I swear your channel is a Godsend to me! I got my adoption license today and I also got matched with two foster care placements. Straight out the gate, they tried to get me to match me with two sibling sets who had one kid that met what I specified that I would want or could handle. The other child in each set was not what I felt comfortable dealing with. I felt so bad saying no. One of the sets was also not black they were caucasian with blue eyes. Although I told them I didn't care about ethnicity, I immediately felt an internal conflict. I am definitely African American. Your video helped me feel comfortable sticking to my gut and also to feel comfortable and confident having a multicultural plan. If you start your FB group I will definitely join!
Sometimes the journey happens so quickly! And even though we feel bad declining children, we have to do what’s best for us...because ultimately it’s what’s best for the child. We don’t want to end up resentful towards a child we are supposed to love and care for.
I used to watch your journey with Isaias and now I'm going through the process to be a single foster mother and I am open to adopt...so I'm back and I love your honesty.
OMG I think you're delightful...video dropped in my feed...I'm in DC...I'm an AAF gonna be licenced Resource Parent in just a few weeks ..I'm so excited...Single new empty nester so I'm older than you...
I praise you for your strength and what you are doing for the community. It doesn't matter what nationality the children are, they need love and care. Keep doing what you are doing, God’s going to bless you abundantly. God bless you and your extended blended family.
I move in a few weeks and will then be sending off my foster care & adoption paperwork!! (Not really wanting to adopt -only 21- mainly interested in fostering)
I would love the group! I want to foster/adopt in the future. I would also LOVE to hear your perspective on the Stauffer family. It would be interesting to hear from a former CPS worker.
Congratulations!!! Your videos give me so much inspiration to keep going on my foster/adopt journey. I love the updates on your beautiful growing family.
Your videos always make my day! Definitely interested in the Facebook group and sharing resources! I'm tired of people looking at me like I have three heads every time I say I want to adopt from the foster care system. lol
We have a 2 foster sons. Our 1st is much like your little, he's the youngest of 8!! We have had him since he was 4 days old and he just turned 1 last Wed. And our newest little we brought home on the 8the of April, at 9 days old. I'm so happy to have found your channel!
My husband and I are new foster parents licensed around the same time as you but we’ve only had one placement who stayed overnight before reuniting with bio family members. Like you, we are also hoping to adopt. Thank you for this page. I needed a little encouragement while waiting for our next placement. Good luck on your foster to adopt journey!
When you were talking with your son about how families don't always look the same it reminded me of a book that I bought called, Wild About You!, by Judy Sierra. I love this book. Children like that it's about animals and families working together and helping each other. It was recommended by another RU-vidr, KAIT - Love Mother's Co. She's also a foster momma.
Learning so much from you. ☺️ I’m also a single parent. I adopted my daughter when she was 3 months old. My heart just broke for your little baby. Please be careful with sharing all those details about him.
@@TephaneyStewart I have two beautiful children through adoption. I'm excited to follow along in your journey. My son was born with Stridor, was severely colic and had severe reflux. He ended up on several medications early on and had to take a specialized formula. I was/am a single mom. Talk about sleep deprived!! I feel you. With all his crying I, too, thought it was me. I was devastated because he came to me as an adoptive placement and I wasn't giving up MY SON. It took 7 1/2 looong weeks to get my son in the right meds and formula. All has turned out well. You got this!
You also have to see the family side. CPS often makes the determination from day 1 to not to assist the mother and ignore the family for permanent placement and find foster types that want to adopt a baby. CPS wont allow visits, video, nothing. He left with just a few hours notice. We were not able to maybe have a teleconference with the fosters to explain his colic, gerd, and medical issues, etc...We had our grandson taken from us after 6 months and placed 4 hours away to a family that just so wanted to adopt him after only 1 month. Hmmm... We did nothing wrong but care for him day 1 We still want him but because we said conservatorship vs adoption in order to see if daughter can get herself together. Immediately the DA and Ad Litem said he was in immediate danger so remove him ASAP! All because we said conservatorship and that we got our daughter in a 60 day rehab program. Yes, it has been a court battle and still going. They are dead set at adoption so he will never know his brother, sister, other grandparents. Trust me, I know the GERD and Colic issue. By 6 months we had him set with exactly how to feed, when to use simethicone, Nexium, burp. Too bad CPS refused to forward our info so he had to suffer quite a while before the foster family figured out what took us 6 month to get him stable.
