Permanent Care

[mareew]

Hi All

Im happy to find this forum. I was wondering would anyone be able to answer a couple of questions for me on Permanent Care. My hubby and I are currently doing Education Classes for PC and would like to know if older parents are a disadvantage for PC, both hubby and I are 40 and we also have an overseas adopted child who is 5. Does anyone know how long the process is in Victoria? Having a child already in the home is that a disadvantage, dont wont to go through the whole process if the odds are packed against us but would dearly love to extend our family

Thank you in advance.

[SJL]

Hi,
I dont know a lot about the conditions of perm care but as far as I am aware being 40 shouldn't be an issue.
I am pretty sure they will only place children younger than the youngest child in the family.


You should be fine once they finish the assessment. The quicker you get all the paper work done the quicker the process is, but it could still take a few months to a year, just depends how many applications they are processing.
I know my sister was asked to be a perm carer for a young boy - they rushed her apllication and paper work through in 4 weeks but yet my aunt applied and it took 9 months (although she did delay the process a bit on her behalf)
Good luck.

Sjl

[~clover~]

Hi, I don't know if Vic is different, but my friends parents fostered children. I'm not sure if their DD's age had any affect, but all the children they took in were older than their DD.
They took in teens as most foster carers prefer younger children. Under 5. They did have one little special needs boy who was 5.
I know 2 others, all are different ages & all have children of different ages. My friends parents were over 40 & had their oldest DD pass at 14 the year before they started.
Another ended up as a single parent of her 2 plus the 5 she fostered, but the kids all stayed with her still til their parents decided they were ready to have them back. The other had a 6 month old baby when she started & the little boy she has is older than her baby DD.

[HotI]

In permanent care, most decisions on family suitability are made by the department (as opposed to adoption where birth families have greater input on who is selected) so your age will be less of an issue.

Having a child already will not stop you from being placed with another child. It will come down to if your family matches with a child they are looking for a family for.

Vic is a bit different to the other States, permanent care is not fostercare, but more similar to adoption. The difference between pc and adoption is in adoption the child has been 'voluntarily relinquished', and kids in pc have usually been removed from a family by the Courts.

[mareew]

Thanks everybody for replying and your great advice :

We are currently in the midst of education groups, very daunting but if we hadnt done it the first time around with ICA we wouldnt have our DD now, who is such a joy!

Cheers Maree