Schools / Daycares for Foster Kids

I;m not sure it is the same everywhere...here in CT, daycare is paid for by the state so the most I would pay for be $25 a week. But you're right, obviously if there is a waiting list, what do you do? You can get spomeone to come to your house that is finger printed and checked out. They would get paid instead until your daycare spot became available. Of course this person has to be approved by DCF. But like I said, not sure the laws/rules in your area. As far as school-age children, ususally they stay int their school at first and then you can get permission to move them....specially if there school is far away, but that is not always the case. It really depends. Just ask your CW. Good Luck!

I think the rules probably vary quite a bit depending on state, county and maybe even the agency that you are with. I'm in California. Here we get no extra financial help with daycare. There are plenty of daycares to choose from so finding one isn't usually a problem, but they can be quite expensive. We can use a licensed facility or home daycare, or leave the child with a friend or relative so long as they have been fingerprinted. Unless the child is expected to be a very short-term placement, we are free to enroll them in our own neighborhood school. Hopefully, someone from the Washington D.C. area will respond so that you can get information more specific to your situation.

We do not get any extra money for day-care. My placements were only supposed to be short term (for the summer and I am a teacher) so when they ended up needing to stay longer (the entire school year) the $$$ involved in day care became a problem. I went to our local community college which has an excellent daycare/teaching facility. Most people need to put their kids on the waiting list when they are pregnant (and I needed care in two weeks!). Because the kids were in foster care they moved them to the top of the list. They also considered them a family of two with $900 income (our monthly stipend). They put them on some sort of grant (through the community college) so we pay nothing (the private cost would be close to $1600). So I would look around for a teaching/daycare program at the local universities or CC and see if they are able to help--it worked for us.

It does vary by state. Here(Texas), the kids get daycare $$ if both parents work and sometimes they won't place with a family, if they can not get the child into a daycare with a few days. This means that one of you would expect to be able to stay home the first day to get that set up, unless you have a daycare where you can do a dropoff daily. Somewhere along the line, you will spend time finding the right daycare. Some daycares do work with the state and understand that it can take a little while before they will get the reimbursement. Schools can change if the foster home is too far away for a child to remain at their present school. Where I live, there are so few schools, due to small population, but if I get kids from the town 15 miles away, they would change to the school in my town.

In our state the child goes to the school based on the foster parents residence. For us, our daycare is paid but it can be a licensed daycare center or licensed daycare home. I know that the rate the state will pay the daycare center is a lower rate than what they charge so not all centers are overly excited about accepting a state paid child.

I am in VA, and I don't know if where you reside in DC would be considered VA or MD or just DC? In VA they pay 100% for any day care costs. The child would change schools if you choose to. Our CW said that in most cases recently, the child won't be going home probably for 6+months, so they recommend changing their schools after the 5 day hearing to your homes school district. She said that judges are cracking down on the children being removed, so by the time they are, it's usually going to be a long stay if not TPR. Good luck! We're just getting started too!

My daughter was already in a wonderful daycare and the owner knew exactly what I was doing. The day I got the call on Max, I walked into her office and the conversation went like this: "Do you have spots for in infant?" "Do you have an infant?" "I'm going to pick him up at the hospital right now." "Then we have a spot for an infant. When do you need him to start?" So, you might try talking to the owners of some daycares and see what they say. Also, here in my county you can qualify for state paid daycare, but the system was so messed up that I didn't even bother with it. I used his per diem to pay the daycare. When it comes to schools, here the kids go to school based on the foster parent's address.

AL will pay for daycare up to $150 a week, if it's a licenced daycare who can accept DHR payments. If it costs more than that, you pay the difference. Once we were licenced and ready to go - just waiting for a baby - I started looking at daycares. I found one that let me pay the annual registration fee ($25) to keep a spot open for me. For schools, it depends on the placement, child and time of year. If there wasn't much time left in the school year (or term), or it's only a short-term placement, they recommend leaving the child in the original school. The SW can arrange transportation to the original school if you can't do it.

Here in NYC there are tons of daycares. If you give the agency a start date and get the ACD voucher app in they will pay the daycare retroactively once it is cleared so you can start the child in daycare right away if needed. My wife took maternity leave( her job allows that for foster/ adopt placements) and closer to when it was time for her to return to work We asked around visited the ones we were interested in and went with them. In my area if the child is a school age child under 10 they will try and place them in a foster home that is convenient for them to get to school from because they dont want to put a child through "too much trauma" When a child is over 10 years old then There is a choice of a child going to the same school or transferring school. They child has a say in the matter at this point because they feel they are more aware. It varies froms state to state and sometimes county to county.