ADOPTION FAQs

What is Foster Care?

Generally refers to the system set up to protect children who are abused, neglected or abandoned or whose parents or primary caretakers are unable to fulfill their parenting obligations because of addiction, mental illness, emotional problems or a host of other reasons. In such latter cases, the placement into foster care by parents may have been voluntary.

What are the advantages of being a fost-adopt parent with TLC?

TLC Child & Family Services gives a tremendous amount of support to prospective parents. We help you to be a successful parent by providing specialized, comprehensive and ongoing support and training. This includes individualized treatment planning for the child, 24-hour access to our professional staff in the event of a crisis, weekly contact with a social worker (with low caseloads to insure excellent working relationships), and 12 hours of training each year by TLC staff and community experts. We maintain an excellent outcome record of foster children placed in our care during the past 10 years; most children placed in fost-adopt homes have been successfully adopted by their TLC family.

What are the requirements to become an adoptive parent?

We regard our parents as part of a team of professionals willing to provide the child with a safe, healthy and stable home environment. You may be single or married, with or without your own children, rent or own your home, and of moderate income. TLC parents need to show that they are healthy enough to care for children, and there is adequate bed space, among other requirements. Our most successful parents are flexible, committed, have a non-judgmental attitude, and a good sense of humor!

Is fostering a child a precursor to adoption?

Fost-adopt programs were created to bridge the gap between a child's initial need for temporary care and the long-term need for a permanent home. Children are in the U.S. foster care system and, in addition to state and county fost-adopt programs, some private agencies like TLC also work with social services to assist in these placements.

In fost-adopt programs, social workers place the child with specially trained fost-adopt parents before the child's biological parents' parental rights have been permanently terminated. These fost-adopt parents make a commitment to adopt the child if and when those rights are terminated and the child is legally free to be adopted. Children who are matched with our families are at different stages of the legal process, and, thus, can have different levels of probability of being reunified with his/her parents. The fost-adopt parents have the ability to choose a child who is at low risk of reunification and/or further along in the legal process. The courts do not terminate birth parents' rights until after an adoptive family is identified (so that the child does not become a legal orphan).