Foster/Adoption Orientation Meeting

Just got home from the information meeting. It's a long process, but I am very excited to get started on it!

This post is going to include more information than most of you will probably want to know, so this is your warning. :)

Apparently in Los Angeles County there are two agencies that you must deal with when fostering. You must go through the requirements for L.A. DCFS, and you have to get certified by the state. The first presenter today was a social worker from DCFS, and he was wonderful. The second presenter was from the state and she confused the bejeezus out of me! I'm going to need to call the state office and talk to a different social worker to have them clarify everything for me.

From what I understand, the next step is to send an application to the state office. You then get a case number that you use to get your fingerprints and the criminal background check. Along with that, you need to submit a bunch of other forms and paperwork.

The county also requires 33 hours of PS-MAAP training classes over a 6 week period of time. These will not begin until February! WTF?! Don't they know some of us have already been waiting too long to get a child into our lives?! Anyway, the classes are taught at Community Colleges by social workers. As we saw today, some social workers are better than others, so we plan on going to several different classes to check out the social workers because they will be the ones doing our homestudy. We hope to get someone who is intelligent and with whom we feel we can build a good rapport.

The first social worker said that currently there are about 500 kids in L.A. county waiting to be adopted, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long after we finish the process in April. There are many things we must do to complete this, but I am very happy to have a plan and to have completed the first step...the orientation!