Difference Between Foster & Adoption

Permanence

• The major difference between foster and adoption is that adoptive children become your children permanently, while foster children are only temporarily in your care while an agency works towards reunification with their birth parents or a kinship adoption, placement with an extended family member if their parents are unable to care for them. Some children are successfully adopted by their foster families, allowing them to have a stable transition from foster to adoption, but in general fostering is a less permanent option than adoption. Foster families are therefore responsible for daily care and decisions, but more long-term concerns are left to an agency overseeing the foster family.

Financial

• While some adoptive families may receive adoptions subsidies, for the most part you will hold full financial responsibility for your child after adoption, while foster families generally receive financial assistance from the agency while fostering children. As an adoptive parent, you will be responsible for medical care, educational expenses including extracurricular activities, and childcare expenses. All states offer financial support for foster parents, such as child care allowances or access to state health insurance for the children, but these services are generally not available to adoptive parents.

Legal

• The U.S. Administration for Children & Families notes that a major difference between fostering and adopting is that you become solely legally responsible for your child after adoption, whereas you share legal responsibility and decision-making with the foster agency during foster care. Legal responsibilities include making medical, educational, and religious decisions for the child, as well as decisions about where they will live, what activities they can be a part of, and other major life decisions. As a foster parent, you would need to notify the agency of any major changes in the child's education or medical state, but as an adoptive parent you hold full responsbility and decision-making priveleges your child.

Attachment

• While foster parents take on the job of caring for a child while working towards reuniting them with their birth parents, adoptive parents become the child's permanent family through adulthood. Foster parents must create a loving, stable environment for a child who is in the temporary situation of being apart from his birth family for various reasons. Adoptive parents must help their child form a healthy attachment to their new family while possibly coping with a separation from their birth family or other loved ones.