Families who want to be approved to adopt follow much the same path as families who want to foster.

• Families interested in adopting from foster care, whether they are seeking to adopt waiting children or foster to adopt children, go through the licensing process to become licensed foster/adoptive families.
• As with foster families, the first step to adopt is to have an Initial Consultation with one of our staff.  These meetings usually take place in your home.  One of our staff will answer any questions you have and help you decide whether adopting from the foster care system is right for you.
• The State Office of Licensing uses a “unified” homestudy, which allows licensed families to both foster and adopt.
• According to state law, a child must live in the home of the adoptive family for at least six months before the adoption can be finalized.  This is true even if the child is a waiting child.  For families that foster to adopt, the time that the child was is their home in foster care will count towards the required six months.
• Every time a child moves from one home to another, it is a traumatic experience for the child.  To reduce the trauma for younger children, the Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) has a policy of placing children age 5 and younger with foster to adopt families.  This increases the chance that these young children will be adopted by the foster family they have been staying with if they are unable to return home.  This also means that it is very rare for children age 6 and younger to be waiting to be adopted by someone other than their foster parents.
• When you adopt from a private agency, you are the client of that agency.  When you adopt from foster care, the child is the client of the agency.  This difference keeps the focus on the children and their needs.  This means that DCFS will focus on placing children with families that are the best fit to meet the children’s needs.  It also means that the focus of DCFS is not to find a child to meet your needs.
• The more flexible you are about the age, gender, race, and ethnicity of children you are open to adopting will influence how long you wait for an adoptive placement.  If you are less flexible with some of these things, you should expect to wait longer for a child to be placed with you.
• Another difference between adopting from a private agency and adopting from foster care is that there are not the same costs to adopt from foster care as when someone adopts from a private agency.  DCFS does not want the cost of adoption to keep children in foster care from having a permanent home.