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Open your home-and your heart-to the fulfilling commitment
of adoption and foster care and experience a life-changing joy. To
help you begin, we’ve outlined the steps of adoption, most of which
are applicable to foster care as well.
- Request an information packet. One of the first
steps for most families or individuals is simply to obtain more
information about the blessings and challenges of adoption and
foster care. Diakon Adoption & Foster Care supplies a comprehensive,
no-obligation packet of information to all persons interested
in adoption or foster care. You may request an information packet
by telephoning us or by completing our convenient on-line
information form.
- General overview information night. Held every
six to eight weeks, the information night offers prospective resources
families a general overview of adoption, foster care, and foster-to-adopt.
Topics include Diakon’s services, the steps of adoption, the types
of children who need adoptive families, how to apply for adoption,
adoption-process fees, and foster care services. If you or your
family are unable to attend the information night, a one-on-one
session can be arranged.
- “Self-Inventory.” If a family is interested
in adoption or foster care, members should conduct a family “self
inventory.” Look at your family’s strengths and weaknesses. What
is your family’s make-up? What type(s) of child(ren) would make
the perfect fit for your home? Do you have a preference for age,
gender, race, or nationality? Could your household adopt siblings?
Would you be able to care for a child with a mental, emotional,
or physical challenge?
- Complete Interest Registration Form. An Interest Registration Form will be provided to you at your overview information/orientation session.
- Adoption and foster care preparation training.
After the interest-registration form is processed, training begins.
Adoption and foster care training is offered three times a year-spring,
fall, and winter. Training includes 20 hours of informational
sessions that educate the family on the child-welfare system,
how children become eligible for adoption or foster care, background
issues of waiting children, legal issues of adoption, the importance
of the history of the birth family to the child, preparing the
child for adoption or foster care, what to expect from the various
processes, and other pertinent adoption and foster care topics.
- Family profile. After training is completed,
a family profile is conducted that is designed to fully understand
your family “matrix.” Putting together a family autobiography,
family members complete questionnaires and forms and may participate
in home visits. During these visits, an adoption and foster care
counselor interviews all family members to get to know the family's
individual strengths. The family profile plays an integral role
in making the appropriate child/family match. Home visits also
look at how life experiences may help the adoptive and foster
family relate to the adopted family member.
- Search for a child. When the family profile
and home study are completed, an extensive search is conducted
of all children who are legally free for adoption or are in need
of a foster family. When a child's social worker feels he or she
has a potential match, Diakon Adoption & Foster Care will
be contacted.
- Present the family to children/pre-placement visits.
After a potential match is made, the adoptive or foster family
is introduced to the child. In adoption of children with special
needs, the family often will go to the agency that has custody
of the child. At that time, it is likely the agency will interview
the family more closely. If several families are being interviewed
for one child, the agency decides who should serve as the adoptive
family.
After an adoptive family has been identified, the child is introduced
to the family. Pre-placement visits also are made, held at a location
familiar to the child. Over time, the visits gradually lengthen until the
child is comfortable enough to stay overnight or participate in a weekend
visit at the prospective family's home. This process serves as a
transition and a time for the child and the adoptive family to discuss
any concerns about the upcoming adoption.
With legal-risk placement adoptions (foster-to-adopt), the child
waiting to be adopted may already be living with the potential
adoptive family; however, if the family is preparing to adopt
a child in foster care in a home other than their own, a similar
process is followed.
Families adopting a child internationally often do not have the ability
to visit with the child before placement, because of the distances
involved. In most cases, the introduction of a child to a family is done
through written information and by videotape or, at minimum, a
photograph. The child and family often meet for the first time when the
parents arrive to take the child home for adoption. (This service is provided by our Maryland office only.)
In the case of domestic adoptions, the infant goes home with the
adoptive family from the hospital or from a brief stay in a foster
home. There are generally no pre-placement visits with infants.
- Child placed in home. After the child has been
introduced to the family, there is a six- to nine-month period
of supervision by Diakon adoption counselors. Foster care placements
may be more intensive, depending on the type and level of placement.
Regular visits are made, during which the adoption counselor or
foster-care caseworker helps the child and family work through
any issues regarding the transition period. An agency representative
can be called upon in addition to his or her regular visit to
ensure that the family blends as smoothly as possible.
- Final adoption process. At the end of the supervision
period, the adoption can be finalized. When legal proceedings are
concluded, the child is legally part of the adoptive family.
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