What is foster care?

Foster care is a system by which adults care for minor children who are not able to live with their biological parents. When parents are unable, unwilling or unfit to care for a child, the child must find a new home. In some cases, there is little or no chance a child can return to their parents' custody, so they need a new permanent home. In other situations, children only a need a temporary home until their parents' situation changes. In any case, the children need somewhere to stay until a permanent home is possible.

Foster care is intended to be a temporary living situation for children. The goal of foster care is to reunify with their parent or guardian or find another suitable permanent living arrangement. This may include an adoptive home, guardianship, or placement with a relative. At times, the bond that develops during foster care will lead to the foster parents adopting the child. In some instances, children may be placed in a long-term foster placement. For older adolescents, a foster care program may offer education and resources to prepare for a transition to independent living.

In the United States, the predominant form of foster care is still ordinary people serving as foster parents. Foster home licensing requirements vary from state to state but are generally overseen by the state's Department of "Social Services" or "Human Services". Requirements to be a foster parent vary by jurisdiction, as do monetary reimbursement and other benefits which they receive. In some states, foster parents may be single or a couple, younger or older adults, with or without biological children in their home. Often, "empty nesters" whose children have grown up and left the home may choose to take in foster children.

While foster parents are encouraged to connect emotionally with the children in their care, foster families are not meant to be permanent replacements for biological families. Except in unusual and extreme circumstances, every child’s plan is first focused on reunification with parents. If the efforts toward reunification are not successful, the plan may be changed to another permanent arrangement, such as adoption or transfer of custody to a relative. Occasionally the plan involves a permanent placement with a foster family, usually for older children who have become strongly attached to the family or for whom a suitable adoptive home cannot be found. Placement in foster care may be as short as a few days or as long as a few years.

Failing family reunification, the ultimate goal is to find adoptive parents who will take on all the emotional and legal responsibilities of birth parents. In the eyes of the law, adopting a child is pretty much the same thing as giving birth to them. Fostering a child, on the other hand, doesn't give the foster parents any major authority over the child's life.

On occasion, foster parents will eventually adopt foster children in their care, but more often, the foster home is a means of returning the child to his or her birth parents or a stop on the way to another home. Unfortunately, many children end up bouncing from foster home to foster home, never finding a permanent family. In this regard, the foster care system is clearly imperfect, since it often adds more instability to a child's life.

> Go back to the Foster Care Facts page