Kinship foster care adoption is more common than you think. Hattie Davis and her husband began their kinship adoption journey back in 2017. On October 3, 2017 CWS removed her niece and nephew from their home. As soon as the couple found out they knew that they had to do something.
Hattie contacted her niece and nephew’s social worker who put her in contact with an adoption worker. From there the couple began the process of becoming eligible to foster the children but still had hopes that her brother would be able to regain custody of his children.
Growing a Family Through Kinship Foster Care to Adoption
After 8 long months of going through the RFA process, Hattie Davis and her husband officially became licensed foster parents. The two children, Mayzie and Mason, left their foster home in San Luis Obispo to visit the family in San Diego for two weekends. After that, the two children officially moved in with their new foster parents.
The family already consisted of 5 children before Mayzie and Mason moved in. They had to adjust to adding 2 more kids into their daily routines. Moving from a 2-bedroom apartment to a four-bedroom house to make more room for everyone.
They spent an entire year establishing a routine and growing mutual trust. Hattie even had to cut back to working part-time in order to keep up with all the therapies and extracurriculars for the kids. Two years after their journey began their adoption finally became official.
Simple Advice
Hattie’s advice for prospective foster parents is to be kind and patient. There’s no telling what the kids have endured. Maybe they won’t be ready to open up right away so you have to work around them. The system needs more foster parents that can give kids a loving home. If you’re considering becoming a foster parent be sure you’re 100% ready when you make the commitment. It will be a long journey with a lot of ups and downs but the ultimate goal and impact outweigh anything.
In Conclusion
We appreciate Hattie Davis for sharing your kinship foster care to adoption story. For those who are in the process of fostering to adopt, Foster Love – Together We Rise offers free adoption day photography through our Framing Forever program. Click here for more information!
