Private agency vs. county?

My feeling is trust your instincts on whatever route you go...I was told by a case worker once to call places and look at all your options..that some agencies were good and some were not...she said to ask questions and it would be obvious who to cross off that list and who to keep on the list as an option. Its a hard choice to make, but in the end...I do believe you will find whats best for you. IN my case..I used a public agency. Only costs were just a few of the clearances.

but I know how it feels to start this process, be overwhelmed by the info. I wish there were more people on the PA board, however those that are give good responses and there is a lot of general info on the other boards as well. We are with Cumberland CYS because all of the counties in this area use "their" families first before agencies. We are looking for a child under one. We have been waiting 6 months. It's hard b/c I know we have a narrow window of age but we have a 2 year old bio daughter as well. We've been told it's VERY slow. Just talked to the intake worker today and she has had one placement in 2 plus weeks. This means that only one family in the county got a placement and none were referred to agency. She has said it's been like this for months. I don't know if this helps you or not but wish you good luck. I feel like it's been a long time to get to where we are (one year since getting signed up; 6 months since approval) and I know that this is literally just the beginning!

In my case, I was called a lot of times for foster/adopt babies in our area, but for us we requested a child 2-7...because in our case our boys were 10 and 12...now both a year older today... though we did accept a little 6 year old boy into our home to foster but soon found out that fostering is not for us as though this child had some issues...our biggest issue we discovered is that we all became too attached to him and him to us. His situation was also further complicated because he had a half ,2 year old sister and they were placed separately and to be honest...we felt the situation was complicated and unlikely we would ever get to adopt him. Our real desire was to do a straight adoption but after waiting a long time, we kind of got pushed into fostering...but all along we really wanted to adopt or foster a child who was being TPR'd. I think as a family, we realized that the not knowing for sure WHAT the outcome would be...was too stressful. We DID renew our homestudy in December for another year in hopes of finding a child to adopt..BUT we may consider International in another year or so.....it is a hard long process and though we can be patient to an extent...we also know that we don't want to wait for years and years.. I think for us, we have so far learned a lot....with each passing day, I do believe we will learn more..Good Luck to you starting the process..for the many people who do end up fostering/adopting...it is a long road, but so worth it! God Bless!

Thanks...What are your thoughts on private agency vs. county?

I had called many agencies, private and county and I would compare them to public vs private schools.... If you want no/low costs, but less personal attention, but more access to kids, but less hand holding-go with a county agency You basically pay more for a private agency but as they say you get what you pay for..if you pay..you have the ability to have more say..to expect more, etc In the end, it comes down to can you afford the costs of a private agency? This is a biggie for many people. In my situation..my initial desire was to adopt from Guatemala but it was ridden with issues and was said to be closing soon...so my 2nd choice was foster care adoption. I guess for me, I felt like if I was going to have higher costs..I would want more of a guarantee that in the end we would find our forever child...and to give money to a private agency and NOT find a child didn't seem to financially a good move in the event we did eventually need to go International. We knew we couldn't afford to pay for both in the end. PLUS with us we really wanted a child 2-7 years old and most times a private agency is best for people looking to do an infant adoption... Right now for us...I can say we are happy with our choice in a public agency EXCEPT I will be honest with you...if you want to foster with hopes of adopting...go locally...if you want to just adopt a baby...going private or county is fine...if you are open to all kids...understand that a lot of county agencies only deal with the homestate you live in...if you want access to kids throughout the U.S. you need to make sure you ask if your agency will allow that. PA, that is the SWAN network is very hard to allow any of their waiting families to look out of state which limits you only to PA...so wherever your at...ask that question? Good Luck!