Every year, hundreds of children are placed in foster cares all over the world. Being a parent is not just about giving birth. The parent-child bond is something that can be only forged with unconditional love, care and a lifetime of understanding. If you wish to be a parent, conceiving naturally may only be one of the available options.
Choosing to adopt a child from foster care and providing it with a bright future is equivalent to giving life to a child. There are more than 100,000 children today in foster cares all over for a family that they can call their own.
Children In Foster Care
The best part of life anyone can have is childhood – a time when there are no worries or any responsibilities to fulfill. However not every child is as lucky. Children who are placed in foster care are there because of no fault of their own. They are simply there due to facing scarring situations such as abuse, neglect, and abandonment.
When the state finds the biological parents to be unsuitable to take care of their child due to different causes, the child is handed over to a state registered fostering agency for their well-being. The agency hands the children over to foster parents who have been deemed suitable to take care of the child.
While this home may be a salvation to them, it is only temporary. Children may get handed over from one foster care to another until they can be reunited with their blood relatives or parents if it is in the child’s best interests.
However, in some cases, there may be no chances of the child ever being reunited with its biological parents again. In cases where the bonds between the parents and child are permanently severed due to death or other causes, they are put up for adoption. These children live with the hope in their heart to finally find a family they can proudly be a part of.
Adopting From Foster Care
Similar to any kind of adoption in terms of paperwork and preparation, adopting a child from foster care can take a small duration of time before they get approved. A dream of the child and you having a family together is fulfilled by this gesture of unconditional love from your behalf. However, foster care adoptions can differ in a few integral ways mentioned below.
- Although it is not impossible to adopt a baby from foster care, the average age of a child is eight and the age of the child can range anywhere between toddler to twenty-one.
- Children in foster care deserve a lot of love and care to overcome the trauma they have been burdened with at such a young age. So, prospective parents of children who have been placed under foster care have to undergo specific training to ensure they can take complete care of the child and help cure the effects of trauma on the young mind.
- Adoption from foster care involves a private or a public agency that has a contract with the state to provide its services.
- The adoption process of a foster child takes little or no money from you.
Being Foster Parents Before Adopting
Being foster parents is sometimes the first step to parenting when you are considering adoption. In fact, many states consider adoption as simply a continuum of foster care and are establishing policies that encourage potential parents to be foster carers first. According to Lisa Witter from Perpetual Fostering, about 40,000 infants are placed in foster care every year.
Having to share the love in your family with a little one can open your heart and evolve your personality in ways you could never imagine as well. In addition to changing a life and giving dreams to a child, you will also be giving yourself a chance to live your dreams.
Taking an initiative and getting the training to be a foster carer and bringing a little one into your life can be the right way to move towards adoption for you. Here are some of the several additional benefits that come along when you decide to adopt a foster child.
- The wait time for adoption from foster care is significantly lesser in comparison to other forms of adoption. You can fulfill your dream of sharing your knowledge, dreams, and care with a child a lot earlier than having to wait to an uncertain amount of time for a match to come by.
- Being placed under foster care also gives the child a chance to bond with the parents naturally and helps you both assess the permanency of your mutual attachment as well.
- You can save the child from being forced to move from foster care to foster care and give him or her a permanent home and family of their own.
- If you have finalized on the child you wish to adopt, being licensed foster carers can let you open your home to the child before the adoption papers are processed and approved.
- The term family has more meaning in this context when you simply fall in love with each other and work towards your dream of becoming a family one day.
- As a parent, you can gain some experience beforehand as well and be prepared to comfort and heal even the most traumatized child and help them recover fully.
- You can negotiate adoption assistance more accurately as the ability to understand their needs increase exponentially when you have experience in foster caring.
- An exemplary foster caring term can also help establish real relationships with the child’s relatives which can be sustained after the adoption is complete.
The Uncertainty Factor
Even when you are in the process of developing a life-long emotional bond with your foster child, you must be prepared to give them up to their biological parents if the court deems it best for the child. As model foster parents you should not only consent but actively support efforts to reunite the child to its birth family if the possibility exists. This is why fostering parenting is also referred to as concurrent planning. The dual role and the selfless nature make you unique and special.