Does foster-to-adopt mean you WILL get to adopt that child?

Found this breakdown on the New Jersey Foster parent board..... FOSTER: These kids are with you from one day to more than two years. The goal is most likely reunification with their families within 15 months - 2 years. You will get the most calls on these kids. They range in age from babies up to 18. Even if you say you want adopt only or fost-adopt, you will still get calls. The bulk of the kids in the system are foster kids. They can come and go at any time, so it can be stressful and you have to try and be detached. (Like any of us are really successful at that.) BUT the majority of children adopted in NJ come through foster care and are adopted by their foster parents. FOST-ADOPT: These are kids who have been in the system for awhile - usually a year or more. It is LIKELY but not DEFINITE that they will be placed for adoption. This can be tricky because you can get your hopes up. And in some DCF/DYFS offices, they claim they don't categorize the kids as Fost-Adopt anymore. But they do. Or you can ask: "Is the goal in this case reunification or adoption?" ADOPT-ONLY: These kids have had parental rights terminated. They are free to be adopted after a 6-month waiting period with new parents. The bulk of these kids are older or have issues. If you wanted a 12-year-old AA boy for example, you could probably adopt pretty quickly. Kids under 5 do not come up that often. The state tried to "improve" the adoption system and instead, screwed it up. So there has been a backlog. So this is the SAFEST way to go, but also takes the longest in terms of waiting.

By no means an expert - but I'll tell you my understanding... Fost Adopt children generally have not had their parental rights terminated (though they may have). The children are Foster children who may become available for adoption. The case plan is likely still reunification. The only children DEFINITELY available for adoption are those whose parents have had their rights permanently terminated. A good tip: When you receive a call, ask the worker "What is the child's case plan" - it could be Reunification, Concurrent Planning (may become available for adoption), TPR, etc.

NO. No, no, no, no, no. It does NOT mean that, not even close! All it means is that the child is in need of a foster home, and the caseworker GUESSES that the child's biological family will not be able to get the child returned to them. In most states, IF the biological parents can't get the child returned to them, AND IF no other biological family member or friend steps forward and is approved to take the child, AND IF there are no siblings with stable foster or adoptive homes willing to take the child, AND IF you have the child in your home for a set number of months (usually 6 or 12 months), THEN you as the foster-adopt home are usually able to adopt the child without the child being offered to other families first. As you can see, the child's biological parents can still get the child back, and even if they don't there is a whole laundry list of people who likely have more legal right to adopt the child than the foster-adopt parents do. You have to get through the whole rollercoaster of the word "foster" and all that it implies before you get to the second half of the title "foster-to-adopt".

No, just means you are fostering the child until possible TPR. The case plan could be towards reunification or not. Our Niece was placed in a foster to adopt home ONLY because they contacted both sets of grandparents and they could not take her in. They then told the foster parents there were no relatives available. When we found out a month later we initiated contact with the SW and became licensed in order to adopt our Niece. She will be coming home to live with us after school is out end of May. The SW may have thought she would eventually be available for adoption only because it was aggravated circumstances and there were NO case plans for her bio parents (TPR was a given pretty much due to severe abuse), only a case plan for our Niece herself. But personally I wouldn't take the SW's idea of possible adoption to heart. There can always be relatives willing to take in them in the future or TPR could not happen.

What does TPR stand for?? Thanks!

Termination of Parental Rights

You can be as specific as you want about age, although it may take longer if you are more particular. If you want to increase your chances for adoption, tell your social worker you will ONLY except case plans with TPR already taken place, already in the process, or if the legal risk is very low.

Does fost/adopt mean you will adopt? No, but there is a higher chance of adoption then plain fostercare. Fost/adopt and fostering is not the same thing, I have done both. This is usually what occurs (what we learned inour training and by experience), at least in my state. When children are placed they are either places in a recieving home or a foster home. They give the parents a case plan and try to find relatives. If by 6 months case plan was not been met and no relatives is found, then they search for a fost adopt family, if foster family decides not to adopt. A fost/adopt family should know and understand that at any time parents can get their act together and get the children back or that a family could change their mind or a new family member that was unknown can show up. If the case plan is not met and family can not take them sw rather have children go to a fost/adopt asap, becouse they can start bonding with the family sooner, then wait till tpr occurs and the child has bonded to foster parents more and transition is much harder on the children. Some cases children are placed imidiatly in fost/adopt home. Example if someone gives bith to a baby and have had previouse tpr and the children were adopted out. There is a higher chance that this baby will go for adoption, so they rather find a home that can adopt then have a baby move around. A recieving home is just that. They take children in temp, till either family is found, or a foster home is found. They usually stay for two months or less there. A foster home is a temp/perm. They are just a temp home till child goes back to parents or family, but in perm setting meaning that they can live there longer then two months. Fost/adopt home is a perm home, unless relative comes up or b-parents get their act together.

It was explained to me this way... on the spectrum of straight fostering to free to be adopted, a child placed in our home as a foster-to-adopt placement would be closer to the "free to be adopted" side. BUT, while they were in our home, in the beginning, they were not free to be adopted, and that foster care would be working towards reunification AT THE SAME TIME as towards adoption. WOrking two plans at the same time to see which one would work out, the priority being reunification. Our workers expressed a willingness to work with great consideration of our desire to adopt a child placed with us and use more caution in their placement to make sure that a child was more likely to be free to be adopted than not. But it is an at-risk placement. We were very specific on age. The child would have had been a year or more younger than our DD at the time of placement. Although we never had a FTA placement, we would specify this age range again.

Thank you all so much--this helps immensely. Any more info would be appreciated at any time!