Getting Approved for SC DSS Adoptions

It has been a long road from where I left off yesterday. We took the last two seats in the DSS Foster Care to Adopt Orientation Class. We were to fill out paperwork before we came to orientation and mail it back to them. Mark and I could not believe the quality of the copies of the paperwork that we received. They we copied crooked on crinkled paper and some parts were so illegible that we had to call to see how the questions read. We had to provide financial records (account numbers, balances,etc), medical and psychological history (including a physical given by our physician), etc. We had background checks run on us through SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Dept), CPS (Child Protective Services), Federal fingerprint analysis, and a 10 page personal autobiography. If all parents had pass through what we did just to attend the orientation (not yet to adopt the kids), half the children in the United States would not have been created. We filled out the paperwork and sent it ceritified mail back to DSS.

We attended the orientation and the lady assisgned to us as our family adoption case worker said she did not receive our paperwork. Luckily, I am very detailed (ok, I admit it, anal retentive) when it comes to things I really care about . I printed out the receipt from the USPS website showing that the paperwork had been signed for by a member of their office and brought it to the orientation. The next day we emailed the Supervisor to see if she knew where our paperwork went. I expressed our concern because it  had our social security numbers, financial instituational information, medical and psychological history on that paperwork. She replied that I was "so silly" to be concerned because she had it on her desk. This frustrated me because our family case worker is the only one that can process our information and she was unaware that her supervisor had it on her desk a few cubicles away. That was only the beginning of the lack of communication with us and amongst themselves.

The next step was we needed to attend 16 hours of training. This consisted of an outside contractor coming in and teaching us how to take care of abused, neglected and special needs children. We had to watch videos. I felt like I was in health class again. The contractor was a former social worker that could make more money doing this. She wasn't suppose to, but when the family case workers and supervisor stepped out of the room she told us real stories of what she had seen when she was a children's case worker. She told us of a little boy who's mother would beat him with her stiletto high heeled shoe about the head and he had permenant scars. She told us of another little boy that everytime he was "bad" his mom's live in boyfriend would hold his face under water in the toilet. The stories went on and on. It broke our hearts and occupied our minds for weeks after.

The next step was for the Fire Marshall, DHEC and Home Study contractor to go out inspect our home. We had to buy commercial grade fire extinguishers, put fire alarms every 16 ft and label when they expire visibly on its base. Our windows had to measure 6 square feet when open. Their reasoning for this was that a fireman with his pack on had to fit in the window. My thoughts were if there is a fire at our house and the firefighter needs to get a child out of the room, I doubt they will stop to open the window. They will just take their ax and break it open so they can get them out fast.

For the DHEC inspection we had to lock up everything chemical. We santizied and scrubbed everything. We had to change the setting on our hot water heater and have an emergency evacuation plan on our fridge. We passed both.

The next step was the Home Study Caseworker. We met with her at our home. She came though and did her own inspection. She had to look in cabinets and closets and even inspected the backyard. She was very nice and very helpful. She had to come out the standard two times for a couple hours. She interviewed us about education level, how we were disciplined as children, what surgeries we had in the past, what values were we raised with, etc. She had to find out if we were closet abusers. Which with what the kids in DSS go through to get in the system, I am glad they do that before they place them.

The Home Study Caseworker wrote up our home study and we did not hear anything for two months. Please keep in mind that this process had already taken us over 6 months, thus far and we were not even approved. We emailed our family case worker to follow up and she said she was no longer our caseworker and she had no idea where our case file was now. It frustrated me that no one had contacted us to let us know that we were represented by someone else. I contacted the supervisor and she again patronized me for being concerned about our missing case file. Two and a half months later they found it, but would not reveal where. Our home study report had never been sent back for revision and that took another month. It took another month and a half to finally get our approval letter. We were approved to start the process of adoption after over a year. Please keep in mind, I am not discouraging anyone from adopting through DSS, I just want to illustrate a realistic picture of what the process is like. You are dealing with a government agency that has too many people that have been there too long without our any accountability. Is the process worth it?  ABSOLUTELY! I look into the faces of the two  children I have in my home and praise the Lord for the beauty he created.

The next step was keeping our names out there so we would get chosen for children. I will describe that process in the next blog posting. Thank you for reading my entry!