[sesa70]

We are pre adoptive foster parents. We are just finishing up our adoption with our dd, and are ready to be on the list again for another preadoptive baby.
When I called our workers to let them know, I got news that the placement process has changed for new cases.

It used to be that cases would come in to DCFS, and be assigned an agency, then the agency would be responsible for finding the best home for those children. Now DCFS is placing children directly. This IMO is wrong for many many reasons, not the least of which being that the agencies have a much better feel for the familes they work with and get ensure a better fit between children and familes. DCFS is basing their placements soley on geographic location. They want foster children placed close to their bio familes homes.

As pre adoptive foster parents, we have esentially no chance of getting the right match now. Our agency knew us very well and knew what was a good match for us, DCFS is basing it on a computer printout of geographic location. The only chance we have is getting a placement disruption. If a child is in a standard foster home and needs to be in a preadoptive one, then we *may* get called.

We are very disapointed with this, mostly because it doesnt seem to have the best interest of the children or the foster parents in mind. It also means that we will not be able to bring home a newborn. We hoped to adopt several children, and if we go the private route we can only afford one more, and not for many years.

Is this change only in Illinois? Does any other state have this same system of placements?

 

[dharmamama]

I was a foster care social worker many years ago in Philadelphia. Our agency was moving toward a geography-based placement system when I was leaving. I think it's actually good for kids in many cases: they can remain in their activities (soccer, etc.), continue to see their familiar doctor, and possibly even attend the same school. It also makes it easier to recruit foster parents if they know that they won't have to be driving all over for various things.

I guess I don't understand why you can't get a placement now. Surely there are newborns in your area who go into foster care?

Namaste!

 

[sesa70]

While I think this new placement system may be good for some children, IMO its not good for the majority, nor do I think its helpful for foster parents.

We live near Chicago. Unfortunately the majority of foster care cases come in from very low income-high instance of drugs neighborhoods. These are also the neighborhoods that have the lowest number of foster homes available. So simply based on this, there will be homes in areas of need past capacaty with children and homes further out in the suburbs (like ours) with room and no children.

Also, as one of our workers pointed out, for older children, for whom this change is primarily made, often benefit from being taken out of their home neighborhoods. Alot of chicago area schools are horrible to put it nicely and it has been a common occurence that children moved to better school districts and often excel in adademics where they never had before. Not to mention it also helps that they are often taken away from areas of high gang and drug use.

From a foster parents perspective, I would certainly not want to live close to my fc's bio parents. I would not want them to know where I live or where to find me. I would not want to run into them at the grocery store. I would probably not take a placement based on just that alone.

The reason that we would not get any placements is that we are pre adoptive only. Our agency would call us with children that fit that profile, unfortunately dcfs will not. They will call us based on location alone. I am sure there are some newborns that come in to foster care around us, but I am guessing a very small few. Of that very small few they would have to be pre adoptive, and the chances of that are next ot none. I think our only chance at this point is a placement disruption, where we might get a younger child but certainly not a newborn.

I am sure my reasons listed above are not universal for all, it just seems to fit for our area. I have had many discussions with our agency about this, and generally everyone -foster parents and caseworkers- were really against this change and have been trying to get dcfs to chage their minds.

 

[dharmamama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sesa70 We live near Chicago. Unfortunately the majority of foster care cases come in from very low income-high instance of drugs neighborhoods. These are also the neighborhoods that have the lowest number of foster homes available. So simply based on this, there will be homes in areas of need past capacaty with children and homes further out in the suburbs (like ours) with room and no children.

I guess it depends on how they structure the placement policy. At my agency (in North Phila, one of the worst nieghborhoods in the country) they were attempting to keep kids within 30 minutes of their former homes, which left plenty of leeway in getting them into homes in the suburbs, and it also made it a lot easier for foster parents to transport them to their former neighborhoods for things like I mentioned above. It was a change they implemented in part to keep Phila kids from getting placed in homes in Jersey, Delaware, Allentown, etc. Our agency worked mostly with older kids, the vast majority of whom would never be adopted. The agency felt that it was in the kids' best interests not to completely sever their ties to their former lives, because that's most likely where the kids would return to when they aged out of the system. It also minimized the disruptions in their lives if they went back to their bio families.

I can see the issue from both sides.

Namaste!

 

[Ravin]

This strikes me as odd, because Texas, where my mom fosters, is gradually phasing CPS out of placing children and supervising foster homes. By 2008 or 2010, something like that, it's supposed to go to all private agencies. And while children who are supposed to be able to visit with their bio families are supposed to be placed geographically close to them (a factor for a couple of my foster sibs has been geographical proximity to their other siblings, who were either still with a parent or in a different foster home), I don't see why that would be a priority for pre-adopt kids. Seems to me that pre-adopt or not, a good fit for foster home and child should factor in a whole lot more than physical location!

 

[alicia622]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sesa70 We are very disapointed with this, mostly because it doesnt seem to have the best interest of the children or the foster parents in mind.

I would say the children's best interest is often way down on the list of priorities. Not that the individual workers don't try, there is always something else at play (namely money issues) that interfere.

Are all children in your state connected to an agency? In Maine, there are different levels so a fair amount of kiddos are "DHS level" meaning no agency. Babies, unless they have medical issues/drug exposure are at the DHS level.

 

[sesa70]

Well it used to be that families never worked directly with DCFS. It was all agency managed, DCFS never *used* to have anything to do with foster familes, bio families, or foster kiddos. It was all up to the private agency. They took custody of a child(ren) and then called a private agency who placed and managed the cases. Now, DCFS is calling foster homes to place children and thats it. The familes and children will then be managed by the private agency they work with.

That was the reason I was bothered by this... they dont know anything about the foster families they are calling and what their preferences are.

 

[alicia622]

That's interesting. There was talk in maine about changing things to be done with the agencies doing everything. It was quickly shot down. Hopefully DCFS will develop a method to track preferneces of the families.