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Anyone have experience with Fostering a child from another county? The story is that my DH works for our county and now that we are done with our classes and ready to be licensed there is an issue coming up that our county(San Diego) may not be able to give us a license because he works for them. Nobody seems to know for sure but it seems that if we cannot be licensed here we can in another county. Will another county really ket us foster and/or adopt kids? It seems like it might be too much work and they would not want to do it. Changing is not really an option as he has a really good job with the county but I have a hard time thinking they can say no we can't adopt or foster kids. Ugg I'm just really bummed now, things were moving right along and now this. The bottom line is that we just want to be able to open our home and we are hoping to adopt but driving 2 hours one way for a visit seems kinda difficult especially if there is more that one visit a week. Not to mention therapy if needed.
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I hope your situation gets resolved. Many agencies get placements from several counties, not just their own. We are with an agency, not directly with the county. We have fostered five kids (adopting three, the other two were here for seven months). Only one of the five was from our own county. We live in a large county, but just happen to get the kids from neighboring counties. The furthest away was about 90 miles. But none of three kids we adopted had parental visits while we were fostering them - so visitation wasn't an issue. Good luck.
Here, counties are pretty arbitrary. There may be certain situations where they try harder for in-county and definitely in-region. But they do what they have to do to place kids.I have not had a kid from in-county and actually have only met one foster parent who HAS had kids from our county. Our state is separated by region though so many more people get only in-region kids. However, we have a specialized worker because our kids are from out of region. She has so many kids to see from that other region, it's a full time position and she is just one of a team! And she only covers a very small portion of our region.
we are licensed with the county east of us. and our current placement is from the county west of us lol so it shouldn't be any problem i should think to just license in a neighboring county. i see that alot of ppl have to do their own transporting etc and that might be something for you to think about. luckily where i am, they do the transporting.
I foster for the county bordering the one where I live. I live in the suburbs of two large cities, both in neighboring counties. Whereas my count only had 88 kids in care, the neighboring one had over 1200! So, I went with the county where I could be the most help. It is about 1/2 hour away. I thought I would be fine to drive to visits 1x week. But it does make me have to consider that I might not take a placement if they have more than 1-2 visits a week, or might have to ask the county to transport some of those. Currently my newest kiddo only has visits 1x week for 1 hour. Not bad. Manageable.
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I have never had kids from my own county. We are currently licensed directly with our neighboring county and it has never been an issue.I've had multiple placements at one time and each having 2 or more visits per week and it can be tricky, but so far everyone has been willing to work to lighten that load with visits at the same time or shuffling times as needed.As for therapy, we just use services in my county.
CWs, AWs, Agency lawyers, and other agency workers and/or agency representatives have been known to foster and adopt in several areas. What you are describing may be specific to your agency, however, it does not make much sense.... In what capacity does he work...does he work in placing the kids? Then, if so, I could understand a conflict of interest. If he works in any other number of job titles and departments throughout the county and funded by the county, then I do not understand why they would not license... I would look into this further.... All the best to you for quick licensing.
My husband and I are fostering through a different county because he works for a city in our county. Weve been asked why we are going through a different county about a million times but no one has seemed to have a problem with it so far. From the time we started classes til the time we received our first placement was 4.5 months. We have 3 visits a week and it takes 45-55 minutes to get to the visits and we dont receive transportation help but they were great and asked us when would be the most convenient times and days for us and set up the visits accordingly. We do receive milage reimbursement which is nice since we travel 210 miles a week for visits. But being out of county was no problem
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In my area we are dual licensed through 2 counties, so we can take placements from either. We usually take kids from the one specific county because I'm not super fond of the workers from the other county. I know that they don't allow people who work for child welfare to foster from either of those counties...so they foster outside our counties. From what I understand the driving is a PITA (especially since they cut mileage this year from our reimbursement), but other than that the workers are willing to come when it's necessary. You live in CA, I know there are a few here who are there...so they would be better to tell you, but some areas offer transportation to visits. So that might be an option too.
I don't think it will be a problem in your county simply because your hubby works there. At least here, its very common for social workers, police officers, paramedics, fireman etc. . . to foster through the county. If he works for DFS, you might need to get a waiver and the kids wouldn't be able to come from the office he works at . I am positive it would not be a problem to move to a private agency. I don't know what private agencies are like in your county but here they only deal with very severe older kids (like 10 and up). I know many places the county and DFS have the basically the same types of children in placement.
well thanks, it gives me hope that we should still be able to foster from another county. he works in our county's emergency treatment facility. Where the kids who get taken away go first. BUT we are trying to foster drug exposed newborns so these babies would not come through his work. We live in a large county and there is a high need for homes to take these drug exposed little ones I'm really hoping our neighboring county has a program like we do.
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MorinMommy
well thanks, it gives me hope that we should still be able to foster from another county. he works in our county's emergency treatment facility. Where the kids who get taken away go first. BUT we are trying to foster drug exposed newborns so these babies would not come through his work. We live in a large county and there is a high need for homes to take these drug exposed little ones I'm really hoping our neighboring county has a program like we do.
MorinMommy
well thanks, it gives me hope that we should still be able to foster from another county. he works in our county's emergency treatment facility. Where the kids who get taken away go first. BUT we are trying to foster drug exposed newborns so these babies would not come through his work. We live in a large county and there is a high need for homes to take these drug exposed little ones I'm really hoping our neighboring county has a program like we do.