Foster care adoption involves adopting a child who is currently in the foster care system whose parental rights have been terminated. These children may have been removed from their birth family due to various reasons and are now in need of permanent, loving homes.

Begin by contacting your local county or state foster care agency. They can provide information on the process, including training and certification requirements. If you can’t find your local resource, our team can help! Send us an email at info@thereelhopeproject.org.

Unlike infant or international adoption, there are very few costs associated with adopting from foster care. Most states have private agencies that can provide foster care licensing and case management services for free, with minimal fees associated with a background check and buying items for the required home safety checklist.

No, not all children in foster care need an adoptive family. The goal of foster care is always reunification with birth parents. Ideally, birth parents are able to restabilize and reunite with their children. However, if birth parents are not able to make sufficient progress in a given amount of time, eventually their parental rights will be terminated. In this case, their children become wards of the state and legally eligible for adoption. Nationally, there are approximately 100,000 kids who are waiting to be adopted.

Our team follows the instructions of each state partner, and will connect the inquirer to the appropriate next steps! Please be aware that the majority of states will request that those who inquire be licensed before sharing additional information about any waiting child.

It depends on the child: some kids are only eligible for adoption within their current state, while others are eligible for adoption in multiple states. Most children’s eligibility is listed below their reel on the Waiting Kids pages on our site.