Hang in there PA 'waiters'

Where should we look? Our agency said to just keep looking at the PAE website. And we hear nothing from them, unless they want us to do respite care. We have been waiting since March. It's discouraging sometimes..

Start calling county agencies, especially if you see a child on a site that is ANYWHERE close to someone you would be interested in. And make sure you ask them if they have any other children available that are in your that are of the type you are looking for. 9 out of 10 that I called are not currently listing kids on the swan site, they are placing directly using lists of the waiting parents - they are only listing kids that they can't find anyone for. best wishes! Diane

I am glad to hear about your match. We have been waiting since 12-04 and as Mel said our worker tells us to look at the PAE and that is pretty much it. We did get a letter from SWAN about a possible match but noone returns his calls. I have tried to make calls on our behalf but it makes our worker angry. Did your worker make calls for you as well as your own? Also I faxed our profile to a worker of a child on the PEA and was told by our worker that I should not have done that and that our profile is the property of the state. I have no idea what to do and how to begin to help ourselves. I pray everyday for that match. Thanks for listening. God Bless you and the little angels he has blessed you with.

Our worker only called on specific listings that we inquired about - and that was after MUCH delay - it had me totally frustrated. I didn't do any faxing myself, but I would call the workers office and leave a list of places to fax it to. And I would check up to confirm receipt a few days later too. Best wishes Diane

You Need To Start Networking On Your Own> Don"t Wait For The Case Workers And Agencies To Call Because It Doesn"t Happen> We Started Attending Adoption Conferences Where You Can Submit Your Homestudy To Many Agencies> You Can Check Out Profiles Of Children> We Started Calling Everywhere> We Got On Adoptuskids Web Site And Started Our Search That Way> We Sent To Many Different States> Our Agency Has Offered To Send Them Out For Us> Go To Different Counties And Send Them Your Info > Make Yourself Known And Make Them Know You Are Extremely Serious> We Have Even Become Nags To Many Agencies It Works Because We Have The Kids That We Desired> It Took Several Years But God Has Truly Blessed Us> Keep Calling Swan And Check Everyday> Out Of State Infant Soon To Be AdoptedFive Yr Old Boy Soon To Be AdoptedFour Year Old Boy Soon To Be AdoptedTwo Year Old Girl AdoptedAnd They Just Keep Moving In Lucky We Have A Huge House> Keep Praying>>god Does Answer Your Prayers> He Cares For The Children And Hears Their Crys And Every Mommie And Daddy Tear Drops FallGod Bless You In Your Journey

Please our agency told us that SWAN owns the profiles. We tried to pay for the profile so that we could send it out. The agency was against that. We were told that if we contacted agencies directly that we would turn off the caseworker and lose our chances. However, just waiting here seems to do NOTHING!!!!

Older - Im not sure if you are working with a private agency or in what region of PA you are located. We are in process of becoming foster and adopt certified. We are looking for adoption or foster to adopt and our agency advised the best thing to do is become certified in both. We pay for the homestudy upfront ($1500) so we own it, but if we end up adopting through SWAN and the child or children meet the criteria for the state to pay, then our agency will get the fee refunded and in turn will refund it to us. They also told us that MANY counties do NOT post on the PA website. They network between counties. My adoption caseworker said she has placed adopted kids in our area from a total of 1/3 of all counties within PA. She said since PA is a commonwealth there is quite a difference from county to county. She also stated how she prepares a waiting family book/list that she forwards to other agencies/counties - that way they have some key information on families they can match with kids they have in their care. This way they don't have to advertise the kids. We haven't completed the homestudy yet (we just finished our precertification training this month and are waiting for our clearances to come back), so I can't really give first hand experience on the wait.... but our agency has been fantastic so far and seems very dedicated to us families as well as the kids (24/7 emergency person to call/on call at all times for ANY assistance of any kind with the kids/parenting, etc). Are you sure you are working with the best agency for you if you don't feel they are promoting you?

What I did was contact the social workers for any that I saw that might meet our requirements, gave them our basic info, asked on the child, and asked if they had any other children that may also match. I was told by SEVERAL county offices that they did not use the listing services (even SWAN) unless they could not find any families from the homestudies that they had on file. When I was told that by the county I would find out who to have our info faxed to, call our agency and have them do it. I had no problem with any social workers in PA that I contacted. BTW - if you haven't yet - go in your social workers office and ask to see ALL of the SWAN listings (make sure you have a lot of time) and then make a list of kids for your social worker to check on. After that list they will probably be thrilled to only have to fax your homestudy to a few county offices. If you need website info for any of the individual PA offices feel free to PM me. Diane

We waited over a year for a match, and even now are waiting for dad's TPR to happen. Very frustrating on several levels. We were told we would get a quick match because we wanted (originally) a boy, any race, 5 or older. That did change to a sibling group, boys or girls, any race, 3 and up. But those factors should have made the wait even shorter. These three have been in foster care for almost three years, but because BF has been consistent in visiting, the judge hesitates to terminate. The kids now have longer visits with him so that the county workers can collect evidence that he can't really take care of them.Anyway, we worked very hard on our end, to the point where we often felt we were nagging our agency workers. It was sooo frustrating to find that our agency would/could only work with certain counties, and hesitated to with some of those. (For example, our worker said that she would submit our profile to Phila county for various children/groups, but not to expect anything because they generally don't respond- which proved to be true.) We had really no luck with SWAN. The children we have were never listed. We had previously interviewed for a different sib group with their county and the workers remembered us and contacted our agency.Personally we also gave up on looking for children out of state because our agency really had little interest in working with another state, plus there would have been a lot expense involved in transportation for ourselves and the children for interviews, and transition visits, etc. We found that using a private agency put us at a real disadvantage when it came to getting children from our own county as the county would use their own families (those working directly with C and Y), but did open the possibility of getting children from other counties which is what happened. It just took MUCH longer that we were told that it would, and even now there is the chance that we may lose them.Also, we were finally told that to get any child we would most likely have to accept legal risk as the only option. Not fun.

What county do you live in or near what city? Im interested about your point of working with a private agency put you at a disadvantage.

Lancaster. We were told right out that most Lancaster Co. children being placed for adoption are placed with families working directly with the county and that the county only goes to the private agencies with the children they have trouble placing. We received many referrals - few of them were from Lancaster Co. We only got one interview for local children. The first child we expressed an interest in we couldn't even get an interview for because his workers were concerned that if we got him we would run into his previous foster family and that that would be problematic for him... (We live in the same town and we know them, but have only seen them once since then, a year and half ago.)

We have interviewed more than 3 times and each time we come in 2nd. We do not live in the right area--we are not close enough to the family. This last time we were too close. Our C/W have told us not to contact any case workers personally--we have been told that we are too picky about the children. We are really broken hearted. We have decided that maybe we aren't the really good parents that we thought that we were. Started to pick ourselves apart. My husband thinks that it is because he smokes. I think that they had someone else in mind before they looked at us. I just don't know how to find those ones that are not already picked. Our agency will not let us buy our profile from SWAN. Do they know something we don't? Do most people give up of shear frustration before they help someone?