What are the Social Services like in your 'hood? What story do you have to brush off the fact that kids don't age after being taken by SS? Does your 'hood have an orphanage type of home?

In my main 'hood, I pretend the government cryogenically freezes kids taken by Social Services and wipes their memories to preserve their youth. They are occasionally unfrozen to keep up with what's going on in the world, hence why they are sometimes seen on community lots.

I recently built an orphanage in which one adult Sim adopts kids until the household is full, and when they are ready to leave, they move on out (if they have the $10,000 necessary to go to college in my 'hood, then they can choose to do that). I use SimBlender to break the family ties between the adult and all the kids so they are not related through the family tree (and if they were siblings in their original home, then I of course set their ties accordingly). When the caregiver becomes an elder, the oldest kid will take over the orphanage. These Sims dedicate their lives to helping orphaned (or neglected) children grow up in a happy, safe home and reach their full potential.

Apart from the fact I haven't had kids taken by the SW since I was a brand new player, I made sure to add a mod a couple of years back so the game would not make one at all. I have no need of the games NPC, I have my own playable SW/orphanage owner.

My game does have an orphanage. Right now I have a set of twins handed over by my towns romance sim and one baby from a lady who is about to turn elder and didn't want anyone to know she had another baby since all her other kids are grown.

I do adoptions by having sims come over to my orphanage and spending time with the babies/toddlers. If they pay attention to them I have them adopt through the simblender, transport-move in-set family ties-change last name. The adoptive parents need to have at least 1K spare or be able to show a suitable nursery setup.

Jo, did you ever write up/ tell us how exactly you play and run your hood? I know you've made mentions here and there on various things, but I'd really be interested in knowin more on your ever day/ week play. I know others play integrated, but it seems as if you've really got it down good.

If you haven't, would you be willin to give a sorta walk-through instructions on all the things you have and do for your hood? Maybe use the "What're you doing in your hood?" group. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested in it either

This doesn't happen often, because most of my Sim parents are fine, so I can't say whether this is a truly safe practice, but this is what I've done. I let the social worker take the child, so that the parents get the memory and the removal plays out for story reasons, then I use a mod to teleport the kid out of limbo and into a foster or adoptive home. It definitely preserves their memories, and possibly their family ties (it's been awhile).

I have an orphanage but I still have the Social Worker for tghose times I forget to hit Pause and get distracted, .If this happens, then either another family adopts the child when ready, or the orphanage does when there's space. My neighbourhood backstory involves Sims persisting between many reinstalls; it's assumed that the memories seen in any Sim's memory box are only a fraction of their total memories. Sims are assumed to be aware of the rest of their personal history, completely comfortable with those events (unless for plot or character reasons they are not) and simply not gossiping about the other memories any more.

As for why Sims don't age with the social worker? The social work offices are in the main cyberstorm shelter. The protection from harmful substances and quality of medical care is so good there that Sims don't experience any of the harmful effects of aging. They may even add years to their lives, such is the highly nurturing nature of the social work offices. However, the social workers know that most Sims would trade that for the ability to see the rest of the world and live a full life, which is why the children eventually become adopted. Social Services are incredibly caring and strictly impartial, to the point where they refuse to speak to most Sims.

The orphanage is open to teens and younger. Teens may self-refer, while children and younger can be sent by parents in advance of a social worker visit (indeed, that's how it usually works). If the last/only adult/elder is sent to prison, all teens and younger are automatically sent to the orphanage, so they may live in the company of better influences in their lives (this has thankfully only happened once). If the last adult/elder left voluntarily or died, it's up to the teens in the group to decide the family's future; they can choose to raise the other children themselves if they wish, or make alternative arrangements (including the orphanage if they want). While some Sims are adopted from the orphanage by other families, it also sometimes happens that a teenage Sim (or teenage couple) wishes to raise one or more of their younger orphanage members in a home of their own. This is also permitted, and grants are made available for modest homes to be purchased or rented to this purpose.

@CaliBrat I did mention a lot of my business on my career thread. Maybe you mean more than that though? I am also a member of that group and never think to use it. I'm a bit busy this time of year to make really long posts but if you can find my post in the group and ask on there with a hail to bump it up I'll see what I can add/answer. Once I have time I could make an integrated hood post here in chat.

I understand bein busy with this bein holiday season so it's no rush. Maybe since you don't have lots of time, maybe just jot stuff down in word/ notepad as you can and then when you have time you could put it all in a more cohesive structure, then that way maybe it wouldn't be like there would be lots. I dunno...

Whatever you come up with and or do I'm sure will be good and we'll be happy with it

(And see I was right .. others would like it too as noted by the agrees and love my post got)

I mostly try to avoid having kids taken by the Social Worker, although I've given up on the Ottomases a couple of times, and the Newsons once failed to keep their family together. Like the OP, I attribute the lack of aging of Sims in care to cryogenic storage (I also have all the townies in cryogenic storage, and those we see about town are holograms; the actual Sim is only awakened, with the hologram's memories, when they are invited to become playable).

