Tuesday night was PRIDE training class #2. The video discussed different forms of child abuse, as well as attachment disorders. Of course, this was only really relevant for couples who are doing foster care. The entire class is virtually focused on foster care.
They focus primarily on re-unification and have pretty much said that adoption is the last option for a child and is not ideal. So, that leaves people like us, who are infertile, out in the cold.
We've decided to wait on foster care until a later time. This is our first child, and we can't have any of our own, so we wanted to start off with an infant adoption. We haven't parented before and would like the opportunity to start from scratch. We aren't ready, just yet, for the behavioral challenges of an older child adoption. We've told the agency we would like to do this eventually, just not this time.
The agency that we are using for the homestudy (Children's Home Society) informed us that they don't really do any infant placements, because there aren't many WV birthmothers coming to them. They told us that we could do our homestudy through them and our post-placement. We agreed to find a different agency (a national agency) to do the actual first-parents search and placement.
We filled out the application, we paid $58 to have our fingerprints done and background checks, we've photocopied our IDs, and we've visited the doctor and had a physical. I rearranged my real-estate classes so we could attend PRIDE training now.
Today, I got an email from CHS saying that they will not start our homestudy now because they want to focus on foster parents and not adoptive parents!!!
We have NO other option. I looked into DHHR and they only do foster-adopt/older WV child adoption homestudies. Burlington Methodist services charges $25,000 and will still require us to sign up with another agency (for a grand total of $50-$80,000). And, there are no other agencies near us. We have no one else to complete our homestudy.
We are at a stand still.
Why is this so difficult? All I want is to be a mother. Why won't anyone help us?
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7 years ago
4 comments:
Stephanie-I am so sorry!! That seems really messed up. Are there any private social workers listed in WV that specialize in homestudies in your state? Could you contact an adoption attorney and see if they have any recommendations?!?!? I'm at a complete shock for you. Here, I found this, not sure if it will help or not, but it's not either of the organizations you mentioned in your post. Adoptive Family Services
(304) 776-5157
5098 Washington St W
Charleston, WV, and there are two other places listed, one in Hurricane, and the other in Princeton on this site ( http://articles.directorym.com/Adoption_West_Virginia-r852312-West_Virginia.html ). Worth checking out at least to see if they could offer you homestudy services.
Thank you so much for the information. We've talked with our caseworker and she says that it will happen, but she doesn't know when. So, we're going to wait it out for a couple months. We'll finish up our training, take the CPR and CPI classes, fill out all the paperwork, and if at that time she hasn't started, we're going elsewhere. If we have to pay a large agency to travel to us to complete a homestudy we will... but we're hoping it won't come to that.
I just don't think it's fair that we have to be put on the back burner. We should have as much priority as any other potential adoptive parent, regardless of the age of the child we are looking for.
If she had been forthright with us and told us there would be a wait from the beginning, I wouldn't be this upset. But, she told us to get the fingerprinting done, and she let me rearrange my schedule for the training. But, she never said A WORD about postponing our homestudy.
I don't want to start out on the wrong foot with them, but I'm so anxious to get it started.
http://www.opt2adopt.com/pages/1/index.htm
Here is another service in WV. Just got from a search -- don't know anything about the business -- but thought it might be an option for you.
I sent you an email that you won the giveaway. I just need your mailing address. Thanks
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