Adoption Support Group
Adoption is the legal act of permanently placing a child with a parent or parents other than the birth parents. Whether you are looking to adopt, putting your child up for adoption, parenting an adopted child, or just thinking about it, this is the place to discuss.
My husband and I just started the presses to adopt threw the state after falling in love with a sibling group we met at the group home.. I am so excited and totally impatient. It can take up to six month before we finally get them. They are 8, 10, and 11 anyone else adopt an older sibling group???
Have you been able to do overnights and/or weeklong visits in your home with the sibling group? If so, how have they gone? If not, since they're in a group home, it should be something you can coordinate and I'd highly recommend it. It's amazing the insight you can get during those visits that you simply can't get during playdates.
Wishing you wisdom and luck!
Good luck. You will need it, and hopefully it will be worth it in the end!
I ask because adopting a single older child is most often extremely challenging, and adopting three at once more than triples the level of complexity. While no one can be truly prepared for the realities of how challenging it will be, prior to adopting. Given that that is the case, having a fair amount of life experience as an adult, is very important in better insuring that the adoption will be successful. Having prior experience in working with older kids, especially with kids who've had significant life problems is often a prerequisite for being approved by an agency for adopting a sibling group-- especially an older sibling group of three or more.
Additionally, you and your husband will face additional challenges due to his history of having been in prison. It is not just the social worker and adoption agency who must approve you. Once you receive approval from an adoption agency, the agency must send your home study to whichever department in your state it is who issues the final approval, and often there are established policies regarding the prospective parents' life histories.
Since you both will be fingerprinted as part of the process, its best that you be up-front with the agency about your husband's history. Having to explain why you didn't tell beforehand, doesn't help couples get approved-- and his record WILL come up, when they check your background.
The reason(s) why your husband was incarcerated will be considered by the social worker assigned to your case, the director of the agency, and then by whatever governmental department it is who processes the paperwork in your state (sometimes a judge).
You were right when you stated that it is a long process that could easily take six months or even longer before a couple is approved to adopt. Its a good idea to educate yourselves about how a family is selected for a particular child or sibling group, after that.
Normally, when a child/sibling group becomes legal-free for adoption, the social worker responsible for placing the children with a family will recruit a number of families who are interested (the number could be up to ten families). The social worker and her co-workers will read the home study reports of all of those prospective families, and then choose the family that they think has the most to offer to those children. That means that you may have to have your home study report submitted over and over and over-- many many times-- with no guarantee that you will be selected each time that you express interest in a child or sibling group. That is because the adoption process is about finding the best possible family for a child or sibling group. NOT about finding a child, or set of children for those who want to adopt.
That is what it means for adoption to be serving the best needs of the CHILDREN.
What can you and your husband do to improve your chance of success? First, I would urge you to consider working with a therapist or family counselor. I would also strongly encourage you to call and ask to speak with a social worker or the director of the agency, so as to discuss your husband's history of incarceration. At that point, the agency can tell you whether or not it will be worthwhile for you to go ahead to enroll in the classes, or whether his history will disqualify you. If there has been any history of violence, that will probably mean that you would not be approved.
I do wish you well, but adoption may or may not be a good option for you, and I would encourage you to address some of the issues you've raised prior to getting your hopes up.
What to look for with older kids is the little things during transition even prior to moving in. Most of the time there are signs so don't ignore the little things. Maybe bone up on your knowledge of disorders and so forth so that you know what you are looking for. Be aware of what you can and can not handle, and be prepared for the unexpected. Our older set of kids (we were told) were good students, had no psychological diagnosis and no sexual abuses. All of that turned out to be untrue and sadly it was recorded in their files, but somehow it was all buried. Ask a lot of questions, even the really tough ones that might be uncomfortable.
For example was have already adopted a child with FAS. This is something that we have a strong skill set for, we also have a strong skill set for autism and some mental health challenges. Violence however is a hard one for us because we have small children and pets. I think you get the idea. I wish you all the best on your journey. The best advise is always to know your family, and know as much as possible about the kiddos coming in. Make sure your skills meet their needs. ;0)