Agencies get left overs....

I'm in Orange County. When I was with a FFA the kids offered had lots of issues. I'm with the county now. I just had placement call me about 3 boys with lots of issues. I receive a larger stipend for them instead of it going to the agency. I still turned them down. I have 1 boy that is keeping me busy right now. I think I will hold out a little longer.

I am in LA County and my FFA (Foster Family Agency) does not accept placement of children with extreme behaviors or issues. I was informed that this is because my FFA does not license therapeutic homes. When a home is potentially needed for a child, ALL the Los Angeles agencies are notified, and the first home that says 'yes' to the possible placement (barring the child going to relatives, or a foster family who has placement of, or has adopted, a sibling), will be placed with the child. We were open to ages birth to 8, any ethnicity, boy or girl, and in the one week we were licensed (before our daughter was placed with us) we received 8 placement calls. All were children under 3 - we said yes to each placement, but ultimately our BD was the child who came home.

Same with my agency. They don't take medically fragile placements. My agency also said they're usually the first to be called when a new baby needs placement from the hospital. So I was curious if they were fibbing....

anjewellove, My agency told me that it depends on the current political climate at DHHS. It goes back and forth between the county keeping the babies for their own parents, and preferring to send the babies to FFAs so the child will get more visits from social workers. (County did visits once per month, my agency did visits once a week, tapering down to once a month after a year)We really want a child that is younger than our son, so we chose to go through the county this time. Last we were told, babies in our county were staying with county homes right now.

We've also been told that parents with previous fost-adopt experience tend to be asked first, and that our county prefers a stay-at-home parent (or other arrangement that minimizes daycare time). I work from home and brought in a mommy's helper.

Im in Tulare county and we were told they place in county homes first before a ffa.

I'm way up North in Ca. When I called the county for information on becoming a FP they referred me to an agency and said they try to use them first. (Wouldn't tell me which one though) anyhow she said they liked contracting out more up here. I asked her to send the information anyways and she never did. The agency sent the information out the next day and that was that.