Arden Shore

We have been working with Arden Shore Child and Family Services to become certified as a foster family. They sent us an initial packet of information, which was missing multiple items. Twice we had to request additional information. My family went through the process of filling out all of the paperwork, getting physicals at our doctor (at our expense), etc. We were then told by Arden Shore Child and Family Services that we would not be considered because we are only considering fostering one child and they are looking for families to foster multiple children.

Had Arden Shore notified us up front of their stipulation of fostering multiple children, we could have chosen another agency to work with. Instead, we were strung along and had to spend our time and money completing the steps we thought would lead to our family becoming certified to become a foster family.

This experience has left us feeling very skeptical of the entire process. Should you consider becoming a foster family, I would suggest looking at agencies other than Arden Shore.

My nephew was taken from his parents January 2015 and placed into custody by dcfs and then given to arden shore. I had been trying to reach out to foster him since the day he was taken. My calls were never returned or acknowledged until 6 months later where I was told by Dora Maya that a paternity tests was needed to prove I am the aunt. We hired a lawyer and went through the courts and had a test done November 2015. I was told that I would now be considered for placement and needed a home inspection done and background checks. I passed them all. Then I was told by Monica that I would need so many visits and then transition to unsupervised and then to overnights. I never got my regular visits every week because they were "too busy" or Monica was "sick" or on "vacation." 3 months have gone by since the paternity establishment and still no consecutive visits or progression. I had spoken to carlos who said that he was going to see to it that I got my visits so we could move forward. That never happened. I spoke to Margaret (Monica's supervisor) who told me that I would need to have a permanent residence(as I was going to move soon) before they could give my nephew to me. So I broke my lease at my current apartment to obtain a very large home to accommodate the situation. In January 2016, my 1 month old neice joined my nephew because the pregnancy was not reported and her brother (my nephew )was already in foster care. I now wanted them both. After doing everything arden shore asked me to do, I got a call from carlos saying that they will now have a deliberation with D.C.F.S to decide where the children will be placed. I got a call about a week after the deliberation which was a couple days ago saying that they all decided to keep the children with there foster parents. The reasoning was that too much time has passed. Noone could answer my valid concerns or questions such as when did they decide to much time had passed before having me jump through hoops. My neice had only been gone a month and they wouldn't at least let me have her because they wanted the kids to stick together. These are kids that didn't even know of each other until a month ago. Every valid point that I brought up about the facility and how wrong they did things were either answered with silence,lies or irrelevant excuses. This is a department that expresses that their goal is to place children with family members whenever possible. It has always been possible but they prefer to make money off of these kids instead. This is a fairly new location so the more cases, the better the business, donations, tax write offs,ect. People need to know what goes on at this place. These people don't take their job seriously and there is absolutely no integrity from anyone that I have spoken to at this location. Seems like a crazy outrageous situation doesn't it? Well it absolutely is and I hope that noone else has to ever go through what I have. I will never stop sharing my story because if it happened to our family, it can easily happen to another. Children are our future and are human beings not pay checks and dollar signs. Their experiences matter and keeping children with strangers when their own loving family members are available and willing is Disgusting.