Is there a real need for infant foster parents?

There are some moms on here that take multiple toddlers at a time......I dont know how they do it!

I am going to agree with this. I am in a large metro area and we get lots of drug addicted babies. They don't all come into care, but a lot of them do. And since us working parents usually can't take off 6 weeks, SAHP are called usually first. I got lucky with Chubbs because he was already 4 weeks when he came into care, so I only had to have 2 weeks off before he could join daycare.

Thanks everyone!

I know that requirement is pretty unique to my area, but newborns especially, a stay at home parent is very desirable no matter where you are.

There is a HUGE need for homes to takes infants/young toddlers in my area. Our county doesn't care if there are 2 working parents or a SAHM, but they really need homes. In my area, most foster parents work. I think the need for homes comes from the fact that, daycare here is subsidized, but it usually takes 6-8 months for the subsidy to kick in, so during that time, you are paying out of pocket for daycare for the baby. Daycare for an infant is over $1000/month here, so it is double the subsidy that we get for the kids. Many foster parents don't want to pay that, and the ones who do, don't take more than 1 placement. I stay at home, and will do multiple infants/toddlers together because we don't have to worry about a daycare bill, just what I can handle during the day, lol! Since we started taking infants, we have always been as full as we want to be.

We have been fostering for 3 years..I am a stay at home mom and we only accept infants/toddlers. We have had 5 children placed with us so far. We love the babies! We make great foster parents (according to the case workers) because the baby does not have to enter day care and because we are not looking to adopt (so we can remain impartial). Good luck with fostering.

That pretty much sums us up to. OP, ''other'' states may have weird restrictions IE, they won't place if you only accept babies, but not here. There is no shortage of babies here, however this is the FIRST time in a long time (about the past 6 mo) that they have more foster parents coming in than exiting...so it may start to get cyclical again.

There's definitely a need for someone to take infants in our area, particularly to take infants that are likely to reunify - many foster parents who want babies come at this wanting primarily to adopt, so I would think you'd be an asset to them. I would ask your county, but be clear also that while you may be open to adoption, you are also not focused on that - that really will add to how useful you are to them.

We are getting licensed in a very similar situation: we have two young bio kids and want to take babies under 2 years old. There is some need in our area, but it actually differed agency to agency. One was quite clear that they had many families licensed for infants already and wanted us to consider a larger age range or taking siblings. One said all their infant homes were full and they definitely had a need. All were willing to license us, but we didn't want to sign up with an agency that didn't really have a need for us. It seemed to us that the agencies that didn't do transportation for visits (at least not on a regular basis) were the ones that needed foster parents for infants, because in my state children 0-2 years old have 3 visits per week, 1 hour each. I don't think that would be possible at all for working parents without a transporter. For me as a mostly-SAHM, it works out fine.

I think it really depends on your location. Within the county in which i reside. there are many meth users and heroin has become just as big. I training we were informed there are quite a few infant placements that come in to care due to being born drug positive. However, we are certified for up to two children at a time, ages newborn-6 years old and are open to a huge range of "special needs." My home has been open for placements for a month today and we have had only one call a little over a week ago for a sibling group of 3, ranging from 4 years to 9years and we turned it down. (Mostly because we are not set up for three children, especially in an older age range) I've heard of people getting placement calls before they are even officially open for infants!! Personally if we were not hoping to adopt again, we would prefer the older kiddos as they seem to be much easier! So I can see it being both ways! Best wishes :)

In my area there is a high need for families to foster infants who will most likely be reunified.There is very little need for families for infants who are likely to be TPRed or who are legally free for adoption, because there are already lots of families in the waiting pool who are looking to adopt a very young child.That doesn't necessarily mean a family just getting started won't ever be able to adopt a baby - you never know when reunification won't work out. It just means that foster families may have to be willing to care for a lot of babies who will go home before finding one who will stay and be adopted if adoption is their goal. A family that primarily wants to foster would definitely be useful.

In my area of KY there is a huge need for infant homes. Everyone I know that has wanted to foster and even adopt infants after fostering has been able to eventually. We didn't make it a full 24 hours from being licences before we got a cal for a 5 week old. Drug exposure is the biggest culprit where I am at. Here you don't have to have extra classes for drug exposed infants, but I recommend reading up on symptoms and care routines.

Here they like to place all little ones in homes that are also licensed to adopt. Even thought the goal is always reunification, they want to make sure the littlest foster children are in homes that could potentially be their forever home if reunification does not happen.

There is a need here too. We got our first call pretty quickly and I see many, many babies at training events but most of them have some level of medical needs or were born prematurely.

We are going to get our adoption license for sure. I would absolutely love to add 1 or 2 more little ones to my brood :laundry: However, we are going into this as if we aren't going to adopt. I think that will be helpful to me if the case does go to RU. Although I'm secretly hoping I will be able to have a little girl in my life forever! :cheer: Everyone on here has been so helpful!