Tephaney Stewart he had just turned 4 when we got him. He will be 5 in October. But there is a chance he may be home before his birthday. He is our second placement. We had 2 little boys under 2 for 6 days before him. They went to a biological aunt less than a week coming in to foster care. We were happy for them. And of course will be happy for our current placement if he gets to go home too.. we just want so badly to adopt!
I would be excited for you to start a group. I got my placement when he was 4 days old, I picked him up from the hospital. I’ve had him for almost 4 months now and he’s awesome!
Aweeeeee that’s amazing! How is your reunification process going so far? Are they saying they are leaning towards adoption, extending reunification another few months, or returning to bio parent?
Tephaney Stewart we’ve been having zoom meeting with bio mom. Just had the family team meeting today discussing in person visits. The caseworker is pushing for adoption but at the end of the day it’s up to the judge, so I’m just loving on him as much as possible. We haven’t had a court date yet because the courts shut down in Illinois right when I got him.
It can be hard to get infants. But he is part of a large sibling set (8) and the other foster homes the children are split into couldn’t take them due to space issues or didn’t want a baby. So they were asked first and I feel like it’s taboo to say the following, but... lucky me. If they hadn’t passed I believe I’d still be waiting on placement. I had just gotten approved and had a nursery all set up... and the placement worker had me fresh on her mind she said. So truly lucky me.
I get the feeling your going to keep him, and one or two of his siblings...if not all 3 ... Idk i just get that feeling. Blessing to you and your beautiful family
Lol Idk about being a single mother to 5...this last week has been...frightening 😂. Until this weekend I was scared 😂 😂. 0, 1, 3, 5, & 5 by myself...I just literally started to see the rainbow 🌈 in all the chaos. It has been a lot. Praise the Lord for getting everyone on a schedule, nap time, and for home grocery delivery.
@@TephaneyStewart Lol I can understand that. I'm definitely praying for you! It's funny because we never know how strong we are or how much we can take until we reach that point. Your doing a great job! And I know for a fact,even if you don't keep all of them, they will most definitely remember this! I wanna be like you when I grow up! Lol!
We have literally the same story minus the siblings I have a 2month old fs who is Caucasian and I am totally in love he is a beautiful expression of God's unconditional love God is amazing just when you thought you knew the answers he shows us his plan
Honestly having 8 children.. Reunification will be extremely hard especially if one parent isn't cooperating. What gets me most is many parents start the whole reunification process because they feel obligated vs because they really genuinely want to. Its hard to explain but so true. They love their children of course but many know they cannot be the parents they need to but if they don't at least put in any effort it makes them appear to be as if they don't love their children if they dont at least "try" but if they "try" then they dont feel as bad losing them at the end or its also easier to tell family/friends well I tried and failed. I hope that made sense but it would be so much easier if they completed a TPR from the jump instead of giving these kids false hope.. And also give them a better chance at being adopted through a foster placement.
As a social worker, unfortunately I have seen many parents pretend to be interested in reunification and pretend to make an effort to save face for themselves and to be able to say to their children “I tried”. But I think in this case, she truly loves and wants all of her children.
You have a new subscriber! We were recently approved, and called for a newborn but as things change quickly he ended up not coming into our care. Thing is how do you tell the caseworker that you would prefer a child of African american descent? We have the boxes checked off but the newborn was Caucasian so I assumed they just didnt look at our paperwork.... Just seems like something difficult to even mention I dont want to appear racist
Honestly, I don’t think a lot of placement workers really look at the boxes checked. They are just trying to place kids all day as quickly as possible. But I think adoption social workers would rather you be honest about the ethnicity of your desired child...I was honest and said I’ll be open to consider any child that may be a match, but my heart’s desire and eyes naturally gravitate towards black/brown children. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to give a child that looks like me a loving and permanent home. But as life has it, my latest fostering experience has me now extremely open to children of all ethnicities. And I’m willing to foster their growth and knowledge within their culture should it be different from my own.
@@TephaneyStewart I truly appreciate your response and will be taking your advice. Sending you many blessings from the East Coast ✨ You will meet your son or daughter soon!
Love to join a group with you. I first found your channel last year when I started the process to fost/adopt. There aren't many single mom's in the community. Just got placement of my son 7 weeks ago!
