Licensing Q & A

I thought I would take a minute and answer some of the questions that I had when I started this process. Hopefully it will help anyone who is curious about foster care and foster adoption. Keep in mind that foster stuff is run on a state basis, not a federal one, so my experience may not translate to states other than Texas.

What is the first step?
Choosing an agency. You can’t do anything until you’ve chosen an agency.

How do you choose an agency?
This is a huge question, and one that can be tough to find help with if you’re just setting foot in this bewildering world. I remember attending an information session on foster care at a church in Dallas. They gave us a handout with about three pages of agencies and contact info, but no way to distinguish between agencies. And since agencies are technically in competition with one another to sign on families, you can’t really ask them to help you navigate the choice (well you can ask, but the answers won’t be that helpful).

I lucked into a great situation on this. I began volunteering with an agency, Caring Family Network, and got to know their people and their training. Those are the two things that, to my mind, really set agencies apart. CFN had people whose hearts I trusted, and they offered fantastic training in trauma-informed care. But I get that most people don’t have time to volunteer at a slew of agencies. So I would suggest you find as many people as you can who have fostered/are fostering, and ask them about their agency. You’ll learn a lot, and hopefully that will help you choose. I will say though that the training should be a major deciding point. It takes a special kind of parenting to help these kids heal, and you’ll need specific training to help you prepare. Arrow is another agency I’ve worked with on a volunteer level, and I’ve heard great feedback about them from other parents.

How much does it cost?
A lot of people assume that adoption is always wildly expensive simply because domestic adoption and international adoption can be astoundingly pricey. Turns out that adoption out of foster care is free. And foster care is free as well. You even get monthly reimbursements (a set amount determined by the needs of the child—you don’t get reimbursed for specific expenses). The kids come with their own medical insurance, and often with college tuition (even if you adopt them young). It’s pretty amazing.

But, free doesn’t actually mean free. There have been a lot of hidden expenses that I was not fully expecting. You hear a lot in the media about people who foster kids “for the money.” Well, this experience has made me think those people have some wizard-like accounting skills, because I can’t see how that would be possible. Anyway, here’s the cost breakdown for what I’ve done:

Fire Inspection (required): $50
Home Health Inspection (required): $60
TB test (required): $30
CPR/First Aid Class (offered free through my agency, but I missed that day): $25
FBI Fingerprint Check (required): $45
Pet Vaccinations (you should have these anyway): $80
Fire Extinguishers (required): $100
Medication Safe (required): $20
Child-proofing stuff (various items, required): $50
Turning a “guest room” into a children’s room: $2,000ish
So about $2500 all told, and that's all before a kiddo steps foot in my home.

That last item was the unexpected cost. I had a guest room that wasn’t necessarily luxurious, but had slept several small children comfortably over the years. As I looked at it with foster/adopted children in mind, however, it was very clearly a place for short-term stays, and the thin IKEA mattresses weren’t very comfortable. Turning it into a place that felt like a home took more money than I had thought it would, and I fitted it out using Target, not Pottery Barn Kids.

I don’t in any way resent any of these costs; I just wanted to be honest about the finances involved. And of course, all of that is a whole lot cheaper than adopting an infant domestically or adopting internationally (or even having a baby the old-fashioned way and dealing with all the hospital bills that entails).

Reimbursement? What?
So as I mentioned, you do get a set amount of money each month, per child, usually in the $600 range. If you are doing straight adoption, then the amount is called a subsidy, is only applicable to certain kids (see here), and is less, around $400. Anyone who has fed children will tell you that isn’t going to be your income. But it helps, especially if you are a single mom with no previous children and their hand-me-downs, school supplies, books, and toys to fill in with. I’m planning to do a blog post in the future comparing my budget now to my budget with kids, so math lovers, get excited!

How long did it take to get licensed?
It took me about four months from the time I turned in my initial application. I have heard a huge range of times from parents though, everything from two months to nine months or a year.

What takes so long?
Well, first you have to pick an agency. Then you fill out an application. Mine was seven pages long, and had questions I really had to think over or look up the answers to (like every address I’ve lived in the past ten years). Next you begin your training classes. A good agency will give you 30+ hours of training. I did mine in five weeks, with two 3 hour classes each week. Once the classes are finished, you get the fun task of getting all the paperwork turned in. This takes time, often because you have to schedule various services through government agencies, and they're busy. Then it takes a while for your agency to process all the paperwork and make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed.

If I had to do it over again, I would have tried to do the paperwork along the way as I was doing the training. But between work and school and the training classes, I didn’t have a lot of free time to drive all over town setting up inspection appointments. It took me a full month to get all the paperwork done. It seemed to me like a long process, but that’s because I had a reason to rush (a subject for a later blog post). Some families take a lot longer, which is fine. If you are new to the whole thing, have very little childcare experience, or have bio kids in the home already, I would suggest taking your time. Because I had been researching foster/adoption full bore for almost a year before my first training class, most of it was reinforcing current knowledge, not overwhelming me with all-new information. So I felt I could move a bit faster through the process.

What happens now?
Well my license gets finalized and I throw myself a private dance party in my kitchen. =) Then I will either start getting calls from my agency with potential foster kids or my agency caseworker will submit my homestudy for specific kids who are available for adoption.

What’s a “homestudy?”
Basically, it’s a document that tells all about you. It’s compiled partly by you (I had to fill out 30 pages of intense questions about my childhood, my beliefs about discipline, my expectations of the child, my potential feelings about the birth parents, etc.) and partly by your agency. A caseworker comes out to your home and interviews you about the stuff you’ve already answered in the giant document. He/She will also interview your spouse and any children (or other people) living in your home. It was a long interview (4 hours!), but my caseworker is awesome and it ended up being just a good (long) conversation. I had already thought/processed through a lot of the stuff they were asking about because of my TBRI coursework last spring/summer, and my parents were/are amazing, so that made it all pretty easy. Anyway, once that file is put together, then it becomes the thing your agency caseworker sends to CPS, who will then match you (or not) with kids based on the information in your homestudy.

How long does it take before a child is placed in your home?
The answer everyone hates: it depends. It does though. The system, especially in a state as big as Texas, is a massive machine. And we all know those don’t always work quickly. Also, they take time to make sure that each placement will be in the best interest of the child. Older children, boys, sibling groups, and kids with significant medical needs are the hardest to place, so if a family is open to those populations, they will most likely have a placement sooner than a family who is open only to infants. I have heard from families who waited up to a year for a placement, and I have heard from families who had a placement the day they were licensed. So, it depends. And I have no idea how long it takes for the straight adoption placements, since there is a somewhat prolonged evaluation pre-placement for those folks.