Out of State Respite Care

I am happy to report that we just got back yesterday from a weekend visit with Darling, my niece, during which she even spent one night with us in our hotel room. Amazingly both nights the kids all slept really well. The only person who was up all night was me. It was a very good visit. My question though is about out of state respite. The foster family will be going an a trip and they'd like us to provide respite for Darling while they are gone so they can go on trip without baby in tow and we can have more bonding time and she can see our home and what our family is like at home. Trouble is, the case worker told her that we CAN provide the respite BUT we can't have her in ID she has to stay in WA. I think that is not true and she just doesn't want to do the work of getting a court order - my impression of this caseworker is that she avoids things that are hard. She also apparently believed we have infinite funds and could stay in a hotel room with all the kids for an entire week. I have searched online for any proof that out of state respite care requires a court order and haven't found any policy guides to back up my suspicion. If anyone knows of any literature or a web site that gives the guidelines for respite care in WA state that would be helpful. I've already sent an email to the caseworker explaining the respite situation and our request to have her and my thought that she probably will need a court order so we'd better get on it so hopefully she'll just do it, but I think I'll need some policy to quote to her and bring it up to her boss before she does anything. The respite time is one month from now.

I think they can let her go out of state for respite. I was not dealing with the states you mention, but Niece was allowed to come to us for her vacations and holidays even before the ICPC was approved. We did have a home study done, though. CW sdo not like to stick their necks out for anything and, in our case, the Judge did approve the first time Niece came to us (however, in our case, we have uncooperative bios who fought everything and everyone tooth and nail.)

Thanks for your response Confused46. I got a response back from our CW too and she said she will let me know if we need a court order for her to have respite with us but that I shouldn't check with her until next Monday because she is "swamped" the rest of the week. In our case we are dealing with completely non-involved bios.

I think calling it respite makes it more confusing. It is just a visit with an out of state relative. I am assuming you do not care if you are paid. Of course she can do that. Kids do it all the time. There may be rules about how long it can be for but it is at least a week. I would not expect any problem and I seriously doubt you need a court order but if you do, it should just be a matter of whichever DA is in your judge's court submitting an order. It can likely be done in open court.

Update: our visit with Darling for that week was not approved. They gave no reason - I didn't bother asking because all they tend to give me is BS answers anyway.

I know it is a pain, but I would find out why. I think you might also need to hire an attorney in that state to get things moving. THis is a child under 3. ICPC is supposed to be expedited. These are two states that are physically close together. This should have been a 3 month thing.