My DS and DDIL are in the foster to adopt program and are all ready. They are as prepared as two people can be in regards to taking in a child whose parents have not relinquished parental rights but I am concerned. It is a long road, and as my cousin has pointed out to me that if the parents make an effort to "turn around" towards the end of the time frame in place before their rights are removed, all bets are off, and the time is extended. The goal is to reunite families, not to act as an adoption program for couples. Add in that these kids are often born addicted and may have challenges throughout their lives their chances dim as they linger in the program.
AS to easily adopted? My goodness, nothing is further from the truth.
Here foster placement can be very tricky because of things like the designation foster parents are registered under. Many children that very well may wind up needing adoptive parents down the road cannot be placed in foster homes where the parents are designated as foster to adopt where the label is used to indicate a definitive preference to adopt the child(ren) they are fostering. Many people are completely unaware of the intricacies that exist and may come into play because of designations
Some people choose to foster strictly as an emergency placement, meaning they take children with virtually no notice, sometimes simply for a single day/night when a child(ren) is removed from their home and needs a bed immediately. Sometimes the kids are there a week or two until a long-term placement can be found. It may be an interim placement for a situation where an existing placement is ending for whatever reason and a new placement needs to be found. People choose to be emergency placement only for a variety of reasons, some even do so because they really want to help kids but they've burnt out on thinking that the child(ren) that they've fostered for two, three, four years with the expectation that the placement will become permanent with termination of parental rights does not play out that way yet again for whatever reason.
Some people register as willing to foster long-term, with potential for adoptive placement. Other people register as willing to foster long-term(some even short-term), but do not want to be prospective adoptive placement. Both designations occur for a wide variety of reasons. Due to a string of complications in several cases for the past several years social workers have been widely encouraging foster parents seeking to become adoptive parents to approach the process with an open mind and the more open designation of potential for adoptive placement as opposed to foster with a definitive intention to adopt. There has been a problem with the cases moving through the legal process wherein the parent(s) are working on a reunification plan monitored by the court and legal objections are filed because the child(ren) is placed in a foster setting where the stated objective of foster to adopt is in conflict with the goal of family reunification. Courts have ordered children removed to a different foster placement to avoid the implication of conflict of interest. The broader designation of fostering with a potential for adoptive placement presents no conflict of interest challenge.
Some things for potential foster to adopt parents to consider is siblings. In cases where parental rights are terminated, preference is given to keeping sibling bonds intact. Where possible that
may mean placement of siblings together. It's more common than not for the foster parents who take the newborn home from the hospital to also wind up with one, or more, older siblings or half siblings placed with them as well. Sometimes older siblings have already been placed in another foster home or have been fostered by relatives and the newborn sibling is born during the pendency of a case and the existing placement is unable/unwilling to care for the newborn and another foster placement is found for the baby. That does not mean baby will be available for adoption separate from his or her siblings if parental rights are eventually terminated. Efforts will be undertaken during the case to formulate and maintain not only a parent/child bond with the birth parents in an effort toward reunification, but additional efforts will be undertaken to forge and protect a sibling bond as well. If there is not willing and qualified family prepared to adopt all siblings in the event of termination, the first choice for adoption placement will most likely be for all siblings to be placed together as a familial unit. If the number of siblings is particularly large and/or one or more of the children has high maintenance special needs separate placements may be required, but generally it will be done in such a way where maintaining some semblance of sibling bond/family unit will be part of the planning.
What many people don't understand about the process that's happening when children are removed from their parents' care, become wards of the court and placed in either family or agency foster care setting is that the goal that everyone is working for is to rectify any dangerous conditions and barriers that prevent a child from going home with mom and/or dad. So yes, parents get a LOT of chances to get it together. It's easy to look at the situation and say, it's too many, it's just too many. I've seen I don't know how many hundreds of cases over the past dozen-plus years and I still look at plenty and say that too. Believe it or not, some completely worthless parents do ultimately get it together and manage to be a worthwhile option for creating a good homelife for their children. Most cases revolve around neglect and substance abuse -- usually brought on by untreated or inadequately addressed mental illness. Most of the kids are not physically abused (thank goodness!). Most of the kids are not born with substances in their systems or addicted -- thank goodness! Many of them do have a variety of special needs to some extent, some chronic, some situational. Adopting through the foster system is a very long, very emotional and very challenging road.
This is only a very shallow look at the complex ways babies in foster care are absolutely not easily adopted.
I cannot get behind that, nor late term abortion, perhaps except in the rarest of circumstances.
