When we decided to pursue foster care adoption, we thought a 5- or 6-year-old might be the best fit for our family.
So I started searching for foster care agencies in our area. I sent emails, and when one of the agencies responded, I was thrilled. We scheduled a meeting and started moving forward.
At the time, I didn’t understand how much choosing an agency could shape our experience. Honestly, I didn’t even understand all the different layers of the foster care system or what questions I should be asking.
I was mostly thinking about getting started.
Looking back, we weren’t asking the right questions because we didn’t yet know what mattered.
It wasn’t until our plans began to change that I understood why the agency itself mattered so much.
When Our Plans Changed
As we learned more, we began to question whether an older child was actually the best fit for our family. We eventually decided that we felt better prepared to start with an infant.
That created a problem we hadn’t anticipated.
The agency we’d chosen didn’t typically place many infants. We later learned that other agencies, as well as families licensed directly through our local Department of Child Services, had more opportunities for infant placements.
Meanwhile, we continued to be asked about meeting or fostering older children.
That was difficult because one of the reasons we had reconsidered our original plan was that we didn’t have parenting experience yet. We weren’t comfortable saying yes simply because a placement was available.
Looking back, I can see that the agency hadn’t necessarily changed. We had.
But I hadn’t understood when we started that different agencies could have different placement patterns, or that those differences might matter so much.
What I Would Ask Before Choosing an Agency Now
There are several things I would want to understand before choosing an agency now:
- What ages do you place most often?
- Where do most of your referrals come from?
- How often do you need foster homes for infants, toddlers, school-age children or sibling groups?
- If our age range or circumstances change, what would that mean for us?
- What opportunities are there to provide respite care and gain experience?
- How does working with your agency differ from becoming licensed directly through the local child welfare department?
- What happens if we’re contacted about a placement we don’t feel prepared to accept?
- What kind of support do you provide after a child is placed in our home?
When we started, I thought choosing an agency was mostly about finding someone who could help us become licensed. I didn’t understand that different agencies could have very different placement patterns, or how much that might matter if our plans changed.
If I were starting over, I would spend much more time understanding those differences before choosing where to begin.
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