Riverside County safe surrender and fost/adopt in general

I just wanted to say welcome to the forums. We are in another part of California but SS babies are on the rise. There have been at least 15 in our county this year and I'm thinking more. I think, based on your willingness to take up to three children, you won't be empty too long.

Wow, 15 or more in your county?! Must be a rise state wide I guess. It is really sad to think any parent would choose that route instead of speaking to an actual SW or something within the county. SS have much more issues trying to find out about their background because many of the biological parents dont provide much info when they SS. Sad. Makes me wonder why so many are being SS recently. Maybe bad economy is some of the reason?? Interesting to find out why. Thanks for the positive words. We have been hearing that many in our county have been getting children of all ages, even infants, placed within 1-3 months of everything being completed. I was told that Riverside had over 5k in the system (most for reunification of course, but that is still a lot).

I also heard that many of the adoptive families in my county are not willing to take in SS. I thought that was sad since so many want a baby ages 0-2. I know SS is high risk because of the 14 day period for parents or family to decide they want the child, but at least you can provide the love and support he/she needs those first few weeks. May make a difference in the childs future. Who knows. :)

Riverside County Adoptions; safe surrendersMy wife and I are with Riverside county adoptions. With have been with the agency a little over two years; and we’ve had several placements already, but none of them have stuck for one reason or another. All of them ended in unification, the last one was a sure thing per cps and our adoption worker, but bio-mom pulled a rabbit out of the hat at her last court hearing to cut services, and received two more extensions after eighteen months of services and doing nothing; and essentially putting us out of the picture to adopt. You learn right away this is a roller coaster ride that seems never to end, and there are many highs and lows. Riverside County is a pro unification agency, and their adoption workers are very good, but I wish I could say the same for the cps workers. Most cps workers are very professional, but some are horrible and literally try to bully you. They speak to you as if you were six year olds. A lot of their decisions do not make sense, and they know it. But, it’s hard to agree when those decisions are not in the best interest of the child, and pro bio. Every social worker has their own position on county policy; yes, bios have the right to parent, but if the likelihood the child will end up back in dependency why traumatize the child even more. We have seen cps workers sabotage adoptions, just out of spitefulness. It’s hard to talk about timelines from beginning to end on adoptions; we have meet folks that get matched within days of finished home studies and never have reported a problem. And then, there are folks like us and many more that face more downs than ups, again the roller coaster effect. We have met our share of good and bad social workers, so it’s not for the faint of heart. In the ten years or more that the Safe Surrender program has been around the state of California has recorded over 630 safe surrenders to date. From January to September 2014 there have been fifty-seven safe surrenders in California already. SS’s are very risky, and not just from the fourteen day rule. Reading the state SS’s laws, most of this information is intended toward the bio parent to protect them from persecution and knowing the identity of the parent. Now, just because the fourteen days have passed, you are not out of the woods. The SS’s laws state that agencies that take in a SS baby, such as police, fire stations, and hospitals are not to ask for any personal information from the bios. And most police and fire stations do not ask, and call directly to cps for help. Now hospitals are big organizations and sometimes collect information when they’re not supposed too. CPS workers by law are not to ask any identifying questions of the hospital staff or request any paperwork collected by the hospital, but sometimes this does happen. With SS’s you still have to wait through hearings and six months of fostering before you can finalize your adoption. If there are any hiccups like in our case, it may take a little longer. Our problem on our safe surrender is coming from the hospital where bio mom gave birth; the hospital did not follow protocol and filed a birth certificate with the state and county, so now our baby’s aka name does not match on record thanks to the hospital, I hear is common problem. Now, should the bio parents come back after the fourteen days they can contest any of the hearings or the adoption and that is their right! It doesn’t mean the agency will listen, but the judge and their court appointed attorney might. And if they do, you’ve gone from an adoption placement to a concurrent plan and become foster parents until bio’s case has been resolved; and the county system doesn’t care. In the proceedings, the agency has to notify all parties involved of all hearings, and should cps submit their reports to the court with addresses of the bios, and they will also be notified; it doesn’t make much sense because of the SS laws. Look at it this way, if the information was collected by the fire, police or hospital, and that information happens to get passed along to a cps worker, some workers will use the information to make contact with bios; they shouldn’t but it does happen to offer them services for reunification.