Military Family Wanting to Foster/Adopt

My husband is active duty military (Army) as well, with over 20 years in. Let me take a stab at some of these. As far as school goes, I'm assuming with a Drill assignment you are stateside. Most school on post are run by the city/county they are in, not DoD. If that is the case, it shouldn't be a problem. If they are DOD, then typically the child/ren have to be enrolled in DEERS. However, there may be an exception at your post. Call your school's registrar and ask for specifics if it is a DOD school. Your husband's assignment shouldn't mean much. It will come up during your home study with hypothetical situations. We were asked, even though he is in a non-deployable unit, if he does deploy how would I handle it? Would I go back to family? Would I remain as a single parent? What kind of local support do I have (friends? family? Unit?) Our foster children have two different types of state medical.We had to find off post doctors for them and take them there, just like using TriCare off post. They have 100% coverage, with the only exception being medication that is available OTC. I have to pay for those out of pocket. Again, they have to be enrolled in DEERS for TriCare. However, I did find this recently: [url=http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/aca/]Insurance Programs[/url] 14. Is my foster child covered under my FEHB Self and Family enrollment? It depends. Beginning January 1, 2011, foster children, even if married, can be covered under their foster parent's Self and Family enrollment until their 26th birthday. To be considered a foster child for health benefits purposes, the following requirements must be met: the child must live with you; the parent-child relationship must be with you, not solely the child's biological parent; you must be the primary source of financial support for the child; and you must expect to raise the child to adulthood. You must sign a certification stating that your foster child meets all the requirements. Contact your agency or Retirement System for more information.

We're military too and just getting started as well. You asked all my questions and got them answered! Just wanted to let you know you were'nt alone. I don't seem to find much military on these boards. So I wasn't putting myself out there because there didn't seem to be anyone who's situation was the close to ours. We have our first class this tomorrow and Saturday. Good luck as you continue on your journey!:flower:

I am military and if you guys need more information please PM me, we have been on this roller coaster ride for almost a year, and it has been so worth it!!!

If you don't mind me asking, why has this taken so long for your family? I ask b/c I worry that we won't have enough time to get this whole process complete and have the adoption finalized before my DH gets out of the Army.

Things just take time. We were lucky enough to FLY through the process of having children placed. We went to our orientations in September, had EVERYTHING turned in (including our home study) by mid-October and had a placement by mid-November. However, even once children are placed it takes time. They have to be in your care a while, they have to be in the system a while, and then everything else takes a while before an adoption is possible. We currently have a placement that is being called a "slam dunk" for adoption, but it still will take time. It's possible that you can have everything done in two years, but it depends a lot on your placements, too. Not every child that comes into your home will be adoptable if you are a foster family.

I guess our case worker is explaining it to us that we would only be placed with children that are "ready to adopt" as in we would foster until the adoption papers can start. Does that make sense? Totally random question - if you have a child whose birth parents do not have rights (thus they do not have visitation with their birth parents and have no chance of going back to them) and your fostering to adopt, can you take that child out of the state for vacations and such? Being military, our families live in other states than GA and we would want to bring the lil one on vacays.

I know for us, we have to have permission from the social worker to cross county lines, and from a judge to cross state lines. It isn't hard to get, but it does take time.

We have taken our foster kiddos out of the state and their parents still have rights. It just took us getting the ok from the CW, GAL, and the Judge (it took only about a week or two for us to get approved) It sounds like you guys are looking to be more of a foster to adopt only house, we started out like that and actually changed our minds during the homestudy and decided to take emergency placements as well. We recieved our sibling group about weeks after we completed our homestudy and they have been with us ever since. In this case I am military (foster mom and dad is civilian)

Oddly enough I don't know. We had 4 hours friday then all day Saturday and we have homework that we will come back for in 2 months. I think I just figured what the heck i'll do what ever they need me to do!

Where we are, there are different ways to take the classes. As, you can sign up to take 1 8-hour day and 1 4-hour day on 2 consecutive weekends, and a couple of 4-hour evenings, in between. (If I remember correctly!) Something like that. Or, you can take classes that are a few hours each, that stretch out, like you mentioned, for weeks or a couple months.