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I was wondering if any Virginians go online! We recently stopped pursuing independent domestic adoption and are focusing on foster care. However, our current lead is from our time pursuing private adoption. He's 16 months now, and we're trying to stay positive to see how this unravels. We met both parents, who are now ready to make an adoption plan. Parental rights have not yet been terminated, so they still have a say. However, DSS is involved, so who knows how that will play out.
Meanwhile, our 8 month old FD is keeping us happily busy, as are our two poor jealous beagles :(
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We're in Woodbridge. In a Big Questionmark state right now. We're fostering a little girl whose goal is RU, but we are hoping against hope that if her parents don't get their act together soon, we can keep her forever. We are also anticipating the birth of a new relative whom we may or may not be adopting (bmom is still thinking). Looking forward to seeing this thread develop.
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Hey There! We are in Weyers Cave, VA. (Between Harrisonburg and Staunton) Our DS is three now (WOW!) and we are seriously considering pursuing a foster license to both foster and adopt. Any of you out there that have experience with the Virginia Foster system and are willing to share, I'd love to here about it! Ashley
tajmu311 - My dh and I are foster parents in Prince William County. We were licensed last summer, and we've been fostering our FD for 8 months. I believe the experiences differ based on county as well as the specific social workers involved, so I don't think you can generalize how your experience would go based on ours, but here goes.
My first few voice mails inquiring about becoming foster/adoptive parents weren't answered bc I said I wanted to adopt. An acquaintence of mine who adopted her daughter from foster care some 20 years ago gave me some tips, the first being to say what they want to hear in order to get in, so I did. I called again and didn't say we wanted to adopt but foster. She called back the next day.
The next tip was to not worry about which PRIDE training to attend. The training is the same regardless, and you can have any age child placed with you no matter which training you go through. So we attended the first available training, which was specifically for fostering teens. We've had two calls - the first was a choice of fost/adopt siblings (2yo girl and her 4mo brother) or a straight foster care 6mo girl (our foster daughter). The second came a week later and was for a weekend respite of a teen and her baby, which we turned down bc it was too soon after getting our FD.
I'm convinced that the reason they called us was bc we got impatient after only 2 months and attended the neighboring county, where they were interested in getting our license transferred to them bc they didn't get a lot of fost-adopt parents there. They called our county requesting the license, and exactly 2 weeks after attending the other orientation, we brought our FD home from our own county. Bottom line, they got scared of losing a resource family, so the next available child they called us to keep us.
The initial pick up experience was also quite chaotic. We got the first call on a Friday, but we missed the call and by the time I called back, they had given the option of the two sibs or the little girl to another family. So they were waiting for that family to call back with their preference. We had to wait until Monday morning to find out if we'd be able to be placed with the little girl (we were scared to jump in with 2 kids at once on our first placement).
Monday morning we got the call that we could pick up our FD that day, and we were given the address and name of the emergency foster parent who had her over the weekend. When we went to pick her up, she was handed over to us with a suitcase that had some clothes and two bottles. We weren't asked to show any proof that we were to be her foster parents or anything. We later voiced our concern that there should be a checklist of things new foster parents need when they get that first placement, bc we scrambled for the first few weeks trying to figure out what all we needed. It took some nagging to finally get the foster parent letter stating that we had a right to have physical custody of her (before that, we had nothing showing we didn't just kidnap her, which freaked me out). It also took some time to get her insurance card.
We wanted to keep things as consistent as possible for her, so we took her to her regular pediatrician, who was terrible, and as soon as we were able to, we switched doctors (about 2 months later, when she was switched to standard Medicaid that more doctors accepted).
We also scrambled with childcare - we somehow did not remember from training that the state pays for daycare, so we were trying to make our own arrangements around our work schedules until 2 weeks later we got her into a good daycare where she's still attending.
The daycare had various requirements that we had to nag the old pediatrician for and the social worker. It was like pulling teeth to get everything in place for her. We felt like we were just told to pick her up and deal with it. We didn't feel supported at all, and unless we knew who to ask and what questions, we'd still be lost.
They also didn't tell us that our FD was eligible for WIC - I found that out here on the forums. So we had her for about 3 months before we got her on WIC, which is also a pain in the neck to deal with.
They switched her social workers after the first month or two bc one of the grandmothers spoke only Spanish, so they got a bilingual worker. A few months later, the grandmother dropped off anyway. Both birth parents have gone through multiple attorneys as well.
At one of the hearings, the birthfather's attorney up and quit and walked out. He was expecting to get paid, but he didn't get paid, so he said he did enough pro bono work! And the birthmother's attorney didn't even show up. Our FD's guardian ad litem also has been hard to find. At the first planning meeting, she told us she'd be in touch to come visit Baby V at our home. I took her seriously at first and called to try to schedule something, but 8 months later she has yet to get in touch with us or visit V.
The only person with whom we've been pleased is the CASA volunteer. She got V a doll for Christmas, and every time she visits, she gets down on the floor to play with her.
The judge that has been assigned to the case has a reputation for unpredictability, so even though we know what DSS is recommending, we never know if the judge will just overrule and send V home anyway.
The birthparents have been slow to get their stuff done, but they are making some progress, which only delays everything. We were prepared for V to go home 3 months ago at her last hearing, and we said our goodbyes that morning, and we sat at the edge of our seats the whole hearing, wondering what the judge would decide. She ended up stayin longer with us, which has been a mixed bag of emotions bc we're thrilled for every day she's with us, but it just means we'll have to say goodbye again.
All in all, I would not recommend fostering for someone who has no children and wants to adopt. We won't foster again. At least not until we have a child of our own. And only last week did I find out that we can't expect to do straight adoption by being licensed foster parents in our county. All the kids either go home or are adopted by their own foster parents. So unless we're willing to risk having our hearts broken (like we're doing now with V) and fostering with the hope (but no guarantee) of adopting, we won't. We initially said that in the future we'd just accept fost-adopt situations, but even those aren't guaranteed to go to adoption. It's a complete crap-shoot, and you don't know how a case will end up.
So we're gathering information about a private agency that places waiting children with adoptive families, and after V goes home (we have to assume that she will, eventually), we'll be looking at adopting an elementary-school aged child directly.
Hope this helps, and feel free to ask any questions. Best of luck to you!
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Thank you so much for sharing your story! We do have our son, whom we adopted through a private agency, but are still very concerned about exactly what you reference -- the emotional roller coaster that comes with fostering. I am also concerned about the effect it would have on our son. Thank you again - I really appreciate all of the information!! Good luck on your journey :)