On the Negotiationland Crazy Train, Take Good Advice Where You Find It

Encountering Loquacious Geezers

As your strange journey through Negotiationland continues, you have time to reflect on the conversation you just had with the crazy looking Geezer in the Lounge Car. Between rambling narratives about “Old School” bureaucracies and illegal, after hours office chair racing, he managed to ask some pertinent, if rather obvious questions.

“If you were this child’s foster parents for three years, shouldn’t the agency know all about your child’s needs and your family circumstances?”

“Shouldn’t that knowledge about your child’s needs and your family circumstances, be a good place to start negotiation of an adoption assistance agreement?”

Your first impulse is to bolt from the Lounge Car before he crazy looking geezer launches into another rant about incompetent political appointees (headless nails) who, once they’re in, never leave, or the brisk trade in stolen office supplies back in the 90’s. But then you pause and think “maybe this guy is onto something.” In previous posts, your faithful Narrator (Travel Guide) has noted,

a. Claims that adoption assistance must be more restrictive than foster care maintenance payments because you become legally responsible for your child when you adopt, do not stand up to legal scrutiny.

b. The whole point of negotiating an adoption assistance agreement is to invest in the establishment of a permanent family. Adoption assistance is a public investment that is added to the family’s resources.

c. No topic is off limits when an agency and adopting parents are discussing an investment in a permanent family. Parents are quite capable of presenting their primary reasons for needing adoption assistance.

So, why not start the conversation by referring to your child’s past, current and anticipated needs, along with your present circumstances. These things are not very likely to change on the date the adoption is finalized? You are not starting from scratch when you begin negotiations of an adoption assistance agreement. Having begun the process with a fund of shared knowledge, you can ask the agency representatives what questions they have and what additional information or documentation would lead to an agreement about the amount of an adoption assistance payment you and your child need.

You can then ask yourself, “is agency’s request for additional information reasonable?” “Is the requested information necessary and/or attainable? Remember, you are seeking supplemental support, to help meet your child’s ordinary needs and to treat a delay, learning deficit, speech limitation, behavioral or other limitation that is affecting your child’s normal development. The problem(s) should be well documented. An agency might want to learn more about anticipated treatment needs, but negotiation of adoption assistance need not become fixated on fitting a child into a precise diagnostic category.

You can also ask yourself, is an agency’s request for information consistent with federal and state policy? You still must feed, cloth and shelter your special needs adopted child. Adoption assistance is an investment and is limited by your child’s foster care payments. It is not a contest to prove your love for a child by demonstrating how little you can live on.