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We live in West MI and have completed our training and family assessment through a private state licenced agency. We should have the final write up in hand in the next week or two at most...we've done all the final review and its just waiting for signatures.
We are only doing direct adopt, boy 3-7 (with one sib ok either gender up to 9yo) but not doing fost-adopt as we have a 4 year old and could not deal with the possibility (no matter how small) that the child would leave us. This really puts us at a disadvantage...in our state year ending 9/07 only 216 kids were direct to "recruited families".
SO, what can we do to be proactive? I am so not comfortable with our agency's stance which is pretty much "now you wait, we'll call you when we have a possible match". This doesn't seem the best approach because they only see a very small percentage of the available kids in the state. Can we send out assessment to agencys in other counties even if we aren't enquiring on a specific child? Or do we have to wait until we see a child photolilsted to send in our assessment?
Should we wait to see what happens in our state for a while before exploring possible out of state options? Or just jump right in. There seem to be so many children in need of a home and family...I hate to just sit and wait until one happens to cross my SW desk.
I'd be very interested in hearing what worked and what didn't from others as far as bring proactive in the process.
Debra
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I am suprised that no one has offered help on this post, so I will at least throw in my 2 cents. We have worked directly with counties and also through a private agency like you are. The private agency does not make many connections, they seem to only try to find the perfect match, and I have to believe there were others they never mentioned. We have responded to photo listings and also attended matching parties hosted by a local non-profit, The Adoption Exchange. What has been the best connection was talking to county adoption workers from other counties. Several county workers we have met carry around whole books of kids they are trying to get matched up that are never photo-listed or sent outside their county in any other way.
I don't know how to make contact with county adoption workers other than through a matching party, so maybe your idea of just calling other counties would work well.
Also, you mention that only a small number of placements were for "recruited" adoptive families. I think this is because that is all the families they could recruit, not that it is all the kids who are waiting and could be matched that way. But, being proactive will still certainly help you in many ways.
Good luck!!!
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I agree that the main issues is probably a lack of available families more so than a lack of children available. That said, in my state (WI), only a very small percentage of children who enter foster care end up being availalbe for direct adopt. The vast majority are reuinified with bfamily, then of the ones that are adopted, most are adopted by their foster families. Depending on what level/type of special needs your family can handle, there may be many children for whom you are a potential match. I'm just now getting started (so I totally envy you for already having your family assessment complete), but from what I've heard from talking to others, the biggest things that contribute to long waits is bureaucracy and high turnover among social workers. I believe that the AdoptUSKids site has an option where families with completed home studies can register, and caseworkers who are looking for famlies have access to that database. I'm not really sure how it works, but it might be worth checking out.