Input needed please... Foster/Adopt

I am not in your county, so I can't answer all your specifics. We went with an agency which does allow you to go through more than one county. Whereas if you go with one county, then they want to place only children from their county with you. There shouldn't be a higher fee with the private agency if they are placing foster children. People say the benefits are that counties place with their own families first, but we haven't had problems getting adoptive placements, but it is likely due to the county we live in needing homes. Good luck!

Thank you for the info. What County are you in? Do you mind sharing which agency you went thru?

If you go directly through the county foster care system, then you must live within that county. For instance, I live in Riverside County but tried to go through Orange County - I couldn't. The only way you can go through multiple counties is through an agency. They receive their children through multiple counties. However, if there are visits, dr appts, court dates or meetings with social worker just be prepared to drive...

Hi there... I have experience with San Bernardino, San Diego and LA County. San Diego went really fast and they have so many kids waiting it is very easy to get a healthy younger child because in addition to the typical issues the foster system has SD Co also had an enormous amount of illegal immigrant children in the system. The sad truth is that CPS cannot place with loving family members who are illegal! So kids stay in the foster system because most illegal immigrant choose not to return their babies to their country of origin. We have a sibling group we adopted in 2000 (half siblings) and one of them has an illegal immigrant birth father. In San Bernardino Co, there are less illegal children, but we found they have more problems with birth parents in homeless and drug situations. Apparently, SB Co has alot more "white" children in the system than SD Co. I did have an issue in SB Co with the dept being so backed up and seriously lacking workers that we went without a worker for a while after we were approved. I had to rattle the cage so to speak to get attention and get considered for placement. ;) I actually emailed the recruitment worker for the county and told her they were wasting a great family! Hahaha. I was afraid my military husband would get orders before we got a placement and all that effort would have been wasted. We got a placement 3 months later. LOL. It was that placement, an 11 month old boy, that led to the last placement we received from LA Co. We were already in North Carolina and we got a call from LA stating that our son has a baby sister and did we want her? They wanted to place her with us... the judge and her attorney were pressuring LA Co to locate us ;) ... big smiles here ;) ... and they were asking us before they sought strangers. They foster parents of the baby girl and all interested birth family were not acceptable to the court. It was not what we expected and while we weren't really "ready" for another child at the time, I decided... we decided to accept because I could NEVER took into my son's sweet face and explain that we didn't have room or time for his sister. No way. So that started an interesting process of CA and NC working interstate on this adoption> The workers were amazing and did a great job. It was NOT easy. It took a few months to get the homestudy completed in NC and it was a little frustrating to deal with a state that was so different than what we'd dealt with in So Cal, but they all worked hard... even laying their reputations and job on the line with superiors to make it happen. The FBI kept losing my mom's fingerprints, and since she lives with us we had to get that approval, so they laid their reputation on the line and signed documentation that they would be personally responsible if anything happened in our case to the little girl. Wow... it was like a miracle! I have learned that usually if you go through an agency whether private or governmental they want you to give them a certain amount of time before they will release your homestudy. NC handed us our homestudy, and our SB Co worker did the same because she didn't trust her office's organizational skills and she was leaving us in limbo and she knew we were waiting on a new worker. So in those cases it would have been easy to forward our homestudy to another agency. I have a family member who went through a private agency in OH and she says they will fax your homestudy 3 times and after that they charge you a sum of money. If I were you, I would definitely keep an open mind about county agencies and see if you can get contact info for their recruitment workers. See if there are any local events like fairs where there might be a booth for your county. When we were in San Bernardino they were having booths and picnics etc to get out interest in available children. San Diego is excellent... the best we've experienced at promoting their kids waiting. They have websites, billboards and feature available children on evening news. Typically these kids are older harder to place kids, but you should definitely do what you can if you aren't finding success in your county. I know SD needs foster and adoptive homes. It's a seriously desperate situation in Southern CA. I would avoid LA County. They are much more restrictive than SD and SB. They limit which races can be adopted and have other restrictions. I was surprised because SD and SB were not like that at all. Definitely attend as many events and meetings you can get to where there will be social workers. Alot of people don't realize that a group of workers gets together to work at the matching meetings. So you could make contacts with a worker who might sit in a matching meeting and how awesome would it be if you come to mind, right? County workers take turns teaching the classes required for homestudy and licensing requirements. We had to drive 90 miles wach way for the classes in SB Co. If you knew some of the stories of kids in need in that county... it's awful. I made the mistake of working for a sexual assault services office while we were getting our license to adopt and it was AWFUL. I know it's so hard to be patient, but please don't give up. It is very frustrating waiting for a placement and dealing with the process that seems to take forever. They make it a long process on purpose to weed out the families who are not really serious. You'd be surprised how many people are still in fertility treatment and attend these classes and start the process but are really dead set on having a bio child. Or the ones who think adoption is a last ditch effort to save a marriage. We are blessed with 4 adopted kids and 1 bio child who is in the middle of the adopted ones, and I can't imagine life without any of them. Thanks for being willing to open your hearts and home to a child in need and God bless! ;)

CZ... Thank you for sharing and all your info. How were you able to work with multiple CA counties? I have read on most county websites that you have to reside within the county. We are definitely considering SB county... It is such a hard decision choosing. We haven't been to any orientations yet... I'm curious if we could apply thru a private agency such as Olive Crest and also SB county? If so, is it better to begin the process with one or the other first and are they ok with someone doing this? You have an amazing story and are definitely blessed.

Thank you for the info. I didn't consider the possibility of having to take care of stuff in another county. What a hard decision. County... Private Agency? My husband and I just don't want to wait forever. We were hoping for no more than a year from the time we started the process but I keep reading about people in our county who have been waiting for 2+ years. That is super discouraging.