I'm so confused....

I don't know if very many families ever get to "adopt" straight from NICU but they definitely foster until a decision is made about permanency. The lady you spoke with could have been trying to be as negative as possible to scare you off or she could be misinformed. Private agencies can license families and are sometimes faster. I don't know anything about Missouri and how the agencies there work in conjunction with the county but here is a list off of Adopt US Kids site. I'd just call all the ones near you until you get someone chatty and knowledgable that can help

I'm not sure what county you are in.... but I am in Boone county and here is what we were told in our STARS classes.....In Missouri - even if the child(ren) is GUARANTEED TPR (there are 4 or 5 reasons for this) it will take 6-9 months before TPR is finalized and the baby is "available" for adoption, THEN the adoption process starts. So you would be looking at about a year from soup to nuts as they say. That's just how it works as far as the paperwork, proceedings, search for other bio/kinship placement opportunities etc. So, for example, if you brought a baby home from the NICU you would be considered the adoptive parent(s) without concurrent planning and the goal would be adoption. Then you go through the TPR process - which is a certain set number of hearings in a certain order covering specific set topics before the TPR is granted.During that time you would have to take the Spaulding classes, which are the classes that approve you to be an adoptive family. Part of that process is assessing you as a foster family - which means you have to be an "active" foster parent. I believe the Spaulding classes are 13 weeks (don't quote me on that - we aren't there yet!!!!)Additionally, in order to bring the baby home from the NICU you have to be ALREADY certified as a foster parent. So - that process:- Foster Parent application. You fill that out and then also do the background check / finger prints etc. You will have 1 initial visit (before the classes start) by the CPS Licensing Worker (to "approve" your application as a foster parent). She will call you and let you know when the next round of STARS classes are scheduled for your county. We had our initial visit in February. We weren't contacted until mid-March to say we could take the STARS classes beginning April 1st.- There are 9 weeks of STARS classes - facilitated by an independent company that is responsible for completing your home assessment. Ours ran every Monday from 6:30-9. There are a couple counties in Missouri that have approval to run all day Saturday classes for 2 or 3 weeks (whatever the same amount of time to balance). The classes are taught by a social worker and a veteran foster parent.- During this time you will have 3 "home visits" by your assessment worker. She will do a variety of things. She will walk through your home and provide you a list of things that you need to do to get your house to pass inspection (fire extinguishers, medicine locked away etc), talk through your homework answers, *interview* you and any family members, and answer any of your questions. It's not NEARLY as intimidating as you think it will be.- 1 class (called the 10th session) which is taught by your CPS licensing worker. This class is usually scheduled a couple weeks after the 9th session (to give your home assessment worker time to complete your home study). This goes over the bureaucratic "stuff" - how to fill out reimbursement forms, respite info etc.THEN - the waiting starts. Your assessment worker will finish up your home study and submit to the company who runs the STARS Classes. They approve and send to CPS, where it goes through a gazillion signature approvals. Then, finally!!!!! your licensing worker calls you to tell you your home study is approved and she makes an appointment to come out for the signing. Once you all sign... your "active" and you just wait for either a child(ren) that fits your 'specs' to need placement or them to get desperate enough that they call you for a placement outside of what you told them you wanted (you just say no, if you're not interested).We will sign our home study this Thursday. We initially contacted CPS last December to show interest. Our classes started April 1st. So - it will have taken about 9 months from initial inquiry to licensing.SO - fictional timeline. If we got a baby straight from the hospital in TPR status that we pick up this weekend it would be a MINIMUM of 6 months before TPR would be granted and then an additional several months for the adoption process (let's say 3) - so if we pick a baby up this weekend it will be (at the earliest) May 2014 before the adoption is finalized which means the entire process would have taken a total of 15 months after we submitted our application to become foster parents (Feb 2013).Make sense?ABOUT INFANTSI can tell you this..... we were also told that there are never any infants. HOWEVER - we went to the Boone County Foster Parent support group and everyone said - "Yeah, yeah, they said never any infants.... but we've fostered a gazillion infants". I think *they* say that so they won't have a bunch of families who expect to get a free, healthy, white infant (without going through the expense and stress of private adoption agencies) who get licensed as foster parents but won't take any placements. OR - you might hit a spell where there are no infants for a year.... just because there aren't any parent of newborns who are having their kids taken away. It just depends.PLUS - a lot of the infants come with older siblings. In some cases it's a package deal. In others if the other siblings have been adopted already and that family doesn't want the infant, then you can have a situation where only the infant is available. But you might be expected to do sibling visitation etc. So, you would have to be OK with that.ABOUT OTHER LOCAL AGENCIESIn Boone County you can be licensed through CPS / Boone County OR Great Circle. My understanding is that if you are licensed through Boone County you can accept placement from BOTH, but if you are licensed through Great Circle you can ONLY accept cases managed by Great Circle. We didn't even know about Great Circle until our STARS classes. There is a slight difference in they way payments work, but in the end it looks to even out (for example the monthly stipend is a bit less but the clothing voucher is more).That may have been FAR too much information, but I wanted to give you everything I know. Let me know if you have any other questions - I'm happy to provide help or support. I don't know much, but what I know I'm happy to share.

I live in a rural area of Missouri. We began foster parenting classes in July or August, and finished up in October. We did Spaulding on weekends in December, and had to drive two hours each way to attend those. What we did do was get our respite license prior to getting our foster license. It takes about 10-12 hours of classes and having completed fingerprinting and background checks. We began visiting with our girls on weekends following our respite license. They moved in the same day we received our foster license. Having the respite license really enabled us I think.

I might add that there is a waiting period after finishing classes before receiving your license. During that time you are waiting for your person to finish writing your homestudy. You meet with her several times, do interviews, she checks out the house, and if your area agency meets and approves, then your homestudy passes and you get licensed.

In our case, we had to do finger prints and background checks (the last week of May) before we started the MAPP class 6/11/13. By the 3rd class we had been contacted by our CW and had the 1st homestudy scheduled. We have finished everything as of Aug. 7th (our last class) so we are just waiting on our license which the CW said would be here mid to late Sept. and that's only if there are no mistakes. So for us it will be about a 5 month process already and we still don't know when we will actually get a placement.

Thank you so much for all the information!! It has been very helpful. I am so ready to start the process. I was so excited because I talked to someone at Lutheran family services and we set up a time this Thursday for them to come to our house and begin the application. I took off the afternoon from work, and found out after I got off that they had to cancel and that the september stars classes were full. I was so disappointed after getting my house ready. They said people will sometimes cancel out of the class so I am still hopeful that we may be able to get in. In the meantime I will try to call some other people in case anyone still has class openings around here. I would love to begin our classes before next year if at all possible! Does anyone have good/bad experiences with agencies in the Springfield mo area? If you can't put it on the board could you message me? I would love some input on who would be good to go through in case no one cancels out of Lutheran family services class, cause I would still like to use them.

We are licensed thru Missouri Baptist Children's Home in Greene County Missouri. We started classes on April mid April and our license was approved mid August of 2013, so right around 4 months. In the three weeks we have been licensed, we have received multiple calls for children and our age group is 0-5. I volunteer at an organization that helps foster families and I saw a 3 day old baby come into care. It happens, just maybe not overnight. It's to not just want to accept a placement, but the best thing for all parties is to wait and accept a placement that is best for you and the children. I believe Lutheran Family services is similar to MBCH, so you should be happy there. We can accept placements from all counties and agencies in the area.