing enough, to find out the kids were matched a week ago with a family, but they'll look at mine if it doesn't work out. This isn't the first time it's happened either. What is the point of the site? Just to harvest homestudies? Just to say they looked over X amount, meanwhile they are already matched? :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

I feel so bad for all of you that are going through Swan.....DH and I did the same thing back in 2008...went though the foster to adopt program, and while our agency had more kids to foster, particularly babies...we wanted a bit older child aged 2-7 years old. It was an absolute nightmare. Our agency led us on to believe we could adopt and refused to allow us out of the state. We were smacked down multiple times for even wanting to look one state over. We eventually took a foster son, aged 6 and right from the start knew it was a mistake. He had a sister, placed with another foster parent, who literally told the kids caseworker she wanted them both, soon as they could be reunited. DH and I felt like we walked into a hornets nest. 2 weeks later we chose to stop fostering and asked to only adopt. In the end, the agency resigned us for another year and then demanded we do respite care and when we refused, they dumped us, saying we were too emotional.( Huh, then why resign us.....probably $$$$$ I am sure) While I was relieved and happy to have the ordeal over, DH still wanted to foster/adopt..so we ended up moving our homestudy over to another PA agency in hopes of working with AdoptAmerica only to have this other agency close its doors. Thankfully, that is all it took for DH to realize that the last 2 years were a waste of time. I think its awful how badly they push adoption and yet refuse to allow anyone to look our of state, so I feel for all of you, I do. I always am so happy to hear families who have adopted successfully, but am afraid its the minority in most cases here in PA. :( I am today, years later, with DH too adopting from China. We have heard all too many times, why we don't adopt from this country and I just smile and say, we DID try and sometimes relive our story. In the end, we know at least with International, that we should find our child....something I have dreamed about for the last decade. Thankfully my DH did finally come around and saw how important it was for me, as my desire was to always go Internationally. A dream he now too shares! :clap: So Now we await the final stage of finding our child....we are able to look at referrals right now...and hopefully will travel to meet our child this summer or fall. While we have been fortunate in having 2 homegrown boys, who are now 14 and 16...today...never in my mind did I imagine FINALLY having my 3rd, after all these years. I guess in hindsight, I realize there are so many ways to expand ones family and if you are out there and STILL are trying...I have this message for you...don't give up. If one door slams, look for another. That's what we did! :)

I feel so bad for all of you that are going through Swan.....DH and I did the same thing back in 2008...went though the foster to adopt program, and while our agency had more kids to foster, particularly babies...we wanted a bit older child aged 2-7 years old. It was an absolute nightmare. Our agency led us on to believe we could adopt and refused to allow us out of the state. We were smacked down multiple times for even wanting to look one state over. We eventually took a foster son, aged 6 and right from the start knew it was a mistake. He had a sister, placed with another foster parent, who literally told the kids caseworker she wanted them both, soon as they could be reunited. DH and I felt like we walked into a hornets nest. 2 weeks later we chose to stop fostering and asked to only adopt. In the end, the agency resigned us for another year and then demanded we do respite care and when we refused, they dumped us, saying we were too emotional.( Huh, then why resign us.....probably $$$$$ I am sure) While I was relieved and happy to have the ordeal over, DH still wanted to foster/adopt..so we ended up moving our homestudy over to another PA agency in hopes of working with AdoptAmerica only to have this other agency close its doors. Thankfully, that is all it took for DH to realize that the last 2 years were a waste of time. I think its awful how badly they push adoption and yet refuse to allow anyone to look our of state, so I feel for all of you, I do. I always am so happy to hear families who have adopted successfully, but am afraid its the minority in most cases here in PA. :( I am today, years later, with DH too adopting from China. We have heard all too many times, why we don't adopt from this country and I just smile and say, we DID try and sometimes relive our story. In the end, we know at least with International, that we should find our child....something I have dreamed about for the last decade. Thankfully my DH did finally come around and saw how important it was for me, as my desire was to always go Internationally. A dream he now too shares! :clap: So Now we await the final stage of finding our child....we are able to look at referrals right now...and hopefully will travel to meet our child this summer or fall. While we have been fortunate in having 2 homegrown boys, who are now 14 and 16...today...never in my mind did I imagine FINALLY having my 3rd, after all these years. I guess in hindsight, I realize there are so many ways to expand ones family and if you are out there and STILL are trying...I have this message for you...don't give up. If one door slams, look for another. That's what we did! :)

It took a while, but we finialized our adoption of a PA child through SWAN in late 2012. God's plan...God's time...God's child. Was it a long, confusing, heart wrenching at times path? Yes. Would I do it all over again? Yes. I agree with previous poster...when one door closes, look for the window. Don't give up on your dream, unless your dream changes.

I assume that you're talking about in-state adoption, because my worker told me that Pennsylvania is one of the states that rarely lets their kids be adopted by parents in other states.

Yes, in my case I AM talking about in-state adoptions! I do think its possible to find a child, just that they don't want PA families to look out of state as well. And while, yes its still a long road to find a child in another state too..I do still feel like it CAN happen. The one agency I WISH I had used was in Ohio and ENABLED adopting families to have the ability to look at ALL states. This gives an adoptive family access to more children. I think from experience, I know not all families are meant to adopt domestically, through foster care or Internationally. There is no one program that fits all families. Each of us had got to be lead by God to do what we feel is right for us, and with that, we will be successful in expanding our families. Just NOT giving up, but refining where and what our families ARE meant to do SHOULD be the plan. In time, then God will show us what our next steps are to be!