Foster or foster-to-adopt, is this normal?

Since you are in IL, I can tell you that not all agencies are like that! Where I am, it's almost all agencies (not DCFS itself) doing the licensing. IL does not have a foster to adopt program, but you can adopt from foster care. It's not like other states where there is a bunch of waiting kids. I would call around to different social service agencies and talk to them about getting licensed for foster care. (You need that anyway to adopt). Be honest that you are looking for low legal risk or kids that are waiting. You should not have to pay. It might be that the agency has too many foster families already and they don't need you (b/c it costs to train and license). PM if you have more questions.

Thank you very much for the information! I just called the Illinois adoption referral place back and she was quite surprised that I had been told that. We decided it must have been a misunderstanding so I'm going to call the agency back and talk to the case worker again and make sure I didn't give the impression that we only wanted an infant (we are willing to take an infant but would really prefer toddler and up). From talking to the IL referral place, I got the impression that the agency wasn't supposed to push me into options where they charge like she did. I hope I didn't get anyone in trouble, I'd hate to jeopardize our chance for a successful licensing.I didn't realize Illinois didn't have a foster-to-adopt program, that may be where part of the problem is. Do most people foster first and then move on to adoption? Maybe we are doing this process the wrong way :) Off to call the agency now... wish me luck!edited to add - The offices are closed on Good Friday. I'll try back Monday

I am also in Illinois and just finished classes to get licensed to do foster care. I personally think they tell you that because there are older children who need homes. I know there are also young ones too. When we first started we wanted to stay like 2 and under but afetr taking the classes we are just going to take everything on a case by case. Not sure where in Illinois you are from but if you have more qustions feel free to contact me!!

I'm sending you a PM with the info of my agency which has offices in your state. I'm in Texas. It looks like you can be licensed either through the state or through a private agency, which is how we are licensed. Unfortunately every state has a different system for licensing and foster/adopt. Most people get told that they won't get placements unless they are willing to take older kids. They do this to try to weed out those who are mainly interested in adopting a baby/young child and avoid domestic adoption that costs major bucks by getting licensed and then only taking babies as placements. The truth is that there is a need everywhere for families to take all ages of kids simply because abuse and neglect happen to kids of all ages. Overall, kids that are older do tend to stay in the system longer and are harder to place because people seem more willing to take younger kids/babies. We are one of the families that do not take little kids. Did at first, but soon realized we were best with tween/teens.

It's very frustrating and confusing. I'm in CT. I'm willing to take 1-2 boys up to age 7. I've been waiting 7 months just to start classes. Now they tell me I have to wait until the summer class in July. The SW keeps telling me they only need foster parents for teenagers and medically complex cases. Yet the state website keeps pushing that foster and adoptive parents are desperately needed for all ages. They have radio ads encouraging families to go to open houses. There have been newspaper articles on the shortage of families for children of all ages. Here I am willing and ready and just waiting and waiting. I'm not surprised they have a shortage of families if this is what happens to those who show an interest.

I don't have any specific information about Illinois.This thread made me curious- so I searched on adoption photolisting for kids ages 8 and under in Illinois. Only 2 were listed. This may be why you are getting the response you are getting.Many many children who are adopted at a younger age from foster care are adopted by their foster parents.

We're pretty much in the same boat in Illinois. After some research and reading between the lines, here's what I've found out. I think this information is accurate, but it's hard to get straight (or consistent) answers from agencies or DCFS. Here is the process as I understand it and why you're getting the run-around. DCFS does not work directly with potential parents. You MUST get a referral through an outside agency. Most agencies only work with foster care placement, not permanent adoption from foster care, so you will be lucky to even get your calls returned if you only ask for foster care adoptions. You will want to ask for foster care training. Don't mention adoption. The certification process is the same, and you must be certified before DCFS will work with you at all. Once you are certified, the agency will expect you to work solely with them. This is because unfortunately Illinois organizes their child placement by county, meaning if you live in Lake county and a child becomes available in Cook county, you won't hear about it. Even worse than that, the agencies are competing with each other for placement money. So a child available through a different agency in even the same county will not normally be made available to you. At this point, I'm not 100% certain how best to "beat the system." But I will tell you my plans. After certification, I'm going to keep checking the Illinois photolistings and contact DCFS any time I see a potential child come up that I would be interested in. The photolisting site is run by yet another outside agency contracted by DCFS to do it, and they will be able to tell you what agency holds the child you want to adopt. You then contact that agency directly, and see if you can get access to that child. I don't know if this will be successful, because the agency may still not want to work with someone in another county or agency. So that's that. Here's some other information I found that may be useful. - DCFS is almost obsessive about placing children back with their birth parents. Cynically, I think this is because the metrics they are concerned with are the cost of the program and keeping the foster care numbers low. The do not measure successful placements as you and I would (children in a loving home), but rather how many kids they can get out of the system by any means. This means that there will always be very few "waiting children." It is not in DCFS's interests to terminate parental rights, if there's a chance a birth family will ever get back their birth child. This also means your best bet may be to foster a child, and fight like mad in court to get the birth parent's rights terminated. - Other than the fight in court above, getting a foster care placement or a waiting child adoption place should be free, free, and FREE. I'm not certain, but I think Illinois actually provides you a monthly stipend for fostering a child. I'm not sure if this applies to foster adoptions. - There are already quite a few shady agencies I've already talked to. Some have no foster care services at all and will try to discourage you from foster care adoptions and talk you into their seriously expensive private adoption services. Others have foster care services but will do the same because they make so much more on private services. Be persistent with the ones you know have foster certification services. - It took me days (and literally a dozen phone calls) before I could even find out where DCFS's listings of foster care agencies was, so I'll link it here and hopefully the mods will allow it: [url=http://www.adoptinfo-il.org/general-foster-care/]General Foster Care Information - Adoption Information Center of Illinois[/url] - Like I said, there seems to be very few children available for foster adoption, or at least very few that prospective adoptive parents are notified about. The vast majority of the photolistings are of older children and even young adults (18+) with serious medical conditions that are wards of the state. - The process seems to move very slow. Most agencies will take days to call you back, if at all. Some will completely ignore your phone calls. So contact more than one agency on the foster care list. Preferably, as many in your county as you would be willing to drive the distance to. Keep track of which ones are the most responsive. These are the ones you want to work with, since they will likely be the ones that work hardest to place children with you, and likely are the ones that don't have a huge adoptive family waiting list. - From everything I've heard, some agencies will tell you the process will be done within a year, but that doesn't seem to include the actual foster care placement. That will depend mostly on the quality of your agency, and a bit on your dilligence in asking for a placement. I'm planning on working with one agency for certification once that process starts, and multiple agencies if that's permitted after certfication, and suggest you try to do the same. Some places take over a year to place kids after certification, from asking around. Hope it helps!

