How much do you get to foster a child in pa

Foster Care in PA | Adoption.com

Deciding to become a foster parent is a big decision. Understanding the various steps, regulations, and requirements to pursue foster care in Pennsylvania (PA) is critical before you take the first step. Foster care in Pennsylvania is similar to foster care requirements in other states; however, some differences are important to understand as you move forward.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway defines foster care as “a temporary service provided by states for children who cannot live with their families.” Foster care in PA starts with understanding if you meet the requirements and if you are emotionally, physically, and financially ready to bring a child into your family on a potentially temporary basis. Although you can adopt through foster care in Pennsylvania, there are separate steps to doing so as your foster care placement proceeds. Understanding the timelines, costs, and steps involved with foster care in PA will help you take the first step.

REQUIREMENTS FOR FOSTER CARE IN PENNSYLVANIA

To bring a child into your home through foster care in PA, you need to meet certain requirements. Loving families, just like yours, are key to the success of the child welfare system. Right now there are approximately 15,000 children in temporary foster care in Pennsylvania. As a foster parent, you will have the unique opportunity to touch the lives of children by opening your heart and home to them.

It takes a special type of person to provide stability to children in crisis when their own home has stopped being the right place for them to live, at least for the time being. But that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped needing what all kids need: security, nurturing, and guidance. Foster parents step in and provide those protections temporarily.

Most importantly, Pennsylvania, as do most states, requires a prospective foster parent to be committed to loving and nurturing a child in your home and be willing to openly work with everyone involved in the child’s life to ensure he or she is thriving. This includes the biological parents and family members, social workers, teachers, and support people. Foster parents need to be dedicated and supportive of doing everything they can to help the child be reunited with his biological family members. In terms of specific requirements, they are as follows:

– Be at least 21 years of age.

– Pass a medical examination that states the individual is physically able to care for children and is free from communicable disease.

– Pass screening requirements related to child abuse and criminal history clearances.

Several other factors are assessed when the agency conducts their home study such as there will need to run a criminal background check on everyone in the home over the age of 14. Although prospective foster parents do not need to be financially well-off, they will need to have the monetary resources to support a child or additional children in their home. The structure of the home will also be assessed for safety and to ensure that the child has enough room in the home. Some other items included in the agency’s home study are as follows:

– Prospective foster family’s ability to provide care, nurturing, and supervision for the child.

– Demonstration of an emotionally stable environment.

– Ties with family, friends, and community.

– Relationship with own children (if applicable).

– Ability to meet the special needs of the child.

The adoption agency will also consider other matters such as parent/child relationships, how the applicant can meet the special needs of children placed in the home, and the number and characteristics of children best suited for the foster family. The foster family residence must meet certain minimal requirements. Regulated requirements can be located in Title 55 Pa. Code Chapter 3700 (Foster Family Care Agency). All of these factors will be discussed with you by the social worker assigned to your family and foster care application.

Adoption from Foster Care in Pennsylvania

Individuals and families who are interested in becoming a foster parent in Pennsylvania must consider what the effect of having a foster child or children in your home may mean. As a foster parent, you are diligently working with all of the people in the child’s life to help him or she be reunified with biological family, although, sometimes this is not possible. It is important to understand that you may have an opportunity to adopt your child through foster care in PA, and you may not. Children who are not able to return to their biological families for numerous reasons may be eligible for adoption in Pennsylvania. Others may age out of the foster care system without ever realizing their right to a forever family. You can play an important role in the child’s life to ensure this never happens. It is also important to understand some other risks, such as the likelihood and danger of foster children who run away from their foster homes. If you are interested in adopting a child from foster care in PA, you can start by looking at photo listings of available children in Pennsylvania. Many of these children are older or are sibling groups who are in desperate need of a forever family before they age out of the system. It is important to understand that the process is different for adopting a child or children from foster care in PA. Many parents wonder how long it takes to adopt from foster care in Pennsylvania, and it all depends on your specific child’s situation.

Can I Afford to Bring a Child into My Home through Foster Care in Pennsylvania?

