Another topic I touched on earlier is the adoption selection committee process here in Oregon. Perhaps an overview of the entire process might be interesting.

When a person/couple decides that they are interested in adopting, they have some choices about what route to go. For us, we specifically wanted to adopt an older (3+) child from foster care. We checked into going through the state and private companies. We opted to go through the state. Sometimes I wonder if this was the right decision, as it seems like things move more quickly for people who go through private companies. However, this is what we decided and, at this point, we're planning on seeing it through.

So, we contacted the state at their foster/adopt information line. We were sent some written information and signed up for an informational class about adopting. At this first class, we learned about the process and a little bit about what to expect of the kids who are available.

Having decided to proceed, we started classes. These classes are designed for both foster and adoptive parents. There were 10 classes over 10 weeks - for us it was every Wednesday evening. This was when we started telling people what we were doing because we needed places for Davan to go on these Wednesday evenings. The classes were surprisingly interesting. I say surprisingly because I felt well read on the subject of adoption. Being a reader, I'd read everything I could get my hands on. In addition, I feel well educated about parenting, having read much on this topic, as well, not to mention having hands on experience here.

This said, I didn't learn a lot that was new in the classes, but I thought they did a really good job of presenting basic information to prospective adopters/foster parents. There was a class on positive parenting, a class on development (and how kids who've been neglected and/or abused differ in their development), a class on the effects of alcohol on fetus (worse and longer lasting than most illegal drugs) and so forth.

Meanwhile, as we were taking the classes, we were also filling out our homestudy questionnaire. My questionnaire ended up being over 40 pages when it was all printed out. DH's was about 30. I guess I'm just more verbose. The questions are very comprehensive - having to do with your childhood, your family, your parenting practices (provided you have kids already), your relationship with your spouse (provided you have one), your emotional life, your children (if you have them) and so on.

At the end of the classes, we went to an adoption class. At this class, I must say, we didn't learn much that was new. They went over again what the next steps in the process were and we could ask questions about whatever we liked. We also turned in our homestudy questionnaires.

Once classes and questionnaires were turned in, we became the responsibility of a case worker's. Our case worker was assigned to us, but we did know a couple who had previous contact with a case worker and handed their questionnaire to this case worker directly.

At this point, the idea is that your case worker will contact you and set up a first meeting, usually at your house. We waited and waited and then called our trainer (the person who taught the classes). Another week went by. We called again. Then we got the call. Our case worker was Barbara and she was coming in a week.

The next step is more paper work. A financial report needs to be filled out, references given, a physical done and a doctor's assessment procured. Once the subject of the study (us) have this done, the case worker sets up interviews with each parent. Sadly, even though we were very quick about this paperwork, it took a long time until our interviews were set up. Barbara is a very nice lady and seems to really want to do her best for her families. We've really valued her input about prospective children. However, I think she is either very overworked, could use a little more organization or both. We've had a lot of periods of waiting longer than seemed necessary in this process. At our informational meeting, we were told that we should be paper ready about 4-6 months from then depending on how quickly we finished our classes, did our paperwork and on our case worker. It was 10 months even though we often dropped paperwork off the very next day after it was given us.

Anyway, we got our interviews done. Basically, all we did was go over our questionnaires in more detail. Then we had an interview together where we went over our financial paper work and basically reviewed the next steps. The next step was waiting for Barbara to write up our homestudy. Basically, this seems to be a report on all of our information that had been collected. This is the document sent to children's case workers when we are interested in a child and is used by them to determine if we are a good match. This was another long wait for us.

We were finally paper ready in early November of 2005 and got to start looking at potential kids for placement. This is when we get into the whole committee thing and how kids are places here in Oregon, but I think I'll get to that in another post, as Chris is on her way home to have lunch and get on with our visiting.