I would like to hear your perspective on the RU-vid family who gave up their adopted son and the Gabriel Fernandez case. Since you do live in California and so do he
Unfortunately with the Gabriel case, instances like that happen far more than it should. I have first hand knowledge of workers and a supervisor encouraging his workers to fabricate visits, reports and documents... lying on parents. Truly disgusting. And yes I reported them to upper management. But nothing was done. But that’s because the management was poor in that particular bureau I was in at that time.
How is your son adjusting to having a baby in the house? I was licensed to foster/adopt in March. I have had three calls but wasn't able to take any of them.
It has been an adjustment for us all. He was over the baby in the first few days. He said “I didn’t know he would cry so much”... but now two months later, the baby is starting to smile and coo and so he’s able to engage with him more... making him more enjoyable in his eyes lol.
From where? From the foster care system it is technically free to adopt all children, no matter the age. However, there are minimal associated costs for getting licensed to adopt (background/finger printing, setting the room up etc)...and at the same time these are tax deductible after your adoption finalizes. So you technically get the money back.
Just like any non-fostering parent. You find/make arrangements for the child(ren) in your care. You’re responsible for any bill, if applicable, though. Usually the foster care stipend isn’t enough to cover daycare. But depending on where you live, there are some daycare/child care/preschool programs available free of cost for foster children. I know a lot of families who utilize their family members, or if they are a two parent household, one is a stay at home parent. Me? I’ve always had to go the daycare route. Which was free while he was a foster child and then I had to pay for once our adoption finalized.
I would also love to be in your Facebook group for single Foster to Adopt moms! I have good and not so good news on the foster care subject. I could use your advice as you are a social worker. I did have an emergency placement of a three- year- old little girl on July 3rd. I was called at 1:00 a.m. I was so excited! She did go right to sleep when she came. But, the next morning she woke up screaming as she was terrified of my dog and cat. This went on throughout the day, and it was stressful for myself and the poor little girl. I told the worker that it was probably best if they found a new placement in a home with no pets.as she was so terrified of my two pets. :( I feel like my worker is very understanding. But, I have felt bad about this and having to end the placement. I am praying for the Lord to send me another placement soon! I don’t want the placement team to hesitate about calling me now because of this. Any advice? 🙂
Funny enough, my son was originally terrified of our dogs when I brought him home. His exact word (at 2 yrs old) was “monsters!!! 😂 And the siblings to the infant I have, were also afraid of the dogs...now they can’t get enough of each other. I wish we could have spoken before you called the social worker. I would have advised you to give her time to adjust. Try a friendly introduction to one animal at a time (while holding and comforting her, but still keeping a respectful distance from the animals), and then keep them separate from one another for another day or two. But continue to take her to view the animals throughout the day just to say hello and see how nice and fun or silly they are. And as she warms up, ask if she’d wants to let them sniff her hand or kiss her hand etc. If she has not had a traumatic animal encounter she just needed time to adjust. Or it could have also been the heightened emotions of being in a new home, with a new caregiver etc. So hyper emotional and overreacting to things she may or may not have had issues with prior could have been a result of the trauma of removal. So next time if you’re placed with a child who’s a little untrusting of your pets, just give it some time. Especially since most families have an animal and chances are the social worker just had her placed in the next available home without even inquiring about pets. Children are so resilient and adaptable.
Tephaney Stewart Thank you so much for your reply and advice! I really wish I could have got your message before I requested new placement. I will take your advice for next time if a child is afraid of my pets.
Join the private FB group (video w/ link coming today) and I’ll message you. Have to be protective of where I live, not everyone on here has been friendly 🙂
Let’s do a group! We are starting this process now and would love any and all support and information from others that have gone through it or are going through it now.
Literally the very beginning. Just went through the whole application process and I’m already over how little direction there is in my state. I’m in Idaho and it seems like everyone points you in a different direction, but we know the frustration will come to an end someday and God will bless us!
@@Danielle-hr1lr And from being on the social worker side of it I never understand the "passing". It's usually because people are being lazy & don't want to do their jobs. Sorry to here that. Did you consider getting licensed through a private/foster family agency instead? The same children, same expenses....just a more streamlined and support process (in most cases).
I actually just reached out to one today after seeing your videos! I figured that would be the best way to go since we have no clue what we’re doing here 😂
I’m foster mom of two teen girls, I’m wait for that call to adoption, I received my license in March and received a call week later but those kid never show up when back with family members...