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Para, My husband and I recently decided to adopt, and found adoptpakids to be a wonderful site full of pages and pages of waiting kids right here in Pa. Hoping to adopt a family of four. Just getting started, but already feel like these kids are mine. Please keep us in your prayers. Cheryl :)
I have had weekly visits for about a month and my new daughter has been in my home for almost two weeks. She is here with us permanently. Her photo and information is still on the web site. From my past experiences with the site, they are a little behind on their removing children once they are placed with a family or they have selected a family. It was very frustrating when I was looking for a child when I'd call about one of the kids and they would tell me that they have already found a family for the child. I still cant understand why she is still on the site. NRJ
Went for our orientation yesterday to Harrisburg. Moving right along. Next step is training third weekend this month- back to Harrisburg. Then they will start our home study. The sun and the SON followed us the whole way there and back, was a beautiful day!! How are things going, nrj? Keep us in your prayers, and we will keep you in ours. Cheryl
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I'm so glad you all are visiting the Pa site I listed. We found our family of four through the yearly adoption seminar they host each year and my four beauties are growing fast! If anyone is in the process of their home study and you have a chance to attend their yearly conference Please do, its filled with programs, great speakers and the matching room is excellent! I attended the conference they had in 1999 at Penn State and found the profile of my sibling group in the matching room-hooked up with their caseworker that afternoon and the kids were placed 30 days later. That was 5 years ago. Fate and destiny will lead you to that match made in heaven! Good Luck, Please consider a waiting child!
Para, Are you speaking of SWAN's conference? What is the waiting/ matching room? We are hoping to adopt a sibling group of four, and I am told we may not be a match for them by the agency that is doing our home study ( Rejoice! Inc. ).Will SWAN know the group we are interested in? We have told C&Y, their case worker, but we were told she won't have anything to do with the match.????????????????????????????????????????? Please help. What do they look at when they make a match? We have already fallen in love with these kids :( Thanks for all your help!!!
Cheryl, Go to adoptpakids site and look under events. The event entitled perm conference is the one you need to attend (I think) Its in July this year. Call SWAN or the Pa adoption network at the phone number listed and ask about that event. If your in the process of adopting from Pa and not matched yet this is a conference you DONT WANT TO MISS. Ask them to send you a flyer on it so you can go This is just like the conference I went to when I found our kids profile. (although it was at Penn STate In 1999) When you find the children you are interested in-send their worker a copy of your homestudy along with contact info for your caseworker. (I wasn't the kind of person to sit around waiting for a match-I did most of the legwork searching for my match) With us-I saw my childrens profile in the matching room-the adoption professionals working the room told me the kids caseworker was there at the conference and hooked us up, we sat together for the luncheon, I gave him our homestudy, we met the kids 2 times later that month and they were placed 30 days later for us to adopt. Our caseworker only had to help us with paperwork, most of my connections were made through the childs worker who was in a different county. Good Luck. I sent you an email with my regular hotmail addy in it so feel free to email me anytime you wish.
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The matching room at the yearly conference is a room where every county in Pennsylvania has books listed with profiles of their waiting children. Most all profiles has the childs caseworker or agency contact listed so that you may send them a copy of your homestudy. There are even sibling books. Some counties even have videos showing their children but this usually includes the much older children who are hard to place that get the video exposure. We lucked out at the conference. When i saw my family in the sibling book-I was directed to their worker who was attending the conference and the rest is history. All adoptive parents must ask for a copy of their homestudy if not offered it in advance-this helps when you are socializing with workers who might be about to lead you to your child.
Thanks for pointing that event out to everyone I for one am going !! The homestudy thing is the problem. I know some counties drag there feet but WOW !! I was told since we are looking for a toddler the "wait would be long" I had no idea that they were also refering to my homestudy --- We had our HS back in March. After alot of phone calls we finnally got through to a person instead of the answering mach. And they havent typed it up yet!!--too busy they say Mind you our county is not that big but anyways to make a long conversation short the way they explained it to us during our homestudy was 1. They would type it up and it would then go to the top lady who would approve it 2. We would then set up an appt so that we could reveiw it and if we felt we would want any changes done 3. Changes accure start at step 1 if not then we can finnally say we are HOMESTUDY APPROVED !! How long does it take to get a homestudy back. She told me to go ahead and start searching and just explain that our county has it and its in the procces of being typed up ---- How long was everyone elses homestudy ? OH we had are physical way back in Aug last yr just took them till March to actually do the homestudy Is there an expiration on the physical and clearance act papers ? will we have to get new ones if we arent homestudy approved even though its because our county is always " too busy" Take Care everyone Blossum
Para, I am soooo glad to have met you, because the sitting and waiting , if I don't have to, is silly. I have already contacted the caseworker for the kids, and do everytime another step is completed in the process. She knows what children we are interested in and has informed me that they have NOT been matched yet. So, once my home study is complete, how do I get a copy sent to her? (I was told that SWAN would then be in charge to find a match. That they would have our family profile. ) I will also look up the conference, and will attend if we aren't already matched. I cannot begin to tell you how much this forum means to me. Here I gain information I might otherwise never have found. It is so nice to be able to talk with people who have already traveled the road we are on. Para, where did you send your email addy to? Cheryl
About four months ago I saw a girl on the PAE website. If I was interested in a child, I would call that childs caseworker directly and ask her any questions that I may have had about the child. Sometimes it would take days before I would get a call back, but they would normally return my call. After speaking with them, I could usually get a good idea if she would be a match for my family. If she was, I would then call my caseworker and ask her to send out my homestudy. About five months ago I called about a child and her caseworker explained that she was already having visits with a family and would be permanently placed with that family soon. The children who I felt would work had tons of homestudys already waiting to be reviewed and the chances were slim that I'd ever get close enough to be in the final three. I then began the foster/adopt program because I thought I'd find a child sooner that way. Just as I was nearly approved for fostercare, I got a call from my caseworker. It seems that she had my photo and my profile on one of her bullitin boards at what they call a "matching dessert" locally. And it must have been "fate" that the childs caseworker noticed it , liked it, and took it with home her. It was the caseworker of the young girl that I had called about five months ago. Her visits had ended and her adoption disrupted. I couldnt believe it ! I still saw her on the web site but thought she had already been adopted. We started visits and she has been with me since April 21st. I told her the story and that some things happen for a reason she was meant to be my daughter. I have a lot of confidence in the matching functions and it is a place where you and the caseworker can talk about their child with you face to face. They tell you the positives and the negatives. I do believe they know their kids and what type of a family they're looking for. Nanci
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Dh and I are going to a "Matching Dessert" function at Lycoming College in Williamsport this Wed. night (5/19/04). This is our first one--what can we expect? We are 2 weeks away from finishing our classes...then I believe the homestudy begins. Since it was announced in the adoption class, I can assume that other people who have not finished their adoption class or have a homestudy can attend. ALSO....is there anyone from this neck of the Central PA woods???? :(