FMLA California

You get 12 weeks per calendar year provided you have been employed for a year and your employer has 50 or more employees. Six of the 12 weeks are paid from the state's insurance system similar to unemployment insurance. The remaining 6 weeks are unpaid. The 12 weeks do not have to be taken consecutively, so if you do not use the entire 12 weeks on one placement, then you can use the remaining weeks on subsequent placements. However. you cannot take more than 12 weeks (6 weeks paid) during any calendar year regardless of how many placements you have.

Thank you Longing2bMom. That's exactly what I needed to know. Since you've had success twice in adopting through foster, can I ask two more questions? If you are near Los Angeles, what agency did you work with? Were both your placements emergency placements and high risk? After talking to Inner Circle yesterday based near L. A., they said that since they are a small agency they can only afford to work with parents that are willing to do emergency placements at high risk. I understand this is verses low risk and sometime to considering the match. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Hi My wife and I went with Childrens Bureau and have really enjoyed out experence. We are with our first placement and it is not high risk. We picked her up from County in June and have enjoyed every minute. Good luck

Thanks Downeydad. I heard good things about the Childrens Bureau. Can I ask how long you waited for your match?

I am not in Los Angeles. I live in Northern California. My agency does have locations throughout California, though, so I will PM you the name. Both of my placements were low legal risk, meaning the goal at placement was already adoption and TPR had already been filed. At the time, low legal risk was mostly all my agency handled, although I understand now they are doing a lot of concurrent planning too.

We started our Pride classes in March. We finally got certified June 22nd and got a call 18 min (yes 18 min) after certification with our first placement. LOL I can't say enough for how helpful our FFA has been for us.

Wow Downeydad, that is a record! Congratulations. Does Childrens Bureau give you an option to focus on low legal risk adoptions/matches? Can I ask, is your little bundle a low risk infant? Thanks.

Thanks! Honestly, we never got into the Low Risk vs High Risk....but from what I understand in our last support group, many of our parents have had kids go to RU. I hope I understood your question. In our case, I think they said it was low risk but we have a great grandmother that may step in for custody so who really knows. I just cross my fingers and hope the system does what is best for the child.

Idonvito - We are almost certified through LA DCFS. I was told by another parent who went through an FFA that LA DCFS skims off the most low risk (of reunification) emergency placements for their own parents, and not for FFA's. I also went through DCFS because of the TIES program which provides life time support post-adoption. [url=http://www.tiesforadoption.ucla.edu/]UCLA TIES for Families: Training, Intervention, Education, and Services for Adoption[/url] It is an extra orientation after the PS-MAPP class, but I think it is well worth it.

Our daughter was placed through Inner Circle in Van Nuys, and they were wonderful! I truly appreicated their advocating for us, as we were hoping to adopt. We decieded to be a "first call" for initial placements, and were open to boy or girl, any race, up to age 7. We were licensed in early April, 2010, and then "on the books". We received 8 placement calls in one week, boys and girls, all enthnicites, and all under 3 years old. We said "yes" to each potential placement, but our daughter was the one who came home, at 12 days old. We finalized her adoption last November, at 19 months old. That being said, with each call we were told as much information as they had, and could then say "yes" or "no'. Our daughter was her bio mom's 2nd child, and the 1st was adopted by a foster family, so technically she was considered low risk for reunification. My Adoption SW's shared with me that in her experience, most foster children who become available for adoption will be adopted by their initial foster family (especially babies). It is also my understanding that the current climate in LA County is to seek a pre-adoptive home from the very beginning of a child coming into care (especially children under 5), so that they hopefully will not experience too many moves. Please feel free to pm me if you want more details.