Not one family in our class has been licensed yet!

[jwinct]

I sent an email out to all of our classmates, asking if they've been licensed yet and not one family has been yet! One family told me that they were told it would probably be another six months for them. OMG!

I emailed our SW yesterday to ask her how long the homestudy review process typically takes and this was her repsonse:

Good morning Jan

I do not know when your file will be reviewed. Your file was the last of the studies I handed in on 6/3/15 after receiving the fingerprint results. My supervisor reviews all of the files (entire binder and background checks included). She has several other social work staff besides me to supervise.

Once she reviews, she usually will give it back to me for revisions (questions, comments that need to be answered). I then make correction and resubmit. Once she rechecks and signs it, it is given to our manager for review and approval. Once she approves it, you are officially licensed. You will get a license (certificate) in the mail (license has a two year effective date). You will then be reassigned to a support worker for monthly phone calls and quarterly home visits unless you get a placement, and then it would be more frequent.

I hope this helps.

Let me know if you have other questions, concerns.

From the sound of this email, my guess is that it really is going to be another six months. This process is so frustratingly slow!!! It's now been over a year a half since we started this process. Get it together, Connecticut!

[mlgnumbers]

Our licensing in IN only took about 6 mos. from application to fully licensed. But our licensing in MA was very slow. It took a total of nine months, and that was with me pushing the department every step of the way (and much of our homestudy being able to be transferred from IN). Try to keep your chin up. Unfortunately, the licensing process is often a foreshadow of your actual experience with DCF throughout the foster or adoption experience. My best advice is to be as proactive as possible. Good luck!

[pinkie]

That is so ridiculous! I'm sorry this has been such a poorly organized process for you.

[alaskadee]

Wow! I'd be frustrated too! Our home study agency from the start said the home study process would go as quickly as we did, and this held up to be true. It took us 4 months...from initial contact until we had a copy of the home study in our possession. I'm sorry this process is taking so long for you guys! :/

[ceejay]

Such a frustrating situation! I'm sorry you have had to wait so long... hopefully it won't actually take another 6 months to get your license. Maybe that's the worst case scenario...?

Our licensing process has taken longer than we originally anticipated too, but I think in our situation it's because our case worker is overloaded with foster families and/or doesn't seem to be in any rush. We first contacted our agency in early March and after our first meeting with our case worker, she told us that we would likely be licensed by July. Then at some point it got pushed back to August. Now we're just waiting on our final visit for our home study and she wasn't able to schedule it until the very end of July. Which means our documents won't be submitted to the state until sometime in August, and we'll hopefully be licensed by September. I love our case worker but I wish she was as motivated to get us licensed as we are! It's so frustrating to just sit and wait on other people.

[akafred]

That is actually good communication. We got a lot of "it's on my supervisor's desk" replies, but it turned out she hadn't actually done it. Then when we pushed a couple times she would claim that something got lost or a signature wasn't done and that would reset the clock. The guidelines were that the caseworker has 90 days to write it then the supervisor has 30 days.

It was right about a year from application to approval for us. It took a couple months to get into the classes though.

Hope the time passes quickly for you.