I hope you realize you cannot do this. A foster parent cannot fight in court to get a birth parent's rights terminated. Indeed- a foster parent's job is to support reunification with the birth parent.

I am also in CT. We just finished up with the Foster to Adopt classes and waiting for our license ( which should be in the mail or close to it ) . We started in Nov. We were told last week we will placed with a child within 2 weeks .. we are wanting a 11-15 yr old or there about. I don't know what part of the state you are in but there are orientations quite often . We waited I think it was a couple of weeks before getting notified of when the classes started . A year that you've been waiting is nuts , have you tried calling and ask what the delay is?

I did call. They told me they are only interested in families who will take teenagers. I'm calling to call again though. I can't believe there are no children 7 and under who need homes.

A foster parent has no legal right to the child, but they can certainly fund a child's legal attempts to become emancipated from their birth parents if the child chooses to do so. I don't see a foster parent's job as supporting the rights of the birth parents or the state. A foster parent's job is to do what's best for the child in their care. If that means fighting against the state or the birth parents, that's what I would do.

arccos, the PPer is correct in that you are required to support the state's case plan, which is almost always RU in the beginning. I'm fairly positive if you began to "fight" for the child's rights and it was in opposition to the state's plan for that child, you would lose that child quickly and perhaps lose your chance of any placement.

I'm in IL, too. Welcome to the fost-adopt world! So here's the thing ... there are tons of kids waiting for adoption. Most of them have very, very significant issues. Here's what happens with all the rest of the kids (in IL, to the best of my knowledge): First they're put into a foster home while the state attempts to reunite them with their birth family. If that fails (usually after a couple of years in foster care), the foster family gets the first opportunity to adopt those kids. I'm told that the foster family usually says yes to adoption. If the foster family says no, then the kids are put into a pre-adoptive home before the state actually terminates the parents' rights (because the state doesn't want to create orphans). A pre-adoptive home is a licensed foster home that says they're willing to take "legal risk" kids. Meaning that it looks like they'll be available for adoption down the road, but it's not certain yet. After all, the parents' rights haven't actually been terminated yet and anything can happen. Finally, if for some reason the parents' rights are terminated (or perhaps the parents pass away) before the kids are placed in a pre-adoptive home, then they are placed on the list for adoption. Families who want to adopt the kids can then submit their homestudy for consideration. A team reviews the submitted homestudy and chooses a couple of families to interview and finally choose one family to adopt the children. Families who are only willing to adopt children who are legally free from their birth parents can take years. I'm not saying it's a bad way to go, but everyone seems to end up very surprised by this, so it's better to know it early on. If your goal is to help children, fostering is a great way to go. As all of us can tell you, letting go of the kids at the end is terrible and sad, but you survive it, and you're better for having had the entire experience. Plus, as the foster family you'll have the first option to adopt if you have a case that ends up going that direction. Good luck!

Children in foster care cannot become emancipated. They are not in the custody of their parents but that of the state, and one of the criteria to become emancipated is that the child not be in state custody. In those states that allow emancipation (not all do), the child first must be a minimum of 16 years old (I don't know of any states that allow it younger, though I could be wrong), and secondly must be supporting themselves fully (shown through pay stubs, rent and utility receipts, etc). Someone else funding that attempt would actually show a judge that the child was not supporting her/ himself and would disqualify that child from becoming emancipated. I get the idea of wanting to do what you see as best for the child in your care, but as others have said, you don't actually have any rights as a foster parent. It's kind of like if I disagree with a relative about what is best for their children; I can fight for what I think is right, but since I have no legal standing, all I would do is likely keep myself from being a part of that child's life.

When we were first licensed and waiting, I looked on some of the listings for kids waiting for adoption. It asked for my caseworker's name. As we didn't have an adoption caseworker I gave my licensing worker's name. Later I was able to talk with her and she said that they usually like to see foster families foster a kid or two before submitting them for kids on these lists. The reason? A lot of the kids have special needs (medical or emotional, etc.) and they want to know the families can handle this before moving a kid to a 'forever' home that is shocked by the level of care that is needed and the kid has to be moved again. yes, it may take longer, but once I was told this and thought about it I saw the good thinking behind it. Permanency for a kid is the goal. Not finding a family a kid. Though, I have to admit I didn't like the answer at first because I felt like she was saying I couldn't handle a tough case. It has been a while and I think there was great wisdom in the response. Also, yes, there is no foster-adopt in IL. We found our agency by calling the 800-number on DCFS's fostercare website. I was able to talk to the person and get the name of several offices in my area. Our agency (not in Chicago) pulls from several counties, not just the one they are in or we are in. This may be different in different parts of the state, so ask. It never hurts to ask.