Adopting A Child from the Foster Care System, Page 2

WHO ARE THE CHILDREN AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION?

Children available for adoption from the foster care system are usually older children. The average age is almost nine. Many are teenagers or pre-teens. More than 50% come from minority cultures. Approximately 40% are siblings who need to be adopted as a group to stay together. Many have physical or mental challenges. Others may have emotional problems resulting from circumstances beyond their control, such as abuse, neglect, abandonment and the lack of permanency in their lives. All need and deserve the love and security of a permanent family.

Most children are in foster homes. They live with trained foster parents, and become part of that family's community on a temporary basis. They go to school, play in the neighborhood, and participate in any number of community activities.

A small number of older children in the foster care system are in group homes where they live with other children under the supervision of adult caretakers. They go to school and participate in activities in their neighborhoods and communities.

Occasionally, a child may have severe emotional or behavioral problems and be placed in a residential treatment facility for a short period of time. These children live in the facility and do not go out into the larger community.

WHY ARE CHILDREN AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION?

At any given time, there are more than 500,000 children in foster care in the United States. These children are part of a nationwide foster care system that is managed by individual states and counties. They are children who, through no fault of their own, find themselves needing and wanting the most fundamental of human conditions; a family they belong to and can call their own.

Children become part of the foster care system because:

• Their parents realize they can't parent and take care of a child and voluntarily relinquish legal parental rights;
• They are abandoned or lose both parents to death or severe disability and don't have relatives to take care of them;
• They are removed from their homes and biological parents because of severe neglect or abuse.

The foster care system offers biological parents of abused or neglected children the opportunity to gain needed skills and resources to become capable and loving parents. Most parents are successful, and children are returned home. However, there are still over 100,000 children without legal parents, leaving them in need of permanent adoptive families.

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE ADOPTION PROCESS?

Adopting a child can be rigorous, and requires considerable time and patience. There are many instances in the process where you may become frustrated, disillusioned, and even discouraged. It is important to always remember that in the long run it is worth it for you, your family, and the child or children you bring into your home. Briefly, these are the steps of the adoption process:

• Make a decision to adopt.
• Locate an adoption agency that you can trust and be comfortable with.
• Participate in the homestudy process and have the homestudy document completed.
• Locate a child you would like to adopt.
• Have the child's Case Worker recommend you as an adoptive parent for the child.
• Have visitations with the child.
• Develop a plan for taking the child into your home.
• Take the child into your home.
• Complete the supervision period.
• Legally adopt the child through the courts.

Once the homestudy is complete, it takes between 9 and 12 months to go through the adoption process and finalize an adoption. Time length depends on how long it takes to find a child, get a recommendation to adopt the child, and complete the visitation and supervision periods prior to finalization of the adoption in court.