Foster/Adopt in Georgia - Gwinnett co?

Not sure what to say. we're in a county north of you. friends in gwinett went in foster to adopt and had an unpleasant experience and is now with the same private agency we're with. we are very happy there. our goal is to adopt at some point. our agency says they aren't an 'adoption' agency, but if fostering goes that way, then they will help you with it. fostering always has the goal of reunifying but it doenst' always happen. I know for our agency, they do get a lot of calls for older kids but they get a lot for littles as well. we've had a newborn and now we have a 9 month old. don't think it will go to adoption but i'm having fun with her while i have her. I can give you more info if you pm me. I know our agency gets calls for little ones. what happens is that the county must fill their homes up first, then they use the private agencies.

I am in a county east of you. I started out in your county. Dfcs is trying to keep children with their birth families and not pull them into care unless they absolutly need to. If you go the foster/adopt route you prob wont get many placements. If you open as a foster home you may get placements that at some point are available for adoption. I know there is an assesment done at the start of any case and they will ask you if it came down to it if you are open for adoption. The assesment is done through an outside agency. I always thought it was a crazy question because I am strictly foster and would never know until down the line how I would feel about that child and adoption. In your situation it would be good. They generally, in my experience, want to make sure if you are willing to adopt if it came to that. You can pm if you'd like and I can answer specifics for you if you would like.

Thank you both, I've sent PM's :)

We adopted our daughter through Gwinnett Co. DFCS foster/adopt. We were told up front that they very rarely have any children available for adoption under age 6, and that if we wanted to adopt a baby or toddler, we should use a private agency that was contracted with them. If you are willing to adopt an older child, a sibling group or a child with special needs, you can see a photolisting at [url=http://www.myturnnow.com]My Turn Now Adoptions[/url]. These are the kids that DFCS has for adoption. Legal risk foster/adopt is another thing you can do through DFCS, but you have to know that there is a BIG risk that the child will NOT be eligible for adoption, and you will only be providing foster care. Some of the children available through legal risk foster/adopt are younger than school age. We stayed with DFCS because we were considering adopting a school-aged child. In the end, we were able to adopt a two year old girl through legal risk foster/adopt. She is considered to have special needs because she has numerous serious food allergies, asthma and eczema that require daily care. I can't really complain about DFCS except to say that their process is extremely slow, and that we seemed to get a new case manager every couple of months. We have been so blessed by the addition of our daughter to our family. I wish you the very best in your journey. Adoption is a beautiful thing! Feel free to contact me by PM if you like.

Hello. We're in a different county, but what you describe sounds familiar. We went in as foster-to-adopt, and we've been matched with two sisters (ages 3 and 2) who have already been TPR'd. We're meeting the oldest of the two on Wed. She has some pretty severe special needs. During our training, I was under the impression that DFCS wanted a clear division of foster and adoption (foster-to-adopt). From everything I've read on the boards, it does seem that fostering has a lot of risk if you're looking to adopt. However, many say that, if one goes into the journey with acceptance of that, the "forever" child(ren) do come along. In our case, I knew that we, and our kids, could not let go very easily. Therefore, we were interested in children who had been TPR'd or were pretty close... Since our match, it has seemed to move very slowly. However, in GA, caseworkers have to take furlough days without pay. I'm sure this slows things down even more. Our girls' caseworker has to travel quite a bit. I really try to express appreciation for the time she takes to help our adoption placement along. Best of luck to you! Keep us posted.

We are also going through Gwinnett. We started the process in May. I have no complaints so far. We were actually put in touch with a contracted agency Georgia Mentor. We have a great case worker and we are in the process of finishing up our homestudy. Any time I have had a question my case worker has gotten right back to me and she has stayed in touch. We also want a child under 5, and have been told that it is rare but we are willing to wait and be patient. You never know what will happen.