ADOPTION FAQs

What are the key features of fost-adopt programs (also known as foster-adopt and foster-to-adopt)?

Placement with a fost-adopt family usually begins before the child's biological parents' parental rights have been terminated. In addition, efforts at family reunification may still be ongoing, or biological parents may be appealing a decision to terminate their parental rights. Generally, children placed in fost-adopt programs are considered less likely than others to return to the biological family. When you agree to adopt the child if/when the biological parents' parental rights are terminated; you act as foster parents during this time. The main reason for making such a placement is to spare the child another move when adoption is viewed as a likely outcome. One reason many families opt for this type of placement is that a high percentage of children placed in fost-adopt families are young - including infants. When hopeful adoptive parents take care to educate themselves about the program, ask the hard questions, and ask social workers for realistic evaluations of the legal risks involved, it can be an excellent option.

What are the risks of fost-adopt programs?

There are varying degrees of risk, which you and your family will need to explore with the child's social worker and/or advocate. When a child is placed with a fost-adopt family, the child's permanency options are often being evaluated in two directions: adoption and family reunification. This is called "concurrent planning" and can be equally difficult for both the biological parents and the hopeful adoptive family, neither being very sure of the end result. And there is also a possibility of other biological family members making known their interest in raising or adopting the child. Often, though, relatives have already been ruled out at the time of a placement in a fost-adopt home. In other cases, the child's permanency plan is moving more definitively in the direction of adoption, or may be simply a question of a pending court decision to terminate parental rights (.26 pending).

What types of children are available for adoption through TLC?

We specialize in finding families for the children who are waiting in California's foster care system. They range in age from birth to eighteen. Often these children have siblings who need to be placed together. They are from diverse ethnic backgrounds and many have been abused or neglected and cannot return to their birth families. Many of these children are considered "Special Needs" children.

Who are special needs children?

Special needs children are foster children who are referred to TLC from county and state social service and adoption agencies throughout California. Being "special" refers to many categories of children including healthy children, children aged three or older, children of ethnic or minority groups that need families, children with brothers or sisters who should be placed together, and those with physical, mental, and emotional challenges or who have been drug-exposed. Most of these children have been removed from their birth families due to abuse or neglect.