In one hood, the now defunct Acadie, I created two nuns: Sister Marie ran the Maison Jeanne d'Arc, for widows and orphaned girls, and Sister Claire was the more active social worker who actually visited struggling families in the neighbourhood. Sister Claire would bring orphans and neglected children either to the Maison, if they were girls or babies/toddlers, or to the YMCA, run by a priest, if they were older boys; she also decided when an adult Sim needed to be committed to the psychiatric hospital. Sometimes she would stay with a struggling family for a few days rather than removing the children; this usually happened if at least one parent was trying to do a good job but was just overwhelmed. When she wasn't needed, Sister Claire lived in the Family Bin, so she became younger than Sister Marie and would eventually have taken over at the Maison after Marie retired, while a new young nun (possibly a Knowledge-aspiration playable with no good marriage prospects) would have taken over the social work role.

Less holidays and more end of year paper work.

I'm not sure I've ever had a child taken away by a social worker...

I had one sim but a baby up for adoption using the Sim Blender, and I already had an adoptive family lined up for her, who were able to adopt her straight away as she was the first one in the adoption pool. This adoptive family also later became foster parents to two boys, who were created in CAS as adults and then aged down. I moved them in with this family, so they don't have any family ties except with each other. One boy has since moved in with another foster family.

I don't allow children who've been taken away to be adopted-I don't like how it breaks their family ties. Recently, the only removals have been because of the deaths of the parents-so I moved in a caretaker, and teleported the kids in so that they could keep living in that house. (Well, in one three-toddler family I ended up farming two of the kids out to other families, but the same thing happened.)

My oldest, still-functioning neighborhood had a Church as an institution; the private school was its cathedral academy, sims in the Education and Medicine careers were nuns or monks. I always pretended the social worker was a nun. Children were almost always delivered to other relatives.The Church in this hood also had an order of Knights, who alone could be lawyers, politicians, and generals.

no social worker. modded away. Gone and not lamented.

The main reason I don't use the social services is because it messes up the family trees as well as the memories of the Sim child that was taken away/re-adopted. Stuff like that just bothers me to no end.

So no social workers in my game.

I sometimes WANT a child to be put up for adoption, so her daddy, older sib, etc can adopt. But I hate the loss of memory too, and there ARE other ways to move the kid.

If the SW worked properly (came for real reasons such as child goes hungry days in a row) and the game kept things such as memory and family tree intact I might use it but it's too poor a system. Taking all the kids because one has an F? What if that child is disabled?! That is something a bit close to home that sticks in my craw.

See, I wasn't sure if they all get taken because of one F. When I started playing again, I had a family with five kids (one teen, triplet kids, one baby), and one of the triplets got an F in school, but the SW only took that kid and the baby away, leaving all of the others at home. Maybe it was a glitch that they all didn't get taken away?

I plan to have kids get taken by the SW for story purposes sometimes and I totally agree re: memory-clearing and "failing grade = taken away" nonsense--at this point I might just use the SimBlender to teleport kids to the orphanage if it becomes necessary to the story.

I also discovered that you can cheat lol. If you send a parent to a community lot (and don't have community lot time), then you get the warning 'I shouldn't leave the little ones' pop up, but the parent can actually spend as much time as they like away because the game is at the same time when they come back and it hasn't been enough time to summon the Social Worker. I only discovered this in my testing neighbourhood, where I have glitchy nannies who like to both come over. I'm not neglecting my sim children, I swear. XD

My BACC neighborhood has a group home for teens and an orphanage for babies, toddlers, and children. They are operated by a husband/wife couple (the husband lives at the group home, the wife at the orphanage). I've had a couple of pregnant teens get sent by their parents to live at the group home, and end up placing their babies once born at the orrphanage. I also had one sim who gave birth to multiple green babies and, on realizing her alien boyfriend wasn't exactly reliable, decided that raising alien babies was more than she can handle, so she placed them at the orphanage.

Teens are available for foster placement with a family but not adoption. Children and younger can be adopted, but this way they keep their memories and so on. If they age to teen without being adopted they move to the group home. Depending on their aspiration, they have to win a certain number of scholarships to attend college (it's harder for the less academically focused aspirations) and if they don't, they just age to adult.

The group home has an orchard and a large farm so they will at least learn one life skill.

The orphanage is annoying AF to play with all the little ones, but I keep it because I like the kids to keep their memories and their family ties until they are adopted. The group home is actually a lot of fun: if you get a lot of teens under one roof, as you'd expect, there's a bunch of drama, and I'm way too entertained by my sims' drama. My favorite was the two boys who inexplicably hated each other and kept getting in fights. They were punished by having to weed the garden together. There are also a couple of married couples who met in the group home.

Agreed if all those things you mentioned were true, then I'd use them.

Still better than the Sims 4 version though, where you leave your children alone for 5 minutes and the sky police vaporizes them.

In general any of the step/adopted relationships could use work in Sims 2. Some system where step parents and biological parents both are able to have a familial relationship with their kids.