My daughter was a legal risk and we ended up adopting her within 7 months of having her.  It was a great experience and I don’t think we would have gotten any kiddos had we not gone that route.  It’s OK to love them, just treat them the same and know that might not being staying forever, hope they will, AND if they end up going back to their family know that you gave them an amazing opportunity while they were with you.

I agree.  Ours were at legal risk and the adoption will be final in about 30 days.  It’s been 20 months since they were placed, and there have been many ups and downs but it was definately worth it.  I also don’t think we would have gotten any placements had we not taken the chance.

My first child was a legal risk infant placement.  18 months later we finalized her adoption.  I was scared that I would lose her for the entire 18 months.  Since then I have adopted more kids but only older, hard to place legally free kids.  Have you looked into out of state referrals?

Our social workers knew that we wanted to adopt and twice they placed infants with us whose cases, based on family history, were considered likely to end in adoption.  We were actually expecting an older child since infants usually go to family members.  For both, there was still a legal risk and the primary goal was reunification with their families as required by law.  In the end, both returned to their families.  The first, a baby boy, was with us from the time he was three days old until he was a few days shy of one year old.  The second, a baby girl came to us when she was three days old and returned to her family just before she turned sixteen months old.  It was completely devastating even though we recognized the hard work these children’s’ families had done to get them back.  We loved these kids as if they were our own.  Even though we knew it could happen and went through a long reunification process with both kids, we were heartbroken when these kids went home and we didn’t know if we would ever see them again or hear anything about them.  As it happens, in both cases, their families eventually reached out to us and allowed us to continue to be in their lives which has been an incredible blessing.  But after going through that twice, and with no assurances that it wouldn’t happen again, we switched to private adoption and that is how we ended up adopting our sons.  Another consideration was that we were older and didn’t have the time to go through placement after placement hoping that one would end in adoption. 

I’ve been reading your posts and I know you’ve been reaching out across state borders trying to find kids who are legally free.  One thing I discovered about public agencies is that they are very poor at coordinating with other agencies.  They are entirely focused on the children in their region and don’t have contacts or any way to approach other agencies in order to find children who need families and are legally free.

There are private agencies out there that deal with both private adoptions and children in foster care.  I think you still have to pay some adoption fees but adopting from foster care is still much cheaper than adopting privately.  We dealt with Adoptions Together in Maryland who do help find older children in foster care who need families.  You might want to go that way since you haven’t gotten anywhere with your public agency so far.  I would look online for a listing of adoption agencies in your state and then look for those that offer adoption from foster care.

Good luck.  You sound like the kind of person who could offer a great deal to a child in need.  There are so many legally free kids in foster care who need families.  It must be very frustrating to have so much difficulty making the connections that will put you together which a child that really needs you.

One more thing.  The actress Nia Vardalos adopted a three year old girl a few years ago from foster care.  If you search for her on the internet, she refers to using an American Foster Family Agency.  I would suggest searching for such an agency in your state.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20277865,00.html

I think that there is a LOT more that goes into it than simply whether or not you are willing to take children whose status is “legal risk”. 

Those factors include: Age, gender, race, level of care required. 

What are you open to?  Are you willing to expand that beyond just the legal risk status?  The more broad your parameters, the more likely you are to be selected for a placement.

We have added 5 new children to our family in 4.5 years.  Our parameters are what most consider “wide open” but I realize that isn’t for everyone.  We are having our inspection to re-license tomorrow and will be open for up to 4 children, ages 0-17, either gender, and race and many special needs.  We have our hearts set on a sibling group of three…a girl age 13 with MR and PTSD, a boy, age 5 with Dev. Delays and a girl age 3 with Dev. Delays.  SOOooo hope to be matched with them!!

We have a sibling group of three in our home—we are currently fostering them, but have been identified as a potential adoptive placement.  They do not yet have permanent custody (termination of parental rights).  We are already making plans as if the three are our kids, but we know that nothing can happen until the receive PC.  The caseworker makes it sound like the case is clear cut, but I’m not so sure, and will not believe it until I see it—hopefully by September.

So legal-risk is tricky, and like the others have shown here, it is quite possible that you will fall in love with the kids and they will go back to the biological family.  It is really hard.

I think when my husband and I set out on the adoption journey eight years ago, my first thoughts were only of straight adoption.  I was probably very naive!  Slowly we changed our ideas, and started fostering.  I am really thankful to that experience.

Is your agency one that simply does not have many kids in the system?  Our county can be frustrating b/c there are not usually many very young children available for adoption—we were told that from the get-go.  Here in Ohio, we are allowed to be licensed through neighboring counties as well.  I know a lot of people go this route b/c the neighboring counties have a more urban population, which (unfortunately) has a greater number of children available.  I would definitely explore other adoption avenues, as the earlier poster wrote about.

Boy its sure hard to know ahead of time what your heart will be able to take. My husband and Iare just completing the licensing process and leaning toward accepting legal risk babies. At first we were absolutely against that and wanted really low legal risk. But as we have thought, learned and discussed this we have decided to focus our thinking on helping a child not getting a child. So if a family gets their act together and can parent their child, that is ultimately the best news for the child - even if it breaks our hearts. But I know it is much easier to say that than to actually live it. We are trusting God that he will equip us to serve children and their families and he will heal our hearts if a child does not stay in our family. Really scary stuff.

