Post-adoption child care subsidy

It is absolutely the county you live in that will continue the subsidy payments for child care after the adoption goes through. There are very strict guidelines for this program. You have 90 days after the adoption is finalized to get your application in to the child care agency in your county or you forfeit the benefit - forever. It is very harsh!! In order for your county to process the application for continued payments, they must receive what is called a "referral letter" from DYFS (which basically verifies the date of the adoption and that he is subsidy eligible). You should have had to sign a document prior to finalization that laid out all the rules of the program and acknowledged your receipt of same. If for some reason you didn't or if the adoption worker never gets the referral letter to your county child care agency, you should call directly down to the Adoption Operations office in Trenton and ask to speak to your subsidy specialist (they are assigned based on the first letter of your last name). that number is 609-292-4441. The people in that office are amazingly helpful. Keep that number for future reference. I learned from talking to the subsidy worker in that office that they have "flex funds" available for adopted children to pay for camp programs, etc. I never knew that until she mentioned it!! I have a friend who has four adopted children and they were all able to go to camp for two weeks because I passed on the information I happened to stumble upon. Good luck!!

Thanks, NJmama. I am making some phone calls today to straighten this all out. It makes me dizzy, somtimes, trying to wade through all this red tape! :arrow: I thought I was finished with the red tape now that I adopted! Silly me.

I guess I talked to the wrong person the last time I called the department in Morris County. I just got off the phone, the application for continuation of the subsidy will be sent to me, and they will contact DYFS about any questions they have, That was easier than I thought it would be! Now, to track down his subsidy check, which hasn't arrived yet (but, I expected this- he was in the nether land between foster child and adopted child in July).

Yes, it comes from an agency in the town you live in. And you have to renew every year. So every year they will send you paperwork to fill out. You have to work at least 30 hours per week (in my county) and they want your employer to fill out forms stating that you do work that much each year. They also want birth certificates and Social Security cards each year now. It's getting crazy. And you only have ten days to fill it all out and get it back or they can drop you. Be very careful with this. I swear they really try to get you so they can save money.

Thanks for the warning, Bethany!

No problem. Anything to help a fellow fp. I went through hell this year with the subsidy. Since I am a teacher I have the summer off of my regular job, but in the summer I still have to work. Sometimes I work at a camp and sometimes I tutor. They never gave me a problem over the past five years of the subsidy. THIS year however, they sent me a letter stating that my kids could not go to camp this summer as I was not working. I already had tutoring jobs lined up and I could not afford to NOT work this summer. They made me jump through so many hoops. I had to have EVERY single client sign a form saying that I was indeed tutoring them and what hours and days I was tutoring them. They also wanted their addresses and phone numbers. I was mortified! They told me they "probably wouldn't call them" but they needed it just in case. My kids missed two weeks of camp and then they finally agreed to pay. Uh, what a scare.

Thanks for that heads-up, too, Bethany. I'm a teacher, too, and work during the summer. I teach summer school for my district, so hopefully, verifying my summer employment should not be too difficult.

Yeah, you should not have a hard time. Since you will still be working for your district, they will just have to sign that you are a 12 month employee. The problem comes in when you work for yourself such as tutoring or construction or something where YOU are the boss. They need a LOT of proof. I just hated that they wanted all of my clients phone numbers and such. I didn't feel it would look good for my tutoring business to have the state calling them to verify my subsidy for my kids. Not the best impression. KWIM?

I am self-employed, and I have always simply provided them with copies of my Schedule C from out tax return. I never needed to get anyclients to verify anything. Very simple! I sign the employment verification myself and just note on it that I am self-employed. Bethany, I'm not sure how you deal with the income that you earn from your side jobs in the summer, but if you do some sort of a Schedule to reflect those earnings and offset your expenses, you may be able to supply them with copies of that as opposed to the individual client verifications they are asking you to supply.

That is the thing though, I had never claimed it on my tax return before so I had no proof since it was a summer only thing and I don't make a lot from doing it.

So if I'm not working within 90 days of finalization--do I lose this benefit forever???