The Pennsylvania Department of Children and Families reports that foster parents are paid $429 a month per child who is up to 5 years of age. Foster parents with children in foster care in PA ages 6 years old to 12 years old are paid $440 per month, per child. Foster parents of children ages 13 years and older are paid $515 a month currently. However, compensation rates are higher for children in foster care in PA in need of special services to support therapeutic physical, educational, or emotional needs. This should dispel the notion that foster parents are in it for the money, as these stipends are helpful and are supportive of the child’s ability to thrive by having his basic needs met for clothes, food, shelter, extracurricular activities, books, toys, and sports. However, it certainly does not cover all of the expenses of raising a child in your home through foster care. Most of the time when a foster child comes to your home and joins your family, she will come with very little or nothing at all in terms of material possessions. He will need necessities that all children need such as clothes, food, toiletries, school supplies, books, and toys. Infants and toddlers will have other needs such as bottles, pacifiers, diapers, baby toys, car seats, and safety gear to baby-proof your home.

However, this is not to dissuade you from having a child join your family and home through foster care in Pennsylvania. It is important to dispel the assumption that foster parents need to have a lot of money to foster a child or children. Children do not need a lot of money, fancy cars, vacations, or big homes. They just need an extra room, love, nurturing, and the commitment of foster parents to love them unconditionally and support their emotional, spiritual, mental, academic, and physical needs.

Resources for Foster Care in Pennsylvania

This article will hopefully provide you with the most important information you need to take the first steps in bringing a child or children into your home through foster care in PA. You will have more questions as the journey continues and as you take each new step. Adoption.com has wonderful resources as you continue to explore the process. Adoption.com’s Becoming a Foster Parent Guide is an excellent guide for understanding the process of bringing a child into your home through foster care, regardless of your state of residence. As specific questions arise, you can find support and advice from parents who are in the process of bringing a child or children into their home through foster care in PA through the adoption community boards and forums. You can post your questions and connect with other foster parents or prospective foster parents. This is a wonderful resource no matter where you are in the process of becoming a foster parent. Diving into the articles, resource guides, photo listings of children in foster care, and foster care forums will offer the support you need to supplement the training and support you will receive from the state of Pennsylvania as you go through their foster care licensing process to bring children into your home and family.

Opening Your Heart and Home to a Child in Foster Care in Pennsylvania

Most importantly, remember that your desire to open your heart and home to a child or children in foster care in Pennsylvania is what is most important as you begin this process. These children will expand your heart as you expand your home. As much as you are doing to support them through this difficult time in their life as they are transitioning into your home, they will be doing just as much for you as you see how much your love can grow.

Do you feel there is a hole in your heart that can only be filled by a child? We’ve helped complete 32,000+ adoptions. We would love to help you through your adoption journey. Visit Adoption.org or call 1-800-ADOPT-98.

Pennsylvania Foster Care and Adoption – AdoptUSKids

Every year, thousands of children enter the foster care system in need of safety, security, nurturing, and love. Many of our children are able to reunite with their birth family, but many others are not.

We encourage families to consider becoming a resource family. A resource family is willing to support birth family reunification originally and to adopt the child if the goal changes to adoption.

If you think fostering is not something you are able to do, there are also children looking for someone to adopt them. We are here to answer your questions and be a support.

Contact information

Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN)
Email (correo electrónico): pahelpline@diakon-swan. org
Toll-free Phone (Teléfono): 800-585-SWAN (7926)

Facebook: Pennsylvania Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN)

Foster care and adoption licensing requirements

Families interested in adopting or fostering must be at least 21 years old and must go through this process:

You will have to attend training. In Pennsylvania, we believe that it is best to complete 24 hours of “parent preparation” but the actual number of hours will vary depending on the agency that you choose to work with (because the state does not actually require the full 24 hours). The purpose of the training is to help you understand how the child’s past experiences can affect them, to talk about issues such as grief and loss, to provide you with parenting techniques, to tell you about resources available to help you, and more.
Prospective foster and adoptive parents, plus all individuals older than 18 years old who reside in your home, will need the several different types of background checks: State criminal background check and child abuse clearances; a federal criminal history record check completed by submitting a one-time full set of fingerprints; and certification from statewide registry of child abuse in any state in which he or she has resided during the past five years.
Current physical that includes a tuberculosis test.
References from non-family members.
Safety check of your home.
Work with a social worker in the agency that you choose so that he or she can complete a written document about your family’s strengths. This document is referred to as a "family profile" in adoption and a "home study" in foster care.

