Private Agency Or DCS? Cecil County, Maryland.

We did alot of info gathering before deciding to go through our DCBS. I probably spoke to 4 different agencies before deciding. In my opinion the agencies felt too "coorporate". I spoke to one agency rep for about 2 hours on the phone and he was eventually very comfortable with me. While discussing he said that they had recently placed 4 siblings with a family and the family had to buy a van for transportation. Then he laughed and said "well if they had enough money for a van we should probably cut their per diem rate". This surprised me obviously so I just laughed and ended the call shortly after. That was the deciding factor for us. I'm not sure if this applies to every state but in ours, the families that are licensed by the state get first choice in foster children and if they can't find a home for them, they release the children to agencies to find homes. Seeing that you want mild behavior issues, this may be a factor for you because most agencies receive the "higher level" children because they couldn't be placed in a state foster home.