Children In Foster Care Awaiting Adoption

Those looking into adoption and foster care need to realize that if they wish to give their foster child a permanent home, the process of finalizing the adoption could be a long one. It takes around a year or so. If a foster parent wants to adopt the child in his or her care, or someone just wants to directly adopt a child in the system, all that is involved can seem confusing and overwhelming. With this said, it helps to have some tips on hand that break down the legal process piece by piece.

First, people need to locate local adoption agencies. These agencies have to be asked about whatever experiences they have with the adoption of foster children. Potential parents then have to select one that they are comfortable with. Once one is selected, those wishing to adopt children need to make sure that they meet all foster adoption requirements. These vary from state to state, but they generally dictate that parents be between twenty-one and fifty-five years of age; have no criminal records; and live in a house that meets their state’s size requirements.

Second, paperwork will need to be filled out that asks applicants for basic information, including name, address, employment history, and more. The applicant should at this point ask the agency about all of the adoption costs involved and see if they could be reimbursed for any of the fees. The agency may also recommend that some child care and parenting classes by taken.

Third, a home study appointment has to be set up with the agency. Before this process takes place, however, the agency will check into the potential adoptive parent’s employment and criminal (if any) history. The applicant will also have to get some solid recommendations; family and friends are usually chosen as references.

Fourth, the home study is conducted contingent on the applicant’s passing all criminal and employment background checks. This involves a caseworker coming to the home to make sure that it is suitable to raise a child or more in. If the person applying for adoption is already a foster parent, then the worker will check to see that the parent is following the proper foster care procedures.

Fifth, once the prospective adoptive parent passes the home study test, then he or she can be placed with a child.

The adoption agency will place a child with the applicant, and a visit will be arranged (if the foster child is not already under the parent’s care) to ensure that both the parent and child are comfortable with the placement. Once the child moves in, then a court date will be arranged where adoption papers will be signed. This will make the adoption both legal and complete.

In conclusion, there is a lot involved when people are looking to adopt foster children. With this said, it helps to have tips that aid in the process.

Children In Foster Care Awaiting Adoption

Since the early 1990s, close to 250,000 children born abroad have been adopted into the United States. Nearly half of these children have come from China or Russia. Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference offers the first comparative analysis of these two popular adoption programs.

Heather Jacobson examines these adoptions by focusing on a relatively new social phenomenon, the practice by international adoptive parents, mothers in particular, of incorporating aspects of their children’s cultures of origin into their families’ lives. “Culture keeping” is now standard in the adoption world, though few adoptive parents, the majority of whom are white and native-born, have experience with the ethnic practices of their children’s homelands prior to adopting.

Jacobson follows white adoptive mothers as they navigate culture keeping: from their motivations, to the pressures and constraints they face, to the content of their actual practices concerning names, food, toys, travel, cultural events, and communities of belonging. Through her interviews, she explores how women think about their children, their families, and themselves as mothers as they labor to construct or resist ethnic identities for their children, who may be perceived as birth children (because they are white) or who may be perceived as adopted (because of racial difference).

The choices these women make about culture, Jacobson argues, offer a window into dominant ideas of race and the “American Family,” and into how social differences are conceived and negotiated in the United States.

Review…a must-read for all adoptive parents.
–Women’s Review of Books

Culture Keeping is a sensitive and sympathetic, yet intellectually sophisticated examination of the dynamics of ethnic identity among families who have adopted children from China and Russia. Heather Jacobson shows how American racial dynamics and conceptions of kinship shape the ways in which these interracial families are seen by others and the ways in which adoptive parents work to provide their children with an ethnic identity that reflects their birthplaces. Theoretically rich and empirically rigorous, this book is a valuable contribution to the fields of sociology and family studies. It also is a wonderful resource for adoptive parents because it provides a wider view of the cultural practices and child rearing strategies they engage in.
–Mary C. Waters, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

About the AuthorHeather Jacobson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington.

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Most helpful customer reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Very good book
By Liz
I have never written a review before on Amazon but felt compelled after reading the previous one. To be clear, this is a book based on interviews with White parents of Chinese and Russian children so it is in some ways a research paper. But it is not boring at all and raises very important issues surrounding how White parents approach teaching about their adopted children’s cultural heritage. It is a smart book that should be read by scholars as well as parents.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Like reading a research paper
By S. Mayes
I was hoping this book would offer some helpful insight on ways to bring my son’s birth culture into our lives. This book was not at all helpful, and quite honestly was boring to read. I was very disappointed.

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