Discouraged!

I have heard the same thing.:(

I think it depends on the age of child you are wanting to adopt. The older the child, the easier it will likely be to do Adopt-only. From what I was told, they try to place the youngest children with foster-adopt families to provide them some stability (so they are more likely adopted by their foster family if it goes to adoption). Of course, in this system, you can never say "never" to any situation being possible.

It may vary by circuit as well. We went into this wanting to adopt. We had a child in mind we'd picked off the web site, and got going on classes. We later found out that her issues were such that we could not have her in the same home as our son. But, we were halfway through classes and thought we'd go ahead and finish up. So, we still want to adopt. I feel like a bomb got dropped on me this week. We finished our STARS classes Monday. We have our last homestudy visit on Sunday. And I discovered that SPAULDING classes won't be held until sometime in the spring. :mad: You cannot submit a homestudy for adoption consideration without having taken the SPAULDING classes. We won't be considered in any adoption staffing without those classes. So, we cannot honestly move toward a child already available for adoption until next spring, probably April-June. I'm blown away. Initially our trainer thought she would do SPAULDING classes with us as soon as our STARS classes finished. I think our district/region changed their minds on retaining her for that due to "lack of interest". What they mean is out of our original class only two couples (including ourselves) made it all the way through. They don't intend to hire a trainer to do that with just the two couples. This means that we have a couple of choices. We can do it the way they keep suggesting, and foster until one goes to adoption, or we can wait until SPAULDING is available...which there's no guarantee there will be enough interest in the spring. We live in a rural area. So, against our better judgement we are going to give regular foster care a shot. We'll see how it goes. We did move ahead and get our respite license as well. We have our first respite babysitting arrangement this Saturday. It's ony about 8-10 hours, but it gives us a little experience. The two we are providing respite for are being adopted by grandparents so they aren't for us at any point in time , but it's some experience anyway.

Thank you both for the advise...I am feeling better now. I talked with my licensing worker and her supervisor about what I am feeling and they both told me that since we are interested in older children or a sib group then our chances are greater and not too worry. Hopeful Mom I sent you a private message.:confused:

Thank you very much. :happydance: We are also interested in "older" child adoptions, though it is still boggling to me that 7-10 years is an "older" child in the foster world. At 11 our biological little guy still seems like a baby to me, but what do I know? We're also willing to take a sibling group, so we have something in common!

I dont know exactly how the system works in your state, but I do know that frequently potential foater/adopt parents are told that they can not simply adopt and yet every day we see ads and stories about how we need more adoptive parents in America. I think they do this to try to deter those who only want to adopt a baby wihtout using an agency and waiting for a placement and paying the $$ that goes with that.

I am very disgruntled with what seems like false advertising to me! :( I looked at the websites, got emails, saw ads on tv...and so we jumped, right? Now I'm trying to muddle through all of this and I feel like hubby and I are being cornered into becoming foster parents. :grr: I understand the entire concept of how they must live with you as a foster child for 6 months prior to adopting. That just makes sense. But I also feel we are being cornered and backed into a spot where they are making adopting less likely.

I totally understand HopefulBunch. There was a precious girl on the MO heart gallery...we were really hoping she would have been available but the caseworker forgot to let the gallery know that she has already had a family in progress. We are looking at a lot of kids and sibs outta state. Have several saved on my computer and really really hoping we will be matched. We feel as though we have so much to offer! We finish up our 3rd and FINAL 9 HOUR STARS training tomorrow and start SPAULDING in Nov. ;)

Our sons were placed on a photolisting when we were already matched and transition in progress. They did that because they wanted to recruit more parents for their harder to place children (the old bait and switch trick). I would NEVER EVER get my hopes up for a child on a photo listing unless they have severe special needs.

hopefulBunch - we took our Spaulding class in a different county, because they were offering it about 6 months before our home county was offering it (and our having completed Spaulding led to us getting the placement of our 1st/current FD while the other parents in our STARS class were still waiting to take Spaulding). You may want to look into some surrounding areas to see when they are offering Spaulding, if you'd rather not wait.

What I have found out now is that I must have our LW permission in order to attend SPAULDING classes outside of our area. Our LW's last day in our county was Friday, so I will most likely have to wait and ask whomever the new LW is. :mad: