Advertisements
Advertisements
Yes, i heard hat after you have adopted a child through foster care then adoption assistance program kicks in and the child recieve's a certain amount of financial assistance monthly until they are 18 and i am not sure if it is for college or they also recieve help for that as well....i am not sure of the correct information?
If you put - adoption subsidy California - in a google search you can find info on the requirements and some info about amounts. There is a nation organization that gives overviews, but I would also try to find up to date info from your state because things do change over time. It would give you an idea what children are eligible and an idea of what other supports they might get... Medical, college, counseling etc. These vary from state to state, so looking for california specifically will be important.
Virtually all children adopted through foster care in California qualify for adoption assistance. This includes Medi-Cal and a monthly subsidy through age 18. I think the basic subsidy rate varies from county to county and by the age of the child at adoption. Children with special needs receive an amount higher than the basic rate. As an example, I can tell you that my daughter (adopted at 6 months old, no special needs) receives $426 per month, which is the basic rate for an infant in my county (Sacramento). I don't think that California offers any special help with college, but I haven't really looked into it.
Longing2bMom
Virtually all children adopted through foster care in California qualify for adoption assistance. This includes Medi-Cal and a monthly subsidy through age 18. I think the basic subsidy rate varies from county to county and by the age of the child at adoption. Children with special needs receive an amount higher than the basic rate. As an example, I can tell you that my daughter (adopted at 6 months old, no special needs) receives $426 per month, which is the basic rate for an infant in my county (Sacramento). I don't think that California offers any special help with college, but I haven't really looked into it.
Advertisements
We were told the AAP is the monthly reimbursement that they'd get as a foster (so it depends what age they are when you adopt) until age 18.
I don't think CA offers college assistance. I know TX for example offers free tuition at any state school. It would be nice if CA offered that benefit but with the budget issues we have in CA we should consider ourselves lucky the checks clear.
Just one more comment - children must qualify for AAP, not every child adopted from California through foster care is technically given AAP.
You should google it for the exact language - but something about encouraging families to adopt "hard to place" children NOT special needs necessarily but along the same vein. For instance: older kids, drug exposure, minorities, abuse, etc. Technically a foster child must be "hard to place" for particular reasons in order to qualify. I've never heard of a child NOT qualifying but I guess it could be the case...
Also I THINK (don't quote me on this) that the child cannot have more than a certain $ amount in their name otherwise they become disqualified for continuing AAP. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong here. For instance if a child has $10,000 maybe in a savings account in their name then the state can decide not to continue AAP. Our social worker advised us to open a savings account for our son's college fund in our names to avoid this... Again, I might be wrong but this is what I was told.
Excuse me for butting in here, but does anyone know how the subsidies apply for out of state adoptions of children in foster care? We reside in Texas, but I keep finding one profile after another in California that we like a lot. Also, in CA, does the subsidy only start after the adoption finalizes?
We are just about to accept placement of a sibling group we are matched with from California. We knew we would probably wind up adopting from California because we were looking for a young, hispanic sibling group - and there wasn't much of a chance of that in Alaska. We also noticed that most of the kids we were interested in were from California. I am not positive, but I am pretty sure financial support begins when placed. It may be a foster care payment for the first six months until finalized, and not an actual adoption subsidy - I know we were required by our agency to also have foster care certification to adopt from out of state. And, California pays whichever rate is higher - their state's rate or yours. This is a really good thing for us as we live in Alaska and the cost of living is much higher here - we are relieved to get Alaska's rate and not California's. Hope this helps!
Advertisements
Hi Kidsnak, been thinking of you. Do you know how much longer? I was hoping they would have been placed before Thanksgiving.
As for AAP. All foster children in Calif. qualify. They do not have to meet any criteria. Adverse parental background qualifies ALL children that are being adopted from the foster care system in Calif. I believe Calif. is the only state that does this. Your AAP payments will be the same as the foster payments. If your foster payments were $800 then the AAP payments will be the same. The only time your child could qualify for higher payments is if they are a dual agency child. If your foster child is a regional center client then your child qualifies for regional center rate. If you are not getting that, then you need to make some phone calls. Once you sign the Adoptive Placements papers then the foster care payment will change to the AAP payments. If you are adopting a child from Calif. from another state, the child will get the AAP from Calif.
Pammi~ we are still waiting! They originally planned to bring them to us on Nov. 22nd, then changed to Dec. 3rd in order to avoid potential problems with holiday traffic. On Dec. 1st they let us know that they wouldn't be able to bring them Dec. 3rd because they were still waiting for the main adoptions office to process the purchase of service paperwork; without that paperwork, they couldn't even buy airplane tickets to transport the kids. Both the social worker and his supervisor were at their wit's end because the office dealing with the purchase of service would not respond to any of their inquiries for the approval. Finally, both I and one of the kid's foster moms called the kids attorney to try and expedite the process. Their attorney got in touch with the DCFS attorney and things started moving. We are really hoping they will get final approval by Tuesday and the kids will get to be here by Christmas. It has been one heck of a roller coaster ride!
Texas_Rose
Excuse me for butting in here, but does anyone know how the subsidies apply for out of state adoptions of children in foster care? We reside in Texas, but I keep finding one profile after another in California that we like a lot. Also, in CA, does the subsidy only start after the adoption finalizes?
Also, you can request that the amount of subsidy be increased at any time if the child's needs increase. My niece originally was adopted at the basic rate of around $400, but 3 years later when she started school, it was discovered that she has dyslexia. My sister requested a rate increase based on her increased school needs and it was raised to $1,025. She is 15 now and still gets the higher rate even though she does well in school (with alot of extra effort).
Advertisements