Our adoption process is strength-based, which means that we help you to identify your strengths and match them up with the needs of a child who is waiting.

We do not discriminate against families based on the topics of:

Marital status
Sexual orientation
Income
Home ownership or renting
Type of structure (single family home, apartment, or mobile home)

Foster care and adoption costs

Generally, all foster parent training is free, and the adoption of any child you have already been fostering in your home is free. There may be some minimal miscellaneous costs the family is responsible for, such as the cost of clearances and filing fees.

Depending upon the agency, a state resident who is adopting a child currently waiting in the foster care system – even if they are doing so without being a foster parent first - will have their agency fees paid by the state up front if:

They are adopting a child who is age 10 or older
They are adopting a sibling group
They are adopting a child with at least moderate challenges

When adopting, without fostering, all other children in the state foster care system or when adopting a child who is waiting in foster care in another state, Pennsylvania families may have to pay for some of the agency fees (e.g., training and family profile) up front. You may be reimbursed after a child is placed in your home. This is up to the policies of the child’s agency and the policies of the agency that you choose to work with.

Agency contact and orientation information

Please contact Pennsylvania's Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN) Helpline by either calling 800-585-7926 (SWAN) or emailing [email protected]. You will be put in contact with a SWAN technical specialist trained and experienced in talking with families interested in providing adoption, foster care, and other resource family services to children in placement. Specialists can also answer questions about Pennsylvania’s network of agencies licensed in foster care and adoption.

Parent support groups

See a comprehensive list of post-adoption and guardianship support services and support groups available to families who live in Pennsylvania.

Information on Pennsylvania's children

Our children have all experienced things that children should never experience. They have learned that you can’t trust adults to keep you safe, and they need someone to help them heal.

Many Pennsylvania children need resource families (foster families who are open to the possibility of adopting if the children cannot be reunited with their birth families). These children are all ages.

For many other children, their case workers have already determined that they cannot return to their birth families. They need adoptive families. These are older children (most of them are age 8 and older), and many of them have siblings that want to stay together.

Upcoming events

Information about upcoming events can be found on the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network’s (SWAN) website.

Check or Intrusion: How many years have adoptive parents been controlled?

How long can the guardianship authorities monitor adoptive parents? Three years or until the age of majority of the adopted child, according to experts from social security departments in some regions? The correspondent of the fund "Change one life" figured out the issue.

"How to explain to a child why a strange aunt examines his toys, looks in closets and asks strange questions?" Drawing - Julia Zamzhitskaya.

Moscow region: when you receive payments, get ready for inspections

“Nastya has been at home for more than three years. We officially adopted her back in the fall of 2013, when she was a three-month-old baby, by the decision of the Ramensky City Court of the Moscow Region, - says Olga Petrova from Moscow (Last name and first names of the adoptive parents have been changed - Auth.). - After that, the employees of the district department of guardianship, as expected, regularly came to us to check the conditions of the child. But my daughter is already three and a half years old, and today, during their visit, I asked how long they would control us. I thought that this was the last check, because three years from the date of adoption, allotted by law for inspections, had expired. The answer killed me: since you receive benefits, then up to 18 years. But what about the secret of adoption? How to explain to a growing child why someone else's aunt walks around the apartment, examines his toys, looks into closets and asks strange questions? We intend to tell Nastya the story of her appearance, but not everyone does this…”

Indeed, the annual inspections of the family by the guardianship and guardianship authorities cannot but raise questions in a child, especially in a teenager. Meanwhile, the secret of adoption is still protected by the Family Code of the Russian Federation, despite the critical attitude towards it on the part of psychologists. And there are many families that keep this secret.

