This is happening fast!

[Hawkemom]

A social worker is coming over for a visit! We met a wonderful 3 year old girl thru a temporary foster family and she is going to be placed in a permanent home soon. Unfortunately, her mom hasn't gotten her life together.

We have always expected to adopt a child at some point. And now it appears that we have an opportunity to become her foster-adopt family!

I have no idea what the interview will be like! Anybody had experience with this? Do I have to worry that our AP philosophy could be a negative thing in the agencies eyes?

I would love any info/advice/links/books about this process.
Thanks and I will post more background soon - gotta go feed my little boy.:eek

[Clarity]

I don't know... Make sure you have a crib and her own bedroom...they wil require that. Just don't mention where she actually sleeps. Most require parents to pledge to not use physical discipline...since many of them have been abused. So that should go well. They also like someone who will be home with the child for at least 6-12 months for the transition. They do see vax as marker of responsibility so I would not bring that up.

did you read toddler adoption the weavers craft?

GOOD LUCK!!! that's great.

[Amazlilith]

The only real things that you don't bring up are co-sleeping, bf and no-Vax. Everything else it fine.

We are adopting our daughter through the fost/adopt program. It is the most wonderful experience.

[Sierra]

Oh, all my best! With our son it happened very fast as well, and just as it sounds is happening with you...we found our child first, then got licensed as a foster family (usually it happens the other way around). Our son's bio-family also couldn't get it together. We've had quite the journey!

We had an easy time guaging what we should say on who our Licensor turned out to be. She ended up to be so enthusiastic about us wanting to parent this child that everything we said was received in a positive light.

The vax thing by the way, might come up in the Licensing process. In our licensing packet, they had a form to fill out having to do with vax history of each person in the family. Luckily, this was not an issue for us.

It also makes a difference if you are going through the state or an agency, and if an agency, what agency. I found the state to be a lot more concerned over non-mainstream ways, though as was mentioned, physical discipline is always a no-no. We ended up working with a very liberal foster care agency with a very supportive Director.

Sierra

[T. Elena]

There are definitely some social workers out there who are not phased by co-sleeping or breastfeeding, but I agree that if you're not sure of the politics of your social worker, steer clear of potential controversy and stick to the parts of AP that are easier for most folks to understand -- e.g., parental responsiveness, positive discipline, etc.

Even if your social worker is okay with all AP practices, some are quite savvy about how they need to present you to placing agencies and/or birthparents -- they want to emphasize the aspects of your family that are positive and easy for people of various cultural backgrounds to understand.

I, for one, am not going to mention that I intend to b'feed our adopted child, who will almost without a doubt be African American (I'm white). I can understand that the very idea/image of me doing that might just be too exotic for some birthmoms or folks in placing agencies. Hey, before I had my first child, I thought women who b'fed beyond six months were strange (and here I am now, still nursing a 3.5 y.o. and intending to nurse an adopted child -- serves me right!).