Foster Parents and Adoption

by Child Welfare Information Gateway

This factsheet is written for foster parents who are considering adopting one or more of the children in their care. While this factsheet does not address the specifics of how to adopt, it provides information on the differences between foster care and adoption, and it explores some of the things for foster parents to consider when making the decision about whether to adopt a child in their care. Specifically, the following topics are addressed:

• Differences between foster parenting and adopting
• Trends in foster parent adoption
• Benefits of foster parent adoption for all involved
• Characteristics of foster families who successfully adopt children in their care
• Characteristics of foster families whose adoptions failed
• Resources

Differences Between Foster Parenting and Adopting

There are a number of significant differences between foster care and adoption for the foster/adoptive family involved, even when a child remains in the same household. Compared to foster care, adoption brings the following changes for the parents:

Full legal responsibility for a child. Legal responsibility was held by the agency during the time the child was in foster care.

Full financial responsibility for the child. Even if the family receives adoption assistance or a subsidy on behalf of the child, families are still responsible for financial obligations such as childcare and extracurricular activities.

Full decision-making responsibility. While the child was in foster care, decision-making was shared with the agency and birth parent. When the child is adopted, adoptive parents take on this full responsibility.

Attachment differences. The family is no longer working with the agency to help the child reunify with his/her parents; rather, they are now working to incorporate the child as a permanent member of their own family.

Trends in Foster Parent Adoption

Prior to 1975, agencies discouraged foster parents from adopting the children in their care, and parents who asked about or chose to adopt were not always welcomed. Agencies discouraged adoption by foster parents for the following reasons: fear of losing good foster families when they were no longer available to take other foster children; concerns about how other foster children in the home who were not being adopted might be negatively affected; or fears about the impact of openness between the foster family and the birth family. There was also a common assumption, even within the adoption community, that older children were not adoptable.

In the intervening decades, this practice has turned around as child welfare professionals and agencies increasingly recognize the benefits of foster parents adopting the children in their care if the children cannot be returned safely to their birth parents or relatives in a timely manner. The adoption field has come to acknowledge the benefits of this type of adoption for children, and shortened legal timeframes have made it easier for foster parents to approach their workers about adopting the children in their care. If foster parents do not suggest the possibility, their social worker may sometimes work with them to consider adopting children in their care who cannot return to the birth family. Some States now train foster parents as "resource families" for children, along with kinship and nonrelative prospective adoptive families. The foster family's role now includes not only acting as a support and mentor to the birth family to help the birth parents successfully reunify with their child if possible, but also to love a child and be open to having a permanent role in the child's life.

National adoption and foster care statistics show that foster parent adoptions accounted for over half of the adoptions of children adopted from foster care each year from Fiscal Year (FY) 1998 through the end of FY 2002. According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), in FY 2002, 27,567 (or 52 percent) of the 53,000 children adopted from foster care that year were adopted by their foster parents.

Who are the children in foster care in the United States?

Children in foster care are more likely to be older, members of a minority group, members of a sibling group, or survivors of abuse or neglect. In FY 2002, the average age of children in foster care was 10.2 years. The average age of children adopted from foster care was 7.0 years. A disproportionate number of the children in care are children of color.

Benefits of Foster Parent Adoption

Adoption by the foster family has the potential to benefit not only the child being adopted, but also the foster family and the child welfare agency. There are a number of reasons that a child's foster parents may be the best adoptive parents for that child:

Foster parents have a greater knowledge of a child's experiences prior to placement and know what behaviors to expect from the child. If they have sufficient background information about what happened to a child before this placement, some knowledge of how children generally respond to such experiences, and extensive information about this child's specific behavior patterns, the foster family is better able to understand and respond to the child's needs in a positive and appropriate way.

Foster parents usually have fewer fantasies and fears about the child's birth family, because they often have met and know them as real people with real problems.

Foster parents have a better understanding of their role and relationship with the agency - and perhaps a relationship with their worker (if the same worker stays throughout the duration of the child's placement).

Benefits for the Child

The biggest benefit of foster parent adoption for a child is the fact that the child does not have to move to a new family. Even very young infants may grieve the loss of the familiar sights, sounds, smells, and touch of a family when they must move. Staying in the same placement means the child will not leave familiar people and things, such as:

• Familiar foster parents and family
• School, classroom, classmates, and teachers
• Pets
• Friends
• Sports teams and other extracurricular activities
• Bedroom, house, or apartment

Since the foster family may have met or cared for a child during the child's visits with the birth family, the foster family is better able to help the child remember important people from the past and maintain important connections.

Benefits for Others

Foster parent adoption also benefits the birth parents in many cases by allowing them to know who is permanently caring for their children. For foster parents, receiving the agency's approval to adopt affirms the family's love and commitment to the child. Agencies benefit from this practice as it enables them to move children into permanency more quickly (since finalization of adoption requires that a child be in a placement at least 6 months, and this requirement has already been fulfilled in foster parent adoptions).

About the Author

www.childwelfare.gov
Formerly the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, Child Welfare Information Gateway provides access to information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. A service of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.