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We are in Fulton Co and have actually gone 2 months with no long-term placements!We had one emergency placement for overnight, turned down a teenage placement and have done lots of respite, but no longer term placements.This is kind of strange I think.Is it slow for other counties too? Wonder what the deal is?? It would be great if that meant kids are not in harm's way, but somehow I doubt that's the case. As we get closer to winter/holidays do you think it'll pick up?
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There are a lot of empty foster homes around here. The kids that are getting removed are going to relative placements, which is ideal if they are acceptable. The last foster placements around here were from failed relative placements.DCS is being pushed to get kids out of foster care as quickly as they can to save money :(
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We are in Marshall County & haven't had a new placement since our last one went home 9 months ago. we have only gotten 3 calls in that time. They were either out of our age limit, went to family or they called right before I was to leave the country. It's been VERY slow & no...it's all about the money not the kids. Sadly.
We have been licensed since March/10 and we are still waiting for our first placement. Not even one call for respite. Wondering if we will ever get called. We are through a private agency and going to make the switch to county after Christmas. My husband is about ready to through his hands up in the air about the whole thing. Thinking that they have lied to us the whole time about "being needed" I don't wan to agree, but I can't help but think the same way. I know at least 3 other foster parents around me that is in the same boat. I am in Jay County, btw.
I just talked to a DCS director who also handles foster parent licensing... she told me that the state is dividing up into regions of multiple counties and when there is a removal, they first look at family. If there's no family, they hunt for county homes and not necessarily in-county homes. They may place out of county, still in the region. They do all that BEFORE they call an agency home.So we're switching back to county. We like our agency, but our last foster kids went home 2 months ago and there's a strong possibility the youngest (at least) will come back into care. We WANT HIM BACK. We'll switch back to county gladly! to prevent him going to another home.Since DCS goes to such great lengths to avoid placing in an agency home, it's very unlikely that we'll get a call unless we switch back.Our agency says it is all political and that agency homes should hang tough until this back-fires on the state. But we don't want to wait that long and we don't want to risk not getting our little S back if he comes back into foster care, either.Rather than play this little political game, we're going where the kids are. And right now, that's with the county.Also, we were told by our agency on Saturday that the level of behavioral difficulty is being stepped up a notch. That means that county homes are now getting easy-to-place (babies or younger kids) up to what used to be "Special needs" or "therapeutic". And the kids who used to go to residential care are now being placed in agency homes, because they are therapeutic-level homes.We don't want the worst-level kids. We don't mind some behavioral problems or even some medically-challenged kids, but not the extra troubled teens who used to be in residential facilities.With all of that in mind, we finally decided that going back to county was our best bet.
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