Stephen

Description

This little charmer is Stephen! He is four years old and was adopted through the US foster system right before his third birthday. He lives with his adoptive parents and their other five children who are 18, 15, 10, 10, and 3. All five of his adoptive siblings have autism and require a lot of attention. His current family is his sixth placement during his short life. In each home, he has just been one kid out of many. He is desperate to feel special and to receive the undivided attention of parents who can focus primarily on him. He frequently expresses how unhappy he is in his current home and asks to live in a different family. He resents that there are other children in the home and does not want to interact with them.  For this reason, his parents are hoping to find him a home where he can be an only child or have only older siblings (12 years old or older.) They do not have other requirements, though they would prefer he be in a Christian home.

Stephen is very charming, social, and inquisitive. He loves interacting with adults and spending quality time with them. One of his all-time favorite things is being read to. He devours books and could sit for hours with someone pouring over books together. He is small for his age and has some global muscle weaknesses, so he tends to prefer calmer activities. He would sit and swing to his heart’s content with someone pushing him. He also loves playing with cars, dinosaurs, Mickey Mouse, and Spiderman toys. He enjoys coloring and working on puzzles as well.

Stephen’s absolute favorite food is oatmeal with peanut butter. He could eat it all day long. He isn’t a picky eater, so he enjoys all of the typical childhood foods like pasta, mac n’ cheese, and pizza. His current family is vegan, but he still likes eating meat if he has the opportunity.  The only food he has expressed dislike for is spinach (though he will still eat it if he’s asked to). Stephen enjoys going out to eat at restaurants and behaves well in public.

This is a private adoption, so a state or foster home study might not work. A private domestic homestudy is generally required. You will need to have a current, or easily-updated homestudy for this adoption. If your homestudy is current or you’re within 3 weeks of it being completed, feel free to inquire further. Our goal is to find a new, successful adoptive family for this child. We do not facilitate long-term respite care, nor do we allow for “trial periods” or visits between you and the child before the match is made and the child changes homes. By inquiring further, you are implying you have a desire to adopt, and not to offer other creative placement solutions.

Unless otherwise noted, we require that all of the children in our program be the youngest in their new family by at least two years. We ask that you honor this requirement and not ask us to bend the rules. These children need the chance to be the “baby” of the family and to receive much needed attention so they can attach and have a healthy start in their new home. When a sibling is close in age or younger than them, this will usually foster jealousy and competition which won’t lead to a successful placement. Thank you for understanding. If you are married, we also ask that you have been married for a minimum of 2.5 years before applying to adopt through our program.

Due to state laws, we are not able to place this child in CT, MA, NY, or DE. If you live in OR, you may need to travel to the child’s state to finalize this adoption or often finalization can be done virtually. If you live in WI, please let us know, as the adoption process may be longer and a bit more expensive than what is listed in our paperwork. NJ residents will need to check with their homestudy agency or an adoption attorney to see if their homestudy will work for this type of adoption. Some states are more work than others to get permission for the placement, and attorney fees are billed accordingly. If you live in AL, we will need a pre-placement meeting between the child’s parents and a social worker after you are matched to a child. This will be an additional cost to you.

If you have never had a home study before, we cannot help you adopt this child. However, we would love to share with you the process of starting a home study so you could be approved for a child in the near future. The easiest method is to Google “home study” and the name of your city. You can then call the agencies on that list and compare prices and timelines for getting a completed domestic homestudy. Once you’re within three weeks of having a completed homestudy, you can begin pursuing a match to one of our waiting children.

Grant Information: Many grant organizations have been very generous in giving grants to families adopting Second Chance kids. They like our program, and with international adoptions going down, domestic adoptions like ours receive a lot of attention. With this profile you are receiving, you also received a list of grant organizations.  These grants end up being a reimbursement for costs you have paid because you have to pay your adoption fees upfront. Keep track of all your receipts: agency fees, attorney fees, and travel fees, etc.. If you are approved (many, many families are), they will send the grant award to us, probably after you have the child home. We will ask you for your receipts, then we will send the funds to you.

If you are a U.S. citizen living overseas, we may be able to work with you depending on a few details. Please let us know your situation.

Adoption is a legal process so there will be costs associated. This adoption may qualify for the IRS Adoption Tax Credit.

Contact us at secondchanceinfo@wiaa.org.

*To protect the privacy of our waiting children and their families, Second Chance does not share real names for our waiting children on the Internet. It is our policy to only share a snippet of a waiting child’s details as well as the type of adoptive family we are looking for. If you fit the POSTED REQUIREMENTS, are home study ready (or can be soon!), and interested in adding this child to your family, please write to us for an honest, in-depth profile on the child including medical, educational, and behavioral information and learn the full story of why this child needs a secondary adoption. Our program social worker and program director have worked together with the child’s family to carefully set the requirements for the new family. These requirements are not negotiable, so please honor the needs of this child by not asking us to bend them for you.