Need Advice From the Experts

Hi! I would say to contact your states's top office of human resources in your capitol and let them know you're ready to foster but you were told they're arent't any children in your county. I'd be willing to bet they will start phone calls in your direction with children needing homes soon. I became a foster mom for the first time last year after a foster child was left living in the hospital where I work, because there was no one able to care for his medical needs. He is from a different county than me, and required dialysis at night. We had applied to foster to adopt months earlier, but our application was "lost", etc etc., and nothing was happening. You should have seen how quickly things moved when we spoke up and said we'd take that boy home! Long story short, he's a wonderful kid who was able to receive a kidney transplant after we brought him home, and doing great! We are planning to adopt him, and may get his siblings also. According to the law in my state, kids are required to be placed within their communities-- but, if no one is willing or able to take them, they gotta go somewhere!

Ditto above, but even simpler: Just contact the neighboring counties. If you are interested in fost-adopt, you can even go out of state and contact other counties/districts about children who are available--usually listed on a county or state website somewhere. You have a state license, it is good all over your state. It is up to the sending agency whether or not to use you, not your local, although your local can choose to make it difficult. Your local does not even need to know you are active elsewhere unless/until the sending agency requests its assistance. Then it is most likely required by state law to cooperate. ETA: Federal law likewise pushes permanency, making it a priority...it is more important in current policy for a freed child to be in a preadoptive/adoptive home than it is for the child to linger in foster care in their home community. All states have an administrative and financial interest in adopting out as many foster children who are already free for adoption as possible. That incentive works in the childrens' favor and yours. I will never understand why these antiquated county-based fiefdoms still exist. While not perfect, I think statewide district-based systems ensure much more fairness and consistent application of the laws across any given state.

Hi, I appreciate your comments and advice. I called the head of foster care. She did not return my call, but instead had the foster ombudsman (woman) return my call. She said she would check into it and call me back. Long story short, she called back and said that they couldn't do anything about it, that the supervisor over our county had the final say so in whether or not I could have kids from other counties. I've tried talking to the supervisor in our county....she won't even look me straight in the face. She called me one day when I was at a doctor's appointment with one of my foster children telling me I wasn't allowed to call other counties and I shouldn't be talking to other foster parents!! :hissy: I will email the head of the foster care since she didn't return my call. If she doesn't respond, should I email the governor? I was told to do that by one DHS worker. I know that the supervisor is going to make my life miserable since I have complained. We are foster/adopt but our state does both separate. We are waiting on our adoption homestudy. They did one before, but they don't remember coming out:eyebrows: . We had to redo the paperwork (they lost it). They let our foster paperwork expire:prop: . It took us 3 LONG years to become licensed.

Are you going through an agency or the county? Our agency takes placements from all over the area. There is a local judge who prefers the kids from her county be fostered in her county and that is an issue. But I'm currently fostering 2 beautiful kids from a county 2 hours away. Your license is from the state. Your affiliation may be entirely up to you, assuming there are agencies in your area. You may just be dealing with a supervisor with a blind spot. You might also ask her to explain her reasoning.

I'd go with a private agency. your records can be moved to a private agency from the govt one and you can then foster from all over the state.

we live in a county that has little to no placements...the nieghboring county has a large city and has a huge need for foster parents....we live about 6 miles from the county line...so we called the neighboring county and did all our licensing and get all our placements from them....our actual county doesnt even know we are foster parents LOL...but our local WIC office and doctors all sure know us well LOL

I ditto the opinion to contact a private agency that does foster care/foster adopt. I'm with an agency that works with kids in many counties throughout our state and into part of a neighboring state. They said they try to only place within neighboring counties of the foster parents because since the goal of foster is RU...it would be impractical with visits with bios to live too far away from where the visits will be held. What I would do if I were you would be to contact the counties near you that are in need of foster homes. Ask them which agency/agencies they frequently use and then go from there. Good luck!

I'm also from a county that gets few placements when the neighboring county doesn't have enough homes. The case worker from the county I live in said that they used to allow their homes to be used by other counties until they had a problem finding a home for their rare placement. We talked to licensed parents that haven't received a placement in a year in our county and one person that just received their first placement said we need to continue going to the support group meeting and posting on the county forum (which we still haven't been added to after numerous requests). We told our caseworker in our county that we wanted to transfer our license to the neighboring county because we didn't think it was right that they would leave available homes empty waiting for a placement from this county when the state has a need. It delayed the process about 2 weeks because our county worker talked to the neighboring county and asked them to have us change our minds. We stuck to our guns and proceeded with the transfer and were notified today that we have finally been assigned a caseworker in the neighboring county. Ask your caseworker if you can be transferred, we were told they have to oblige. They obviously don't seem to have the time or the need for you there. There are so many children out there I don't understand why some counties are selfish with their licensed homes. Good Luck!

Thats an odd statement - they don't intend to get any?? Its onething to say "we don't get many placements" but to say they don't intend on it ????

Well, they can and often do recommend leaving children in a home while services and intervention are offered. Social services intervention doesn't always mean removal--they prefer not to remove if at all possible. That happened for a year before our fd was removed in an emergency. A year of in-home services, removal, a year of fcare, RU, nearly another year of services, another emergency removal. And so it goes. If the county decides it doesn't have the budget or hasn't gotten enough Title IV-E money from the state grant or whatever, they balk at removals. Sad but true. If it were me, I would stop trying to change the supervisor's mind and go right around her to another county or, as other posters said, a private agency like Easter Seals. Also, if she is a supervisor, however, then there should be a director over her head and a regional coordinator over her head....

HI! It seems as though you are licensed thru your county of residence. You would be better off if you transfer to a private agency because private agencies get children from the entire state that they are in. Counties only get children that reside in their own county. I am an assessor/licensing specialist so that is my best advice to you. The services you will receive are also more personable within private agencies...caseworkers not so overworked.

We licensed with the county we wanted, not where we live. Their regulations were that you could live anywhere within 50 miles of their county to become their foster parents, lots of people do that here and it doesn't seem to be an issue in placement. I know in OH that once you have been with the agency that licensed you for at least a year, you can usually switch to another county without much trouble.