have you adopted outside of your state?

We've adopted from another state. The delays usually revolve around ICPC, which is the agreement that has to be contracted between the placing state (where the child is coming from) and your state (where you live).Other delays may come about because the adopting family needs a foster care license, and/or paperwork issues around the homestudy, etc. Also some caseworkers can be stinkers about arranging months and months of pre-placement visitations, etc. It can get snarly at times, but often goes surprisingly smooth considering all that CAN cause hang-ups.The TPR was not done before they moved the child to our state, but they did have to have court approval to move the child out of state. In our case, the bio mom did not contest the state's plan for TPR, and the judge ordered the child moved to us. TPR trial happened and TPR was ordered shortly after the child was placed with us. We are bio family of the child we adopted, but I think that this is fairly normal/standard procedure for any child, *given the same type of circumstances*. (ie; state plans to pursure TPR, has a solid case, bio parents either are going to stipulate or are absent, etc.)

We adopted 4 kids across state lines 5 years ago (non-relational adoption). Barksum is correct in stating that it can take a while for the Interstate Compact to occur. We started in early august and the IC took until end of November to complete. The only good news about it was that this time had nothing to do with us jumping thru more hoops - it is really about the two states coming to an agreement on who pays for what - e.g., which state will fund the adoption subsidy, medicaid, SW visits during the pre-finalization period (these are required, and someone has to vist your home to check on the kids, and someone has to pay for that, etc). The bad news was, we could not meet the kids (or them meet us or even see our picture book) until this was taken care of, because the SW's wanted to isolate the kids from disappointment if the IC fell through for any reason. It was REALLY hard to wait nearly 4 months, knowing what our kids looked like and that they were in foster care, and that they did not know about us yet. Interstate adoptions aren't as common as in-state ones, and if the two states aren't close together, they may have more to iron out. For us, TPR was already done, but that is not always the case. However, it will always be the case that you will need paperwork to be able to take the kids across any state line until the adoption is finalized in court. For example, on a visit to see us, we wanted to take our kids up to Wisconsin to pick their own bedroom furniture so that it would be in the house before they moved ihn (we live close to the IL-WI border) - we had to have a special permit just to do that. The kids then had to live with us for 6 months before we were allowed to start finalization, with SW visits once a week the entire time (luckily for us, we had a great SW whom we and the kids adored - she was private agency [non-profit], not public, as the public agency had too big a caseload to add us on).

I have just started the process of adopting from another state. In my situation, TPR has already occured. The wait is on ICPC, but the child will not come to live with me until the summer. (There are reasons for wanting her to complete the school year where she is.) I've visited her already and will continue to do so over the coming months. Feel free to PM me if you want more info.

I have a question regarding out of state adoption...Where did you find or hear about this children that needed homes from a different state? We are all approved, just waiting for our FC license to come in the mail, they said around April 1st, but we are in it to adopt...so is there a place I can go to search for children that are needing a home??? Thanks in advance for any replies!!

Hi -- We're by the IL-WI border, too -- just starting the process to get an Illinois foster home license and planning on fostering and/or foster-adopt. How sticky is Illinois with the child in foster care in another state? Did you go through DCFS or an agency (DCFS is coming out in two days). What can I expect on how long til a placement -- we're somewhat fussy but not terribly fussy. Lots of questions -- thanks for any info!

Hi, FarmerFamily - We went thru a private agency (PM me if you want to talk about this), but not one that places kids - this kept the cost for the homestudy as the main expense from them, and that was eventually reimbursed by the state we adopted from. It also removes the pressure from anyone - we had to find our own kids (via photolistings) but we were not being pushed, and I really wanted that. Because of all this, IL really had no say in the matter - there was no DCFS involvement. The only involvement from IL was the ICPC, which did not involve us meeting anyone - it was strictly a paperwork deal handled by the SW's for our kids and by our agency SW - we really mostly just had to sit back and wait, and I think answer 1 or 2 phone calls/faxed forms.

We aer adopting a 12 year old girl from Florida - this has been in the works since mid-March & she's STILL not home! Problems with our agency ("didn't we tell you that we don't deal with Florida?" No, they did not), ICPC ("our hands are tied until you have a worker"), the new agency ("apparently the ICPC was sent to the county & now they sent it back to the central group to resend to us"), and now we're just waiting for a Florida judge to sign off on the final papers. Don't mean to sound totally negative, but it has NOT been a good experience & had we not been advocates, we'd be even further behind in our quest!

It seems impossible to do from NJ. Most states want your worker to send your home study but NJ won't send your home study until you've been the selected family. See how that works?? (My copy of the home study is not good enough)

Yes - lots of delays with inter-state adoptions. We have been partially through 3. We find the sending state has the greatest effect (positive or negative) on the transition. First was TX. They go to committee and select a family before disclosing all of the details on the kids. By the time we received the case files and reviewed them, we had to make a painful decision to remove ourselves from that opportunity. Fortunately, the kids had not been told yet. Next came OR - They are WONDERFUL. Their process works a little differently though. They narrow down the families to 2 or 3, let you speak to the current foster parents, ask any questions, provide history information AND complete your ICPC paperwork all BEFORE you go to committee. So if the committee picks your family, you basically go out there the next week to meet your kids and bring them home. Lots of upfront work with this method, but you are in great shape if you are selected. Unfortunately, another family was selected, so we did not complete this adoption either. But the third time is a charm - almost. We are now working with NV. The siblings have been living with us for a year, and the adoption is not finalized. We were selected by a committee 16 months ago. We made 4 visits to NV (at our expense) and finally got to bring them home 11 months ago. Their NV caseworker is terrible. She drops the ball and does not know what she is doing. We have had to advocate loudly to get anything done. NV is divided into three divisions of social services - one that oversees the Reno area, one that oversees the Vegas area, and a state run agency that oversees all of the smaller counties. We are dealing with the later, and I cannot in good conscious recommend them. We found our children (in each scenario) through Adopt US Kids (adoptuskids). You can submit inquiries online (and they do accept a homestudy provided by you - so the NJ mom who emailed might want to try this option since her NJ caseworker won't release the homestudy). This is a terrific resource to find kids that are a match with your family, rather than relying on someone else to do that legwork for you. Don't give up on interstate adoptions. The process may be challenging, but the kids are worth every bit of effort that you put into the process. Don't let the red tape scare you away - there are thousands of kids out there who are waiting for families. And when you open your hearts to kids beyond your state boundaries, you are increasing your opportunities to find a child or children who are the best match for your family. Feel free to send messages directly to me if you have any questions about the process.

I agree with that aspect - the ICPC can take some time (we were selected for our kids in August, did not get to meet them 1st time until December...) The one thing about it, though, is that there was not a lot of time that we (as the aparents) needed to actually do during this time frame - mostly it was hurry up (to answer any requests) and then wait (sometimes quite a while) for the next request.