Anyone adopting or adopted from Hawaii foster system?

I just read an article the other day--no clue where--but I do distinctly remember that Hawaii was at the bottom (if not the last) of the states for the percentage of adoptable children who are being adopted.

Hi, I'm on Oahu also. We are on the At-risk and permanency list. We don't have any foster children yet due to the low ages we specified. It appears that our wait will be long due to over 98 families being on the same list as us. I don't really want to just foster due to our 2 children, ages 6 and 3. My six year old is very emotional and she and I couldn't handle it. I thought initially that it wouldn't be a long time for a placement but I guess that is not the case. As for you already having placements, I'm not sure really. I had heard it could take anywhere from 6-18 months. Let me know what you find out.K

We are still waiting for a call for a legal free child to be adopted or an at risk adoption and it will be a year in May. But it seems that prehaps our two foster children now will come up for adoption because mom just can't get it together and hold it together at the same time. That being said, we are in licensing unit 2 and have heard rumors that either unit 1 or 3 have kids already legally free, they just don't look in the other units for available parents. Friends of mine went through classes in October and one of their classmates had a legally free 5 year old girl placed with them within a month of getting their license and I believe they are in unit 3. I have heard every available excuse from DHS as to why we haven't been called, but when it comes down to it, they would rather place the kids with family than a better family that are strangers to the kids. We are lucky with our kids SW that if our kids case goes to termination she is putting us in as kin because Hawaii defines kin as family or friends to either the parent or the children. These kids have bonded to us to the point we get hugs and kisses and "I loves Yous" several times a day plus they call us mom and dad. We are being considered kin to the children and everyone from their GAL to their talking doctor, doesn't want them removed from us unless its to go home to mom. Just a last note, we have an almost 10 year old bio son and we simply explained to him that we were just taking care of the kids until their mom learned to be a better mom. Should they go home, we will all lose our hearts to them, but our lives are better for knowing them. This is seeming to be a test of patience to adopt here.