Question for Foster=Adoptive Parents

~Tonia~ · 05-23-2005, 03:44 PM

For those of you who have fostered then adopted a child through your state, what are the required parenting classes like and how long are the courses, etc. Any info is helpful & appreciated.

macrod · 05-23-2005, 06:53 PM

We foster/adopted through the state (Texas). The classes are diffently not for the weak. We had a few couples drop out of the classes for various reasons. I guess the main reason being discouragement. I think that the agencies try to "weed" out the families that are not truly committed to the children. We were taught alot of things the first being is that reuinification is always the goal. Also, we were told that the needs of the child come first (of course I know now that that is not true). I think that alot of the families that dropped also were disillusioned about the type of children in fostercare. We were told that 80% of the children in care had been sexually abused. That is an awfully high number and I remember one Pride classmate trying to argue the statistics. We also had one class devoted to Pyscho topic meds- now this class scared me. Anyway, my dh and I ended up fostering and adopting our first baby. We received her at 6 weeks and she is now 2.5 yrs. It was not an easy road for us as I we were on the road to reuinification w/family and although we felt she should not be moved from us, we had to go along with the state. I wish you well in your venture into the fostercare system. Every child deserves to be safe and loved.

dna · 05-23-2005, 07:14 PM

Our classes were 4 weeks of 3 or 4 hour sessions (sorry it was a while ago) one night a week...

It was good, however we had just came home with our DS from Ukraine so for us alot of it was redundant

worthwhile though for sure

Good luck !

kimmieks · 06-02-2005, 08:18 PM

we did six weeks of deciding together which is where a worker will come to ur home and do the classes one on one For my hubby travels lot and we were unable to make it to the mapp class which is the group class. depending on what book we where on. sometimes it took three hours one nite of the week or it took an hour. We talked about alot of htings and did lots of work in the books. we did our foster care with one person and open our adoption file with another. ( the state) anyhow. after we had the mapp classes out of othe way. then we did the paper work for the adoption file. had a home study. and now just waiting for us to find a match. They pick you you do not really get to pick just any kid when going through the state. the use ur homestudy to find a match for you and the child. As farr as foster care and adopting a child that is in your care the rights have to be revoked first and i think it takes about two years for this to happen. ( things have changed so not really upto date on that.) Then hopefully you would have the first option before the child would be placed somewhere else. Sometimes you do not even have a choice on what happens to the child. smaller children are hard to adopt through the state there are much more older children and teens that need homes this out ways the babys. I hope that i have made since and maybe gave u some information. Good place to start it the state website this can answer lots of questions you may have. i know on the our state there is a form board that you can post on. Such like this one. Good luck..
kimberly

MaryS · 06-08-2005, 02:56 PM

We just finalized the adoption of our 3 boys thru the state of Minnesota.
We actually started by taking all the required classes for international adoption(that was only 4 weeks of 1 night a week) and then something made us change our mind and take the classes for Special Needs, I believe we had an additional 4 weeks of classes, 1 night a week and then we had 2 1/2 days of intensive classes the ones on FAE, FAS and the ones about sexual abuse scared us, but we just knew in our hearts it was what we wanted to do, adopt a sibling group. Looking back at the process, the one thing that sticks out in my mind as to when we decided adoption thru the state was the way to go is in the one class we were told to close our eyes and listen not only with our ears but with our hearts to a song. The song they played was "Concrete Angel" by Martina McBride. At the end of the song, our instructor said, "If you have decided that you are adopting thru the special needs programs, after all the presentations, all we can say is Thank you for keeping a child from becoming a concrete angel."
My DH and I walked out of that meeting, having completed our classes on special needs adoption, knowing in our hearts that we could handle anything God brought to us. That we had faith in God that he would not give us more than we could handle. Thank goodness we had faith, as that Faith brought us the lights of our lives, our 3 sons, Scott age 12, Jeff age 10 and Tommy age 5.
Our boys are special needs due to being a sibling group. Our oldest is also bipolar and blind in one eye, the middle is failure to thrive, the youngest has spactisity of his leg muscles. BUT to us they are the MOST PERFECT, PRECIOUS, WONDERFUL Children of God. We are truly blessed to be able to call them our own.
Best wishes to you on your adoption journey, there will be bumps in the road, but in the end the bumps will be nothing compared to the joy in your hearts.
Mary