Three agencies

I went through all the agencies in San Antonio (and Texas actually) and narrowed it down to three.  They are Arrow Child & Family Ministries (arrow.com); Caring Family Network (cfntexas.org); and Lutheran Social Services (lsss.org).  It has been narrowed to these three because they are within the distance I was willing to drive to get to them.

I called all three this week.  I started with Caring Family Network.  A really great lady, named Ruthie, spent an hour on the phone with me, without a prearranged appointment, and answered every single question I asked and actually filled in some questions and answers I didn’t know I needed to ask.  Next I called Lutheran but I got an answering machine so I hung up and called Arrow.  I got the adoption case worker, John, and told him I had a ton of questions.  He told me to pick my top 3.  Not a good start John!  It turns out John’s attitude was because they have a 3 hour orientation class that will answer all the questions I have.  I ended up talking to John for about 15 minutes and he seems like a nice enough fellow.  I called Lutheran back and got a machine again so I left a message.

Within minutes of hanging up with Caring Family, Ruthie emailed me a training schedule, an applications to get started, and several other documents she thought we might find helpful.  Score 2 for Ruthie.  John emailed me the training schedule for Arrow, and Lutheran called back and left a message the next day and also emailed a schedule.

Arrow’s orientation is on July 5th.  Lutheran’s is on July 7th.  Caring Family’s is on July 11th.  We are going to do our due diligence and attend all three.  Arrow and Lutheran have really high “Ruthie” standards to live up to. If they fail to impress, we will just get going with Caring Family on July 11th.

All the questions I asked are going to be way too much for me to type into a blog post.  To give you the most important information, we have to get licensed, which will take 4 to 5 months.  After that, kids will be referred to us or we can request kids off the TARE website (which I have learned isn’t up to date so don’t get your hopes set on anyone).  With the kind of kids we are willing to adopt, Ruthie told me we will have kids referred to us in one day and that they may even try to push the license through faster so they can place some kids with us.  After I hyperventilated for a minute, I got excited.  We will probably have kids by next summer…but we could have some by Christmas!!!!!

Step One – CPS Meeting Complete

We went to the CPS information meeting and it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. They hold the meetings 3 times a month so I was secretly hoping we’d be the only ones there so I could ask all my questions.  There were about 30 people there.  The meeting ended up being a CPS worker with a PowerPoint presentation (from 2006 – so really outdated statistics) explaining the very basics of the process.  Here it all is in a nutshell:

• People call a number to report suspected abuse.  CPS investigates and determines if there is abuse according to Texas laws.  If so, kids are pulled from the home and put into foster care.  The parents have 12 months from that day to clean up their act and regain custody.  Their goal is to place the kids back with their families.
• Foster parents are people that have agreed to house these kids.  They understand that they only have these kids for a limited time and their job is to see they are cared for.  They take them to doctors’ appointments, school, ballet classes, etc.
• Foster to Adopt parents are people who are fostering a child that probably will end up for adoption.  Usually this is due to parents having a track record of their children being taken away.
• Adoption is when people take into their homes the kids who have become wards of the state.  They legally become the kids guardians and raise them as their own for the rest of their lives.
• When you want to Foster/Adopt, you have to find an adoption agency.  In San Antonio there are probably 25 or so.  We have to pick the one that is best for us.  CPS is one of the choices but not necessarily who we have to use.  The agencies all do basically the same thing.  They differ in their physical locations, training schedules, and some are religiously based.
• All the different agencies have access to all the same kids.  The ones on the TARE website are the kids that haven’t yet found a home.  The agencies have access to more than just these kids – ones not posted on the site because they get placed quickly.
• When you adopt a child of ‘special needs’, you get a monthly stipend plus their college education is paid for if they choose a Texas state school.  Meaning, if they wanted to go to UT, A&M, San Antonio Community College…those are all paid for.  If they choose a private school, the adoptive parents pay that bill.  A sad statistic, of the kids who are never adopted, only 2% take advantage of the free education.  Most find it overwhelming to suddenly be on their own plus thrust into college without parents to guide and support them.

Once we pick an agency, here is what we have to go through to be qualified to adopt:

• Criminal FBI background check for anyone 18 and older living in the home.
• FPS Abuse and Neglect check for us and anyone who is a regular visitor to the home.
• Texas criminal background checks for us and anyone who is a regular visitor to the home.
• CPR and first aid training.
• Proof of pet vaccinations.
• Home health and fire inspections.
• TB test.
• Home Study.
• and probably more but these are the ones covered at the meeting.

The home study is intense and it’s purpose is to find the right family for the kids.  Anyone over the age of 3 living in the home is interview all together and separately.  Family and friend referrals are also interviewed.  If they have any doubts about kids living in your home and being a part of your family, they will deny your application for adoption.

Our next step is to find an agency.  We are looking at the ones closer to our house.  We’ll be calling them and try to find one we are both comfortable with.  Then I’ll finally get to ask my long list of questions!!!

 

So Many Questions

Dave and I are going to the CPS informational meeting on Thursday.  I’ve read that this meeting is to scare the crap out of you, to make sure you really want to adopt.  I guess we’ll see how it goes.  I have so many questions I want answered that I might end up scaring the crap out of the CPS worker, trying to gain knowledge.  Here are some of the questions I want to have answered:

• Do siblings or single kids get adopted more?
• Once we settle on kids, how long does the process take?
• Where are the kids right now, foster care or an orphanage?
• What is the cost?
• If we adopt right now, is there a waiting period to adopt again?
• What does the home study involve and how do we get that started?
• Where are the kids parents?
• What are the chances that biological parents could regain rights at this point?
• Why are the kids up for adoption?
• What medical and/or mental issues do the kids have and at what stage do we get informed about history?
• Are the kids listed on the TARE website the only kids or are there others in private orphanages?
• Are there siblings that are currently split up that we may adopt together?
• If the siblings get adopted by different families, is there a process for letting the kids stay in touch?
• What is the process for determining the levels of special needs?
• Do we interview the kids?
• Do the kids interview us and have a say in if we adopt them or not?
• Where are the kids going to school?
• Do we need a lawyer to finalize rights?

Yeah…and I still have 3 full more days to come up with more questions before the meeting.  If you have questions you want answered, let me know and I’ll ask them too.

Special thanks to Dave’s mother who gave us a really great book called “Adoption.  Choosing It, Living It, Loving It.  Straight Answers to Heartfelt Questions” by Dr. Ray Guarendi.  This book is a bunch of questions that people have ask Dr. Ray, who has adopted 10 kids.  He is straightforward, funny, and obviously pro-adoption.  It was a helpful book and led to many of the questions I want to see answered this week.

CPS

CPS responded to our inquiry.  We have to attend the Child Protective Services Information Meeting before we can do anything else.  They hold them 3 times a month and we are hoping to attend the June 16th meeting.  The purpose of the meeting is to provide us with more information about both the children in CPS care and the home verification/approval process and allow us time to ask questions so we can make an informed decision about whether we want to continue with becoming an adoptive home through CPS.

If we move forward, we will be required to complete pre-service training.  CPS uses Parent Resource Information Development Education (PRIDE) as its curriculum.  Texas PRIDE is a 35-hour, competency-based, training program. Session include child attachment, loss and grief, infant and child development, discipline and behavior intervention, effect of abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, working with the child welfare system, working as a team, and the effects of fostering and adopting on the family.

We have a ton of questions so I hope the CPS people are ready for me on the 16th!  We are prepared to do the PRIDE sessions.  We are prepared to do counseling.  We are ready to get this ball rolling.