For those not reading on the blog itself, please check it out as there is a new blog design! I’ve moved from an owl family to a penguin family and they’re so darn sweet! And this time they all match – same colors as we will be a family unit no matter what we look like.
To the many friends (and fangirls!) I have made since our last attempt at adoption from foster care, there are literally hundreds of posts detailing, venting, and reviewing that time in our life. I welcome you to skim it if you are interested, but be forewarned that it will likely both make you cry and piss you off and will certainly tug at your heartstrings. I mean, I’m a good writer.. 😉 But seriously, it was 3-4 years from sheer joy to pure heartbreak and every emotion in between. Clearly, it did not result in a child in our home..
For this go around, I will have a different tag so as not to confuse the two. Miami was simply “adoption” since I literally never expected it would fall apart. Everything for our Palm Beach adoption process will be tagged as “PB-adopt.”
Last night, September 19th, we had our first PIP (Partners in Parenting) class. Like PRIDE before, this is a 7 week class during which we will learn about children in care, our roles, our goals, and so much more. In this class, there are a total of 26 students, us included.
Here is what we know so far…
- CHS in Palm Beach is strictly an adoption only agency. To foster, parents must go through a different agency entirely. I have never heard of this before! In Miami, all agencies did both.
- We broke out into groups to do strengths/ needs for specific scenarios.
- We were later all given cards – half as foster/ adoptive kids and half as foster/ adoptive parents – and had to find our match.. or not. Not everyone had a match. Deep.
- Our 2 teachers (who split the class based on our home’s location) are responsible for completing our home studies. We will not be assigned to another case worker or languish in the system waiting on anyone. We have 7 weeks to get to know each other, build our books/ profiles, then go from there for the home visit and finalization.
- We should have our home studies in hand within 6 months. I am not being optimistic or getting my hopes up. (I know, I know.. you’ve heard this before.)
The Matching Process
- WE are responsible for finding our child via the multitude of Heart Galleries, online profile listings, and state and national adoption websites.
- Once we find a child we are interested in learning more about, we send the ID and their name to our case worker. She will then reach out to their case worker and see if we are a match.
- If so, we move forward with learning about them by reviewing their profiles and asking any questions we have about behaviors, education, whatever.
- From there, if both case workers feel we are still a good match, a meeting is arranged.
- Blah blah blah.. we have visits of all lengths and locations. If all goes well, we do sleepovers as well.
- Eventually the child moves in for a minimum of 90 days before finalization.
- And then… finalization! We are parents!
Yes, this is extremely generalized. I know this. You know this. Everyone knows this.
Every week we will have an in-class quiz (group shouting out the answers type thing) and homework to complete which all builds up to completing our official signed home study document. Homework seems to be repeats of last time like our life stories, feelings on certain situations, photos of ourselves, Lola, and our home, and other stuff about who we are.
I am already enjoying this class and the teachers. It is great, in my opinion, to get to know our case worker throughout the entire class as opposed to a random assignment. They will be much more vested in our finding our perfect match this way.