You want to adopt a child into your family, but you’ve been struggling to do so. It’s frustrating and makes you angry at the system. These children need help, and they’ve sat waiting for many years.
Don’t worry, you’re not the only one feeling this way. It’s difficult to adopt a child through foster care in California. Why? It’s a lengthy process and the agencies aren’t always working quickly to assess new foster parents or adoptive parents to place children with them.
Take for example the story of one man who said it took almost two years to finalize an adoption. He claims the private agency he worked with was great; it was responsive and helpful. The problem was the public agency, which sometimes failed to return calls and waited almost a year before indicating that the man and his wife were ready for a child.
With over 68,000 children in foster care, it would seem obvious that agencies would want to have children placed with willing families quickly. That isn’t how it works, though. The agencies are understaffed, and the budget for child welfare services was cut in 2009. California also has 58 counties, many of which provide adoption services within the county but not necessarily across county lines. This irrational setup means a family just a few doors down from the county line could be waiting to adopt a child and have none available while there are dozens waiting just down the street.
You can push for the agencies to get back to you. Your attorney can help you pursue various paths to adoption, so you can expand your family.
Source: Huffington Post, “California Adoption — Why Is It So Hard to Adopt From Foster Care?,” Jeff Katz, accessed Dec. 15, 2017