In schools for foster parents, prospective adopters are told that they will be supervised for three years from the date of adoption. The procedure for inspections is established in paragraph 22 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 29March 2000, No. 275 “On Approval of the Rules for the Transfer of Children for Adoption (Adoption) and Control over the Conditions of Their Life and Upbringing in Families of Adoptive Parents in the Russian Federation”. It provides for periodic control examinations of the living conditions of the adopted child, the last of which should take place "after 35 months from the date of entry into force of the court decision, but no later than the end of the 37th month from the date of entry into force of the court decision."

There is a clause in the resolution: “The need for a follow-up examination after 3 years is determined by the guardianship and guardianship authority individually in accordance with the specific situation in the family of the adoptive parent(s). The control examination is carried out with the preservation of the secrecy of adoption. That is, after three years, a certain situation in the adoptive family, which requires continued control, may serve as the basis for continuing inspections. For example, a negative signal from neighbors is that the child is always hungry or bruised.

Nothing bad happens to the child in the Petrov family - the girl grows quickly and develops beautifully. So are the employees of the department of guardianship right in their intention to control the conditions of detention of an adopted child until he reaches the age of majority?

For comments, we turned to Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow. “Since citizens are adoptive parents based on the decision of the court of the Moscow region, and not the city of Moscow, they are paid a monthly compensation payment in accordance with the procedure established by the legislation of the Moscow region,” the press service of the department explained. - And according to the Procedure for the appointment and payment of monthly cash benefits to orphans and children left without parental care, placed for adoption in families of citizens of the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the Government of the Moscow Region of June 26, 2007 No. 452/22, for the payment of cash benefits adoptive parents annually submit a report on the living conditions and upbringing of the adopted child, compiled by an authorized specialist of the guardianship and guardianship authority and approved by the head of the guardianship and guardianship authority at the place of residence. Taking this into account, specialists from the OSZN of the Moscow region where the Petrovs live conducted a survey of the living conditions and upbringing of a minor on the basis of a request from the guardianship and guardianship authorities of the Moscow Region.

Following the logic of the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow, the visits of guardianship and guardianship officials to the Petrovs are legal: in order to pay the adoptive parents an allowance for an adopted child, they are obliged to control the conditions of his maintenance. And if the adoptive parents want to continue receiving benefits, then the employees of the social protection department will have to be allowed into the apartment every year and answer their questions. It is not entirely clear how to keep the secrecy of adoption under these conditions - adoptive parents can only rely on the common sense and understanding of specialists. These are the rules in force on the territory of the Moscow region.

Moscow: information is enough

But in Moscow the situation is somewhat different. If you adopted a child in the city of Moscow, then after three years, guardianship specialists should not visit you, even if you receive the notorious allowance. However, in Moscow this is not a benefit at all, but the so-called compensation payment to adoptive parents. Aleksey Rudov, Head of the Toward a New Family project and expert of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, comments :

- In Decree of the Government of Moscow dated May 26, 2009 No. 492-PP "On approval of the Regulations on the procedure for establishing and paying a monthly compensation payment to persons who have adopted in the city of Moscow after January 1, 2009 a child from among orphans and children left without parental care” establishes requirements for adoptive parents to continue receiving this payment. Reading:

"3.6. The adoptive parent is obliged to inform the department of social protection of the population, which pays the monthly compensation payment, about the circumstances leading to the termination of its payment, and about the change of residence no later than 10 days after the occurrence of these circumstances.

