we just found out my husbands young cousins were put in foster care in north carolina, we live in maine, we are sick about this. and would take them all in a heart beat, how do we go about fostering them untill mom gets it together, she is in a shelter and we cant get in touch with her

wanda, call the county social services the kids live in and let them know your interest, try to track down their worker, and follow up each conversation with a written letter sent registered mail.... if you daon't know the county send it to the state DSS with DOB and full names.... if you are willing to take them without payment this can usually go pretty fast.. sometimes they will not send kids out of state for foster care if bio-mom does not want that...

I have a cousin who did kinship foster for her niece since she was like 7 years old and.. my cousin was only 20 when this started.. and she had had the girl 10 years now..

most of the time if they are willing to keep the child, even if they don't want to adopt, they will let the child stay there

Wanda,

Please check out the posts on Kinship Placement below:

What is Kinship Foster Care?

Kinship Placements & Family Involvement in Foster Care

Process of Kinship Placements & Family Involvement in Foster Care

Lanette

We adopted our children 2yrs ago, from the system.We told DSS that if any other children were born to contact us for placement of the child.
We just found out that my children have a full blooded baby sister. She is in DSS custody right now. We have been trying every thing to find out why she is not with us. No one seems to be able to give us a good answer.
I know that there is a lack of communication (if Any) within the system. However they know that she has 3 siblings and that we would like to adopt her as well.
I am getting an "Oh Well" type of attitude and am very surprised that they dodn't seem to care that these kids are seprated. When our children came to us they had been seperated. It was the systems main priority to get my children back together. But this time It doesn't seem to be that important. My 10 year old son has more logic then the social workers and directors, he said to us "Mom I don't understand , If you were good enough for us, then why can't our sister be with us too?"
I think I'll let DSS answer that one.

DSS is trying to say that the child is bonded to the fosrter family who intends to adopt her. She is about 8 mo. old. (maybe younger) My daughter was 18mo. old when she came to us. She bonded to us very fast and is now a healthy, happy, thriving 6 yr old.
I am not heartless I know it would be devistating to this foster family to have to let go of this baby. My daughters first foster family were very sad and upset. But hey knew it was in my daughters best intrest to be with her brothers. Has a foster parent you know that a child can be removed at any moment, and it is always sad. The main thing is to keep siblings together. This is very young child who will easily adapt to a new enviroment.
Again from the mouths of babes my 7yr old son said " It's not fair, it's not our fault that she bonded with them, they never gave her a
chance to be with us." and I have to say I agree with him.
The more research I do the more that I relize that it is not as simple as they over looked the fact that she had other siblings. The GAL for this child is the same GAL that my children had. Now try to tell me that they didn't know my kids were adopted out of the system. I feel that the foster families feelings are being considered above my childrens.
I also know that this babies rights are being denied. Every child has the right to be placed with family first and the right to be placed with siblings. I am told that it is DSS who has the final decision, that you have to work within the system. What do you do if the system won't work with you?