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Good Afternoon, My husband and I attended a meet and greet session for older children back in June. We met some great kids and would definately go to another one. We met a girl who is 13 and available for adoption. We have read her file and gosh that was a lot of reading. We had what was called a Final Disclosure meeting, where we met the girls foster mom, GAL, her caseworker, the caseworkers supervisor and the Community Care worker for her. This meeting told us nothing we had not already read. We were interested in talking with FM who was very emotional during the meeting. My head was swimming with questions but the tone o f meeting from FM centered around this one comment. "Don't take her if you can't commit 200% forever to this child." then it was asked if she could have a kitten (I am allergic so sadly no). After this we were supposed to take a break, well after coming back from the restroom, all that was left was the caseworker and her supervisor to question us. Is it normal to not get to spend anytime with the child before making this commitment? She is in a great home now and wants her FM to adopt her, we even agree that she should adopt her. For whatever reason she still says no but we've waited a very long time and at the last minute she can't make the meetings etc, etc. How do we know if we can incorporate this girl into our family without spending time with her? I am just so overwhelmed and confused by all of this. We can't visit her until we have a transition plan in place. Then we visit and she moves in. Is this normal? It seems like once we start visiting, then thats it, signed, sealed and delivered. We have tried asking a dozen different ways how we or she will know that it's a good match for all of us. We have already have a girl 28; two boys age 21 and the younges is 17 who still lives at home. I really hope this makes sense and would love some advice as to how to go along with this. If I am completely off base by thinking we should have more time prior to commiting I don't mean to sound unkind or heartless, we are just worried. If you have any comments or ideas please share them with us. Thanks, Irene
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It seems that maybe they want you to say yes that you want to move further in the process. The next step would be a transition period...ie phone calls, visits, overnights, and then working up to longer periods of time to eventually moving in. In CA, they require a minimum of six months in the home before they start adoption proceedings.We had a similiar situation, but had to disrupt due to the child's issues being more than we could handle. She was also aggressive w/ our other children. We disrupted almost 2 yrs after she was placed, first as a foster child. We did start out w/ a agreement to adopt, but sadly it did not turn out this way. We were totally committed to the plan until we no longer could be. We still keep in contact w/ this child, but she can no longer live w/ us.Good-Luck,Happy123
That is exactly what they plan on doing. The phone calls, visit at her place now, then day trips, then visit our house and overnights then a week long visit. So it's not a fast transition. I do think it will be well thought out as her caseworker has a very soft spot in her heart for this girl. Most of the people we have talked with had a lot of good things to say and the bad things to us seemed nothing less then what should be expected of a traumatized child. Thanks Irene
My experience is limited with this. We are no longer foster parents, but last year we got a call to have twin who were 12 placed with us until they could transistion into thier adoptive home.
The boys were removed from the foster home they had been in for several years. The foster parents did not want to adopt them, but wanted to keep them. The agency thought it might be best if they did not associate with the foster parents during the transistion time, since the boys were so attached to them.
We had the boys for about 3 weeks. The adoptive parents called them, emailed them, came to our home for visits and took them to thier home for visits. At the end of the third week the boys went to their new home.
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