Louisiana?

My wife and I are foster/adoptive parents who live in the N.O. metro area. Our experience has been positive so far, despite the storm. There's always a shortage of foster parents and the storm caused people to lose jobs and homes. Therefore, there's even a bigger shortage and greater need for certified homes. Our home had minimal damage, thankfully. You do need to go through a training program (MAPP training) and get fingerprinted, checked-out medically, etc. But its worth it. We're making a positive difference in the lives of two little boys right now and, pending TPR proceedings, we could end up adopting them both. There's a training session for new foster parents starting later this month in Metairie if you're from this part of the state. If not, contact the state DSS office (or the OCS office in your area and get more info). We also considered going international, but the MAPP training helped us determine that this was a good fit for us. And, it has been. Good luck!

Thanks! My husband and I went to the first meeting. We are really excited... we brought back our application and hope to get into the class that starts this week. Has your social worker been understanding.. We are mainly worried about foster care, (we put adopting down on the application) we dont want to get over looked if we are not fostering and we dont want to get a child that we cant adopt if we foster and miss the chance to adopt another that is freed.

There is a name to your question -- concurrent planning. This is where you are officially considered a foster/adoptive parent. You can classify yourself as strictly an adoptive parent, but you'll limit your options. Going this route makes you only eligible to adopt those children in the system who have already been freed for adoption. We were also concerned about getting hamstrung with fostering while possibly missing out on an adoption possibility. We decided to take a chance and put both "foster" and "adopt" on our application. (By the way, this doesn't really matter at this point. The real important forms come later in the training process.) By agreeing to foster children, you actually have greater leverage when it comes to adoption through the state. That's because you're brought in at the beginning of a child's case. Unfortunately, there are many cases which result in TPR (termination of parental rights). When this happens, you are considered the best alternative environment for that child. If you are strictly an adoptive parent, you don't get started this early in the process. Don't get me wrong. Foster parenting is a boatload of work and responsibility, but my wife and I are making it work -- and, we're doing it to the benefit of our kids. You also asked about the social worker being understanding. There are various layers of social workers: HDWs (home development workers are the ones who work with foster parents to help make sure they are doing good jobs); CPSs (child protection workers handle the child's case and work with both birth parents and foster parents to ensure that the child's case plan is being fulfilled); and adoption workers handle the process needed to make adoptive parents and children cleared for adoption into a family. Chances are, your HDW will be involved in your MAPP training. They're usually patient and will get you the answers you need. It's key to have a good relationship with your HDW because they are the liaison between you and the CPS workers who are in need of foster parents to take care of their children. In our MAPP training class we had some parents who chose only adoption, some who chose only fostering, and some of us chose concurrent planning. Really, you just choose whatever fits best. We're glad to answer any questions you might have -- just let us know.

They called yesterday and said the class tommorrow was full, then they called today and said we are in the class tommorrow, and needed to come look at our house today... about 2 hours notice, we are happy. Our case worker is really nice, she will be at the class tommorrow. She said that she had placed a few younger children recenlty and that one couple it was a few weeks after the training.. so we are really happy.