If the case plan for the child you are caring for includes non-reunification with his or her birth parent(s), and there are no qualified biological relatives willing to care for the child, you will be notified of the agency’s plan to terminate parental rights and to change the child’s goal to adoption. If you are interested in adopting the child, and you have been successfully meeting his or her needs, you may be an ideal candidate for adoption. The child will remain in a familiar environment that has been both safe and nurturing and will not have to face the challenges of yet another move. As foster parents, you have a right to be considered as an adoptive resource when there are no viable relatives and the plan is adoption. 

If you and your family are not prepared to adopt the child in your care, you should make this known to your case manager as soon as you are made aware of plans to dissolve parental rights. Take caution not to allow yourself to be pressured into adopting a child whom you feel you are unable to parent on a permanent basis. 

In fact, there may be more urging and coaxing from the child to adopt than from the agency. Adoption is a serious and permanent commitment to the life of the child and to the status of your family. You will be making someone a permanent member of your family, which includes all the emotional and legal ramifications involved with being a family. In addition, you will have the long-term task of assisting the child with issues relative to adoption. Therefore, a foster parent must assess his or her capacity to permanently adopt the child into his or her family as well as to care for the long term physical and emotional needs of the child when making this life-altering decision.

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