Having been there I can say that doing a high risk placement is hard, but also very rewarding. We did foster care for 10 years, yes, we were hoping to adopt, but found it very rewarding to see the kids go home to parents that worked very hard to get their kids back and because we were so supportive many of these families have stayed in contact with us. Which we LOVE! We fostered over 35 kids, almost all newborns. We had the pleasure of being able to adopt 3 of our foster kids, but because of some health issues with our youngest we decided to put foster care on hold for awhile, until we can get him all figured out. Having been through it and crying many tears, I have to say I wouldn’t have it any other way. I know that we made a difference it those kids that were with us, and I also know that they made an impact on our lives as well. Only you know what you can handle, but if you are thinking of it, i say go for it! I don’t think you will regret it.
Good Luck with whatever you decide.

We have not adopted a toddler but are foster/adopt parents who have had several toddlers in our family. I love toddlers because they are just forming their personalities, birth, foster or adopted. Whether they get to stay or not they end up taking on a lot of our character traits and acting like they are “our” chidren. These little ones are so quick to call me mommy from the start because they are coming from neglect and/or trauma and they are just looking for someone to fill that maternal void in their lives. I would definitely adopt a toddler if one was placed with us but as many have said each of us has to do what is best for their own family. IMO toddlers are still babies and you would be getting them at an age that they will never really remember any other parents before you, not to say they won’t still have issues but they seem to get over their attachment issues quicker the younger they are when you get them. I had a three month old with drug issues that was hyper sensitive to light, sound and touch that could not stand to be touched and had a flat head from neglect. I had to hold him on a pillow to feed him his bottle and get him gradually used to being held and touched.
Within a month he was a totally different baby. The down side was that within 6 months his birth family decided they wanted him back once he was no longer drug addicted and appeared to be healthy and happy. This would not be the case for you but we are foster parents so there is always that chance.

I am a BIG believer that statistically, you are KIDDING yourself if you try to adopt a child with Terminated Parental Rights (TPR).  The websites tell you it’s possible, but it is very, very rare.  Don’t waste your time like I did ... go for legal risk or better yet, become a foster parent.  Good luck!

Many children are adopted with parental rights terminated. They are not usually toddlers or babies. They typically are adopted by the foster parents but not always.

Most children in care go home to family. Of the ones who do not more than 50% (sometimes as high as 75%) are adopted by their foster parents.

That leaves not many younger children available for a straight out adoption but it is possible.

Our son was a legal risk placement. We were adopt only and then after about 9 months of waiting we changed our license to legal risk/foster/adopt. Our son was two weeks old when we brought him home from the hospital. Our adoption was finalized when he was 6 months old. There was a lot of stress and wondering if his family would ever come forward (he was left on a door step) but nobody did. It was worth the every bit of it. I would so do it again. Good luck!

ok, after discussing it with my social worker I"ve decided to be open to a higher risk placement. she seems to think the biggest problem will be having contact with the birth family, at least for a time; didn’t really seem to “get” my fear that I’ll become attached to a child then have to give her up. it seems that in her experience there are usually strong indicators from the start whether or not a child will be returned. for example, a family who has had other children removed from them and placed for adoption is likely to have the current child given up permanently as well, that sort of thing. has anyone else found this to be true?

What I found, and what our social workers told us is that you NEVER know how a case will turn out.  Some that seem like a sure thing to end in adoption instead end in family reunification of the child.  Other cases of temporary placements end up in adoption.  I heard one foster mom say that she had a child who was supposed to be in her home for one weekend only and that case ended up with her adopting him.  Prediction is very difficult.  Our foster daughter had four older siblings who were all placed for adoption but she went home to her parents.  You just never know.

I will say that it’s important for any child in your home for an extended period that you do become attached.  Kids need love.  It’s better for them. It’s harder on you.  Social workers often don’t get the depth that foster parents can feel for their foster kids.  Sometimes I felt like they thought of us as glorified baby sitters.  I also hear of foster parents who have had many kids in their homes over many years of fostering but only adopt one or two.  Every story is different so it may be that others became available for adoption and the foster parents decided not to move forward with that.  Or it may be that out of dozens of foster kids, only one or two became available for adoption.  I would still suggest going with an agency that finds kids in foster care available for adoption.  These agencies can search nationwide rather than just the local kids that your local Social Services deal with.  It could be a lot faster that way.  Good luck.

I agree with the above, it is very difficult to predict whether a child will stay long-term.  It does help to know prior to making a decision, whether there are indicators that can increase the likelihood of a child staying with you, but there are no promises. 

After our little one left us at 10 mths, we were devastated and are hesitant about taking another child that is legal risk.  Many of our friends say, “it is so sad that he left since you had become attached to him”.  The BIG missing piece in this statement, is that the gift that we gave our FS was that we DID attach to him!  Attachment is a two-way street.  If we hadn’t attached to him, then he would have a major missing part to his healthy development.  The mirroring, cooing back and forth has to be in both directions.  If you don’t think that you can offer your whole heart to the child that is placed with you (and get attached), then I think that it in the best interest of the child to not do legal-risk.  It is a huge risk of your heart, but one that is necessary for the child’s health, IMO.

Initially I thought when we did foster to adopt that our hearts would be broken if a child was returned to their bio family.  However, I think the information I was missing before we started fostering, was that, at least in our state, standards are so low for reunification to occur.  For one of our placements, we unexpectedly fostered a relative and we knew the ins and outs of the case because of the family involvement.  What would have been much more difficult to live with had reunification occurred, is that we knew the poor, poor conditions of both of the bio parents and what that would mean for this child.
What has helped me with the unknown of placements is that I always go back to the idea that we are doing this to have a family but more importantly, we are doing this to help a child and we are in the position to change the course of a child’s life forever no matter how long the placement lasts. 
My mantra to myself to cope has been, “every child deserves to have a home with love”. 
I unfortunately do not control how long the child is in our home but I do control how my home feels to that child for however long they are in the home.