Anyone from District 1?

Oh cool, another D1 person!! I live in Walton County and my adoptive homestudy is just now being finished and approved. I also work for DCF as the paralegal in the Walton County office.I really like our people, but have been frustrated by FFN's slowness in dealing with my study, and I *work* with them, so I'm not sure how things are going to be for someone who doesn't. Squeaky wheel, though, just not too squeaky.I want to adopt and would have done foster care also to speed things along except that employees are not permitted to adopt their foster children. Sarah

How long ago did you start the process? Where are you in Walton County? I am close. I'm in Destin.

I too am in District 1, Escambia County. For us to get licensed it took about 8 months. It's a slow process and FFN is aggravating, but it's worth it seeing these children laugh and love again!

Wow! Eight months is a long time. Was that including the weeks for the MAPP classes? The first person that I talked to on the phone seemed really helpful. The other 2 people that I left messages for haven't called me back.

It did include the MAPP classes but the classes were only 2 weekends! It was really fast. you have to leave several messages to get phone calls back! I have had more luck with email! Maybe you could try that!

They didn't tell me about the accelerated classes. I thought that we must not have any in our district. I would rather do that than the 8 weeks. I will have to call back and check on the accelerated course. What did they look for in the home study for our district? Certain questions? Things around the house? I have read that there are supposed to be no locks on the doors (bedroom inside), but then when I was on the phone he told me they have to have locks. Do you know anything about this? Do you receive a lot of calls?

There are a lot of things they are looking for in the home study, but when they did ours, they only asked about smoke detectors. Nothing else really... we were ready with flashlights in every room, fire extinguisher, medications locked u, etc... but they only wanted to see the smoke detectors! They did take pictures, but nothing out of the ordinary. I haven't heard about the locks. Our bedrooms do not have locks, but they never did look at them. We receive about 5 calls a week about taking children. We are only licensed for 1 child at the moment, but since we started we have been overcapped with 2 and sometimes 3. We made a second bedroom for the children, and today licensing came out to approve us for 4. It's huge need for foster homes!

The accelerated class was a one time thing offered in our county, but I'm not sure if they decided to continue it! I know it's alot of help for those of us who are working full-time

We did the accelerated MAPP class...it was 4 weekends in September however because of Labor Day they opted to squeeze it all into 3 weekends instead. It was nice getting it all over with that fast and the class was FULL! They give you a list of things to do (if you don't have them done already). They wanted no locks on the bedroom doors OR locks but ones with keys. They can't be those knob locks where they can lock the door from inside the room and there is no keyhole on the outside (IE: My bathroom has that type of knob). Here they also required each kids room to have a smoke detector in them. And also you have to have a written fire escape plan posted someplace. And you have to have your fire extinguisher tagged that it was inspected. Of course meds and chemicals/cleaners locked up (and they come in each month to check that too). There was a bunch of things we had to do before our home study. It wasn't much but just safety precautions. In the home study they came in and interviewed us all and checked out the kids bedrooms, and the requirements needed to license our home. There were 2 visits and then they typed up the home study and submitted it. Our SW was very nice. It was more like a social visit to talk about your parenting style (we have a bio daughter), to visit us and make sure our home was up to par, and just to learn about us in general. Most of the questions were asked on the application and we just discussed our answers, etc...

I am getting babies from santa rosa, escambia and have been called with walton. I have to say that FFN was really quick with our home study and licensing. We finished classes in middle Dec. and we were licensed and ready to take babies first part of January. I was licensed for 1 and had them bump me up to 2 a couple of months ago... There is such a need in these counties. I usually keep 2 babies in my home...I rarely have only one.