Adoption from Foster Care
Each year the state removes many children from their families based on allegations of neglect, abuse or abandonment. Sometimes the parents’ parental rights are terminated, and the child is deemed “freed for adoption”. Too often, however, children remain in foster care until reaching the age of majority and they never achieve the emotional security and stability of having a “forever family”. Although some children are adopted shortly after birth, the vast majority of children adopted through the public agency adoption process have been in foster care for an extended period of time before being adopted. Adoptive parents apply to the agency which provides them with the training required for them to successfully foster and/or adopt a child who may have experienced the abuse or other trauma. Public agency adoption is attractive because there is little or no cost involved, there is an opportunity to adopt an older child (if desired) and the adoptive parents may be eligible to receive financial assistance (an adoption subsidy) if the child has special needs or meets the criteria of being “hard to place” and — most important of all — you are providing a home to a child who is truly in need of a forever family.