whats difference between fostering thru state & private agency?

We were licensed by a private (non-profit) agency in early August and still have not gotten "the call" for a placement. I've since been told that the county DFC will only place kids in private agency homes as a last resort because they cost the county more than the standard per diem of $23/day. (?) This is because the county has to pay money to the agency to manage the case whereas if the kids were placed in a county-licensed home, the county would manage (and just eat the cost of managing). But the benefit of getting a private license is that you often go through more training than is required by the state, so you can get a "Special Needs" foster license instead of a regular license. (There are three licenses: regular, special needs, therapeutic.) This should help if you plan to adopt a sibling group or a child with a special medical or psychological need. If you only plan to do foster care, I would recommend getting the county license. Or if you hope to get an infant placement, a county license would be better. (Private agencies mostly get the "harder to place" cases which generally means older children or large sibling groups.) A county license and all foster training are free (as far as I know). A private agency will charge you to do your home study (ours was $80, but it was an update to an international home study ($500)...so much of the work had already been done), but the foster training is usually free. Ours was provided by a coalition of private agencies who do their training twice a year. Social workers at each private agency volunteer their time to train all of the agency families. I hope this helps. :) Rebecca

We are licensed thru the county ( Miami Co.) and the only thing we had to pay for was our physicals ( everyone in the family) - our insurance covered it so we just had our copays. Typically there are lots of things to consider on county vs agency. If you want to foster younger children then in most cases you need to go with the county b/c most agencies deal with harder to place children and dont get many younger (0-5) kids. That was our main reason for going with the county. Agencies do pay quite a bit better from what I've been told.. Every county in Indiana sets its' own rate and boy do they vary!! For example, I'm on the list for 4 different counties. The lowest paying county pays only $14/day for age 0-2 , while the highest paying county is $26/day for the same age! These counties are right next to each other!! Best of luck in your decision, feel free to email me if you want to talk more!

:o Oops, I forgot to comment about the pay rates and what we had to pay for: We are licensed through a private agency that pays their families $30/day (I think---not certain, since we' haven't gotten a placement, yet...It could be $33 or $35). Our county pays their families $23/day/child. We also had to pay for our physicals (which included TB, STD, and drug screens)...we also just paid the copay ($15 per family member). We paid for criminal background checks ($25 for me, $25 for husband) on top of our home study fee. (But a home study done by the county is free, so the criminal checks probably are, too). The good news was that our home study was done within 3 weeks (2 house visits), and the only things we had to add were a smoke detector on each floor and a fire extinguisher on each floor. We weren't asking for young kids, so we weren't required to install cabinet locks/latches or a locked medicine cabinet (although this was encouraged). Plus we've had regular contact with the worker who did our home study and her boss (telling us about training to keep up on our 20 hours). Anytime we've called or e-mailed asking if we can have an official copy of our home study faxed to another state, they do it that very day! I've heard it can be harder to get it (quickly) from a county agency, but "Naca" would have to speak to that. As for the per diem rates covering child's expenses..that will depend. Medical, dental, and therapy appts. should be paid by their Medicaid cards IF you can find doctors, dentists, and therapists who take Medicaid! If you can't, you'll have to use the per diem to pay for the appointments (or go to court to negotiate a higher per diem for extenuating circumstances). Also if you enroll the kids in activities, you might have to fund these yourself. But remember, most communities have great resources for low income families, and foster children will definitely qualify. Our city has free and low cost kids sports programs (Wildcat baseball, free tennis, golf, and swimming lessons) as well as creative arts programs.

Thanks Rebecca & Kelly for all the great info! We are only interested in children under the age of 5 or 6 yrs. old so it sounds as if going thur the county is our best option. Kelly did it take you awhile to get things done thru the county? We called last week and couldn't get an apt. for 2 wks. to even talk to them. Also how do you get on the list for more than 1 county? Is it the norm for it to take so long to get a child placed with you? I thought there was such a great need for foster parents. I guess thats good for the children. If you don't mind my asking do you have children of you own already? We were wondering how they were with the idea of fostering. I hope you don't mind all the questions. We just have so many questions and don't now where to go for answers. You may email me if you like. Thanks again, Kacy

Hi Kacy, I tried emailing you but it says you aren't accepting emails thru this site.. lol I really think the wait for a child varies from county to county. When we went thru training we were told that all counties were actively recruiting for ages 7+ so I"m assuming that's what all the advertising is about! Your county should be able to tell you how often they get your age group in care and also perhaps how many other foster homes also accept that age group. Unfortunately, this can be a long waiting game ! We took 6 months to even get anyone at our county to call us back to get information. Then we did not have to meet them ( I still never have met anyone in my county!! Or any of the counties I'm on the lists for). I do believe your county is different, but my county sends all their foster parent wannabes' to training classes held by Catholic Charities.. Huntington Co. may do their own training.. I guess the whole timeline will depend on your county but I would be sure to ask them all these questions. Here's how our timeline was. We took 3 saturday classes (8am-4pm) and then our CPR/Universal Precautions training in Aug 04. We were not allowed to get any information for the homestudy requirements until we finished classes, I"m assuming this is so they knew we would finish them and still want to do it! lol! Once we did our final class we were given a HUGE packet of information to fill out ( be prepared to write! lol!) and also things we needed to gather- they gave us til Oct 1st to get it all done. We had to get a water test, physicals on everyone in the household, TB tests on adults in the house. Plus like I said mounds of paperwork.. lol. We got it done a little early , turned it in and scheduled our homestudy for the beginning of Oct. We only had one visit ( this could vary for you though?) and were officially approved and on the list Nov1st. We didn't receive our license in the mail til mid-Nov but the county said they already had us on their list! We just got our first placement (thru another county) last week and it isn't a permanent placement, she's a respite placement.. So I only have her temporarily. I've not had any other calls.. I have been told by my county that they dont get alot of my age group into care .. You also asked about how to get on more than one county's list? First you have to get permission from your own county. Mine was fine with it because like I said, they dont have alot of my age group that comes into service. So then I contacted the other counties and asked to be put on their lists. They just needed to check back and verify with my county that it was ok and voila! Bio children? Yes I have 2 children of my own - ages 9 and 6. They were very excited about fostering and are really enjoying it.. At this point in time we only have a 3bedroom home and my kids have to share their rooms with any foster children we get ( I have a boy and a girl).. So that is why we are only taking 0-age 3. Do you have bio children?? I hope I explained everything well! lol! If you have any other questions feel free to email me privately and I'd be more than happy to talk to you about it =) ( naca@comteck.com )