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Growing your family is a wonderful life experience. For many, one of the most meaningful chapters in life is raising a child. Whether it is your first, second, or third baby – there is something uniquely special about welcoming a child into your home. Taking this incredible leap may seem overwhelming, at first, but reading guides like these can help you feel prepared for the journey ahead.
You may be considering which type of adoption is right for you. Some families go through foster care, while others choose to adopt with the support of a private adoption agency. This is the first step to getting started. Read on, as we break down what it means to go foster vs adopt.
Understanding the Differences Between Fostering and Adoption
What is Foster Care?
Foster care is a state-run system that oversees the temporary and permanent placement of children, typically when the child’s home environment is deemed unsafe due to abuse, neglect, or other crises.
What is Adoption?
Adoption is the legal process of an adult assuming the parental rights of a child that is not biologically theirs. This process is permanent and means that all parenting responsibilities are placed to the adoptive parent(s).
Can You Do Both?
Yes. You can adopt a child through foster care. Foster parents can petition to adopt if the child has been in the foster parent’s care for a certain amount of time. The time period may vary based on your state, but it can often be as soon as six months from the start of your time with the child.
Is Fostering or Adoption Right for You?
Choosing to foster or adopt a child is a momentous life decision that requires thought, research, and great consideration. The process involves criminal background checks, home visits, and interviews. This helps ensure that every child is placed in a safe, stable, and healthy home.
Foster care can be a great option for someone willing to open their home to a child in need at any age, even if it is temporary. Adoption may be achieved via foster care or private adoption, but with foster care, there is a chance that the child will end up returning to their birth parents or another biological relative. Adoption is the permanent step for securing parental rights, giving many adoptive parents a feeling of comfort and security, knowing their child will be with them throughout childhood.
How to Get Started
Step 1: Educate Yourself About the Process
Knowledge is power. The first crucial step of fostering or adopting a child is to learn about both processes.
With foster care, there are resources such as AdoptUSKids that can provide valuable information about the foster care process. This site also offers a blog and YouTube channel wherein real foster care stories are shared.
The Child Welfare Information Gateway is another great resource wherein to turn. There you can find things to consider before going through the foster care system, including how to prepare yourself emotionally and logistically for the journey ahead.
Step 2: Decide Between Foster Care and Private Adoption
Once you have learned a bit about foster care and private adoption, you can spend some time determining which path is right for you and your family. The following is a brief breakdown of some of the considerations to make when trying to decide which choice to make.
Foster Care Adoption
Families may choose to adopt via foster care if they are looking for an inexpensive path toward adoption. There are little to no fees for foster care adoption, and oftentimes there are state subsidies offered to support this option.
This path can also offer a sense of “giving back” to the community, as there are thousands of children in the foster care system longing for a forever home.
Foster care often includes the fostering of older children, as there are many removed from their homes long after the infancy stage of life. There are many big kids, tweens, and teens in need of a good home environment.
One of the goals of foster care is reuniting families. This means there is a risk of “losing” your child to the biological family after you have cared for them and come to love them as your own. This is a risk of fostering a child, and a painful part of the foster care-to-adoption path that many families experience.
Private Domestic Infant Adoption
Private adoption works much differently than foster care adoption. With a domestic private adoption agency, birth parents voluntarily – and lovingly – place their child for adoption due to circumstances in her life. Many times, the birth mother will choose an adoptive family for her child, making sure to choose a family that can offer the warm, supportive, and stable environment she is not able to provide.
Because this is an optional path that birth parents make, it is often one chosen for an infant. Adoptive families looking to adopt a baby, as opposed to an older child, have a better chance of achieving this with the support of a private adoption agency.
A private adoption agency charges a fee for adoption, but it covers many expenses that are typically involved in the process of welcoming a child via childbirth, such as medical fees for the birth mother, counseling services for both birth and adoptive parents, and legal fees to ensure a smooth adoption process. Private adoption can also offer ongoing support and work with the birth and adoptive families toward creating – and maintaining – an adoption plan that meets the needs of everyone involved.
Step 3: Choose an Adoption or Foster Care Agency
One of the most important steps in the process is to choose an adoption agency with which to work.
If you are choosing to move forward with a foster care adoption, you will want to seek out the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF) in your state.
Private adoption agencies offer a range of services and may serve multiple states. Adoptions With Love, for example, only offers adoptions for adoptive families living in Massachusetts, but works with expectant/birth parents across the country. This may offer a bigger pool for those looking to be matched sooner with their baby.
Questions to Ask a Potential Agency
Here is a list of questions to ask before embarking on the adoption journey:
- How long have you been supporting adoptions?
- What is your average wait period for adoption placement?
- What services do you offer to adoptive parents? Birth parents?
- How often do you reconnect with adoptive families once the adoption is complete?
- What is your follow-up procedure for a failed adoption?
Step 4: Attend an Orientation or Information Session
Your local DCYF or private adoption agency can share some basic information to get your adoption journey started. They can also help you sign up for an information session or parenting classes, as needed.
Step 5: Complete Your Application and Home Study
Next, you will complete your foster or adoption application and prepare for the Home Study.
The Home Study is a process that takes several months to complete. It includes a criminal background check, multiple at-home visits and interviews, and the review of important medical and financial records. This process helps prove that you are responsible, stable, and healthy enough – physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially – to raise a child.
Step 6: Get Approved and Prepare for Placement
Once you have successfully completed the Home Study, you can prepare your home – and your heart – for a child. For private adoption, you will create an adoptive family profile. This typically includes photos, stories, and letters to the potential birth parent(s) so they can learn more about you and find a connection with you.
If this is your first child, you can prepare your home by child-proofing the space and stocking up on the essentials. For a private adoption, you may want to register for helpful baby items. If you are planning to foster an older child, you may want to plan their “big kids” room and create a playroom with toys to create a welcoming environment. Your social worker can help you determine the age-appropriate items that will best meet your child’s needs.
Begin Your Adoption Journey Today
If you are ready to begin the private adoption process, contact Adoptions With Love to get started. Call 617-964-4357, text (617) 777-0072, or contact us online. We can help you make the exciting step toward adoption with love, care, and support – every step of the way.