Chris and I finally received some actual good news this week, which is much more encouraging than just the absence of bad news! On Tuesday we got an email from our social worker, Charles, asking us to call him. When we did he told us that he spoke with the social worker of the 10-year-old we are interested in. He said that she did not have any reservations about us as a placement for the child, including the fact that we are a same-sex couple and that we live 500 miles away. Apparently there are no family ties requiring him to stay in LA, so there's no problem moving out of the LA area. This also means that if we move ahead it would probably be a low-risk placement, since without close family it's unlikely that anyone would contest the placement. After hearing a relatively brief description of his situation and history, we didn't hesitate to tell Charles to proceed to the next step.
SETTING UP THE MEETINGS
Once Charles gets the go ahead, Chris and I can set up a time to have a telephone conference call with both social workers. This will be sort of an interview where the child's social worker gets to ask us questions to supplement what she knows about us from our home study, and where we get to ask more specific questions about the child. If after this meeting we decide we still want to proceed, we will set up a face-to-face "disclosure" meeting in LA where we can review all pertinent documentation like court records, medical records, education plans, etc. We would also try to plan to meet the youth while we're there. Usually families need to meet the child several times before a match is completed, and since he's so far away we want to make each trip to LA count!
As always, I will post more information as I get it. I'm hesitant to post the child's name yet, partly to preserve his anonymity and partly because I want to wait to see if this is really happening first. But once we know for sure you can bet I'll tell everyone all about him!
1 comment:
Hey Troy and Chris - This is really great news! You are both definitely in our thoughts. It's an emotional process and it is hard not to get your hopes up!
We were contacted by a social worker in San Mateo about a 7 year old. We told Amirah that we are interested but have lots of questions. There is another child from Santa Clara that caught our attention and we are still hopeful that a disclosure will happen with him. We were told that there are many families interested in him...I'm trying really hard to be realistic about the prospects for the boy from Santa Clara, but I, too, find myself imaging what it would be like to be his dad!
We're going to Montana to visit my dad and family for July 4th and I was really hoping that we would have a child by now so that we could introduce him to family. The process has gone a little more slowly than I expected, but that is probably a good thing.
Take care,
Jeff
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