NEW DEVELOPMENTS

The last time I posted I had written about how we provided respite care a few weekends ago for two brothers, "N" and "R", but there have been a couple of other developments on the adoption front since then.

THE FIRST DEVELOPMENT
We had previously told our social worker, Charles, that we are interested in expanding our search to include younger kids, but since we had originally gone through the Pride & Joy program we didn't learn the process for looking up youth in the foster system database. He had us come in one morning so we could discuss it and take a look at the online database. There is a public website available that lists a couple hundred kids in foster care with a short bio and their picture, but there are a lot more kids on the private website who, for whatever reasons, they don't want on the public site. They are accessible only by the social workers, and these were the kids we got to take a look at. We spent about an hour looking at the various profiles but didn't make notes on the ones we were interested in learning more about so we had to go back and do it over. Of course, we had to get back to work so we were kind of rushed, but we did identify five boys that each seemed like a good fit for our family. Normally Charles would look these kids up and get us more information so we could decide if we wanted to proceed, but the other development that came up a day or two later has put that on hold.

THE SECOND DEVELOPMENT
It turns out that the current foster placement for N and R is not working out well. They have been there for seven years but for one reason or another, social services’ efforts to proceed to adoption have stalled twice. Social services also feels that it may not be a healthy environment for the kids, so they wanted to know if we would consider taking N and R in if it were decided they needed to be removed. Of course we said we would be happy to have them. It would take a little adjustment since we were planning on only one child. We have only one bedroom set up so they would either have to share a room (which we'd rather not do - teenagers need their space) or we would give up our office and turn it into a second bedroom. It's definitely not decided yet though. Social services wants to make this work if possible and I believe the foster parents want to make it work as well. They will need to make some changes though, so we'll see if the foster parents are willing to do what it would take to keep them in the home. In the meantime we've agreed to suspend our search for another child for six weeks while they decide if N and R need to be removed. Social services has agreed to give us weekly updates, but at this point it's out of our hands so it's a wait-and-see situation for us.

A TWIST
One other twist came up at our last meeting as well. Charles told us he will be leaving Family Builders. It seems that Pride & Joy, the program that he directs, is funded by grants and due to the current economic climate it is unlikely that they will be renewed. Although the grants won't run out until December, he has already gotten a new position in Santa Cruz. At this point, I don't know if Family Builders will be able to sustain the Pride & Joy program, but hopefully they will still be able to recruit families interested in providing homes for LGBT kids. As for us, we will have to be assigned a new social worker. Since we have been working with N and R and their social worker, Gloria, she will be taking us on. She is very experienced so I'm sure we're in good hands.

More later, once we start getting updates!