If you are thinking about adopting children from your state’s foster system, you will need to decide whether to deal directly with the state agency or to use an adoption agency as an intermediary. This article will discuss the pros and cons of this decision based upon my experience. We did use an adoption agency and we are glad that we did.
The social worker from the state agency was not always honest with us. Her main concern seemed to be limiting the amount of time that she had to spend on the case. This tendency always seemed to affect the advice that she gave us.
On the other hand, the adoption agency gave us very good advice. Whenever the state tried to require us to do unnecessary things, the adoption agency would “call their hand” on it. This usually made the needless requirement go away. For example, on several occasions we were able to be excused from pointless meetings.
On another occasion, the birth mother showed up for a family meeting in very inappropriate clothing and very high on something. That day, she was very obnoxious for us and disturbing for the children. The state worker shrugged her shoulders and went to her office. The adoption worker rebuked the birth mother and insisted to our state worker’s supervisor that we be allowed to leave. The manager agreed and the meeting was cancelled.
We had already adopted four maternal brothers. When a fifth brother was born, the state placed him in another home. This was done in spite of the fact that the state has a goal of keeping siblings together if at all possible. Our adoption agency vigorously went up the agency management ladder to protest this action. This child is our son today because our agency social worker fought the initial decision regarding his placement and caused it to be reversed.
The main disadvantage in using the agency has to do with the state’s monthly subsidy check. The state paid the money each month on time, but the adoption agency sometimes used the money for a month or two before passing the money on to us. I personally resented the agency temporarily balancing their books with our money.
The pros outweighed the cons in our judgment. The fact that our adoption agency worker was very experienced and highly competent made our decision even easier.
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