Adopting from foster care is an option for people hoping to grow their families through adoption. It can be less expensive than private adoption, but it can also involve more challenges. The numbers showing the outcomes of foster care can clarify the situation.
42% of kids in foster care are reunited with parents
The primary goal of state foster care for children, after providing a safe temporary haven, is to reunify the children with their families. Nationally, fewer than half of kids in foster care are reunited with their parents. In Arkansas, it’s 42%, less than the national average of 48%.
This means that more than half of the children in foster care will not be able to return to their parents. The major obstacles, according to the National Institutes for Health:
- parental substance abuse
- untreated mental health issues
- domestic violence
- chronic neglect
Courts order parents to get help and overcome the challenges that kept them from providing a safe home for their child, but it’s easier said than done. Sometimes the biological parents can’t take care of their children, however much they love them and wish to care for them.
Average time in foster care ranges from 6 months to two years. As children get older in care, their chances of getting adopted fall. It also becomes harder to get back together when the family is reunified.
11% go into guardianship
For parents who want to reunite with their children in the future but don’t have a clear pathway, guardianship can be a good solution. Family members or friends can take responsibility for children without adopting them, leaving reunification with parents open as a possibility in the future. For just over one tenth of kids in the foster care program, this is how they are able to leave foster care.
11% age out of the system
As many kids just get too old for foster care as find homes with guardians. When kids reach 18 to 21 without having reunited with their families or being adopted, they leave foster care, often without much support. That’s nearly 200 kids each year.
18 year olds are legal adults, but they usually still have their parents to help and support them. In fact, more than 60% of American 18 year olds still live at home with their parents.
Young people 18 to 21 who have gone away to college or moved out to support themselves with a job are still likely to rely on their parents for advice, financial help, and even laundry or home-cooked meals. Kids leaving the foster system usually don’t have this kind of support. They also generally lose the support they had within the foster system.
28% are adopted
A little more than one quarter of kids in the foster system find adoptive homes. Since reunification is the primary goal of the foster system, kids can be int the system for years before they are legally free for adoption. As they get older, they are less likely to be adopted.
Not only are foster kids more likely to be older, they are also more likely to be together with their siblings. While adopting siblings is a wonderful thing to do, it is harder for siblings to find adoptive homes.
Older kids who have been expecting reunification may be unwilling to consider being adopted, even when it is clear that their parents cannot provide a home for them. For some kids in the foster system, a life of trauma and instability makes it hard to fit into a new family.
These are some of the obstacles to adoption for kids in foster care. If you add up the numbers, you’ll see that some kids are unaccounted for. Even with rounding errors, though, if all the kids who can’t be reunited with their parents or a family member are able to find adoptive homes, that’s hundreds of kids who can find a loving family. Adopting from foster care can be a good option for prospective adoptive parents.