Don't go to OC Social Services to adopt.

Don’t go to Orange County Social Services Foster/Adoption if you are planning to ADOPT.

They won’t let you adopt.

Here’s the deal as of March, 2011: Reunification (with the birth family) is everything.  County Social Services has a huge need for foster families, and almost no need for adoptive families, but they won't tell you that up front.

This is what they will do instead.

They put prospective foster and adoptive families together in the same night courses called PRIDE (an acronym). In the PRIDE course they will tell you, “We have over two hundred children looking for a homes.”

That’s a lie.  Out of those 200 (the number fluctuates) about 150 will go back to their Family of Origin.  The rest will come up for adoption SLOWLY.  That means the children will start to age out of the system, and you will get children much older than the ones you were looking for.

The PRIDE instructors will treat the ADOPTIVE parents like dirt throughout the course, and treat the FOSTER parents like gods.  

They are trying to get rid of you, or get you to switch to fostering.

If you stick to your convictions, your assigned Senior Social Worker will treat you like dirt during the Home Study. (This is the fingerprinting/interviewing/checking out your house, legal stepping-stone.)

They are trying to get rid of you, or get you to switch to fostering.

If you still stick to your convictions, they will mismatch you with children who do not fit the TEN-PAGE form you filled out stating what kind of child you are prepared to adopt.

When told that this behavior is amoral – if not illegal – and that they should be up-front about the small number of children that are free for adoption in the PRIDE classes, the dumb-bunny Social Workers said, “Well, then everybody would just drop out.”

When it was pointed out to them that these are grown, middle-aged men and women capable of making their own decisions if they have a reasonable base of knowledge, the Social Workers made it clear they didn’t care how many people were disappointed and hurt, they would continue with their "Boil-the-Frog-Slowly" mentality.

If you want to adopt through the county, at the end of the first PRIDE class make them to tell you the real number of children who are free to be adopted NOW.  Then ask them point-blank if they are going to respect you as an adoptive parent.

When your assigned Senior Social Worker comes to your home, make her treat you with respect.

If you feel she doesn’t, then ask for her supervisor’s name and number, and then throw her out of your home.

You have a legal right to request another Social Worker if you don’t like the one assigned to you.

You are a prospective adoptive parent.  You deserve respect, and kindness.