3.7. Every year, no later than December 1, the adoptive parent submits to the department of social protection of the population, which pays a monthly compensation payment, a document confirming the fact of cohabitation with the adopted child (a single housing document or a certificate from housing organizations or local governments of intra-city municipalities of the city of Moscow exercising powers in the field of guardianship and guardianship, or guardianship and guardianship authorities at the place of residence in another subject of the Russian Federation), in order to decide on the continuation of the payment of the monthly compensation payment from January 1 of the next year. If the adoptive parent fails to provide a certificate of cohabitation with the adopted child within the prescribed period, then the payment of the monthly compensation payment is suspended from January 1 of the next year. After receipt of the certificate, the payment is resumed from the date of suspension, but not more than for the previous 12 months. If during the period of suspension of payment circumstances arise that entail its termination, payment for the past time is made before the date of occurrence of these circumstances.

At the request of an adoptive parent living in the city of Moscow, a single housing document for making a decision on the continuation of the payment of a monthly compensation payment is annually requested by the department of social protection of the population.

- As can be seen from the text of the Resolution, there is a requirement to submit a document on the cohabitation of the adoptive parent and the adopted child, - continues Alexey Rudov . - There are no other requirements. Moreover, a single housing document can be requested by the guardianship authorities themselves, if the adopter so wishes. So, specialists of guardianship and guardianship authorities do not have the right to continue conducting surveys on the basis of the mere fact of receiving payments by the adoptive parent. If a family situation is identified in which it would be necessary to continue monitoring, this should be reflected in the previous acts of checking the conditions for raising an adopted child, and a separate reasoned decision should be issued on conducting further checks, indicating the reasons and procedure for checking. If this is not the case, further checks, and even more so, the requirement of some kind of reports from the adoptive parents is illegal. In practice, we see that some specialists are overly reinsured and unreasonably interfere in the affairs of the family. In such cases, you can seek help from the Department of Guardianship and Guardianship for Minors of the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of Moscow.

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Adoption of a child - German Federal Foreign Office

Foreign adoption

Attention! The Russian Federation is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation with regard to Foreign Adoption (HAÜ). With the entry into force of the German Adoption Assistance Act on April 1, 2021, it became mandatory to conduct a procedure for recognizing and determining the entry into force of the Russian decision on adoption before the German Family Court.

Only so-called assisted adoptions, ie those carried out with the participation and mediation of a German accredited adoption agency, can be recognized. It is possible to confirm the support of the adoption by the authorities of the state of residence of the child and the state of residence of the adoptive parents by presenting a certificate from an intermediary organization dealing with adoption, in accordance with § 2d of the Adoption Law (AdVermiG).

With regard to national adoption, nothing changes with the entry into force of the Law on Assistance in Adoption.

How can I adopt a child, a citizen of the Russian Federation?

If you, being a German citizen, wish to adopt a child from the Russian Federation, you must contact an accredited intermediary organization dealing with adoption issues. There you will receive advice on the adoption procedure, as well as assistance in the implementation of your intentions.
Please note that, in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation, adoption of children by same-sex couples is not possible.

Your German mission abroad at the place of residence of the child in the Russian Federation will support you by issuing a certificate in Russian, briefly explaining the impact of the adoption of a child on his citizenship from the point of view of German law. Experience shows that Russian courts require the presentation of such a certificate. As a rule, the specified intermediary organization dealing with adoption issues takes care of the submission of documents necessary for the issuance of this certificate, and the issuance itself.

How can my adopted child obtain German citizenship/passport?

According to German law, a child under the age of 18 who is adopted under German law acquires German citizenship automatically upon adoption.

In the case of adoption procedures initiated after 04/01/2021, the acquisition of citizenship takes place only after the German family court has declared its recognition.

To enable you and your adopted child to enter Germany before the end of the recognition and citizenship procedure, it is possible to issue a visa upon presentation of a certificate in accordance with § 2d of the Adoption Act with incidental recognition of the adoption decision by the foreign mission.
Please contact the visa office in advance as experience has shown that it may take some time to issue a visa.

Only in cases where it can be confirmed that the adoption process was initiated by an intermediary agency dealing with adoption, up to 21.04.2021 , after an incidental verification of the adoption decision, a German passport can be issued for entry into the Federal Republic of Germany.

If you plan to enter Germany after the completion of the adoption procedure, please contact the competent foreign mission in advance in order to carry out an incidental verification of the adoption decision.