Navigating Adoption and Foster Care

Adoption and foster care can be a great way to start and grow your family. The mobile military life is not a barrier to adoption and foster care although some aspects of military life, such as deployments or relocations, can make the process a little more complicated. Despite the challenges, military families can provide foster and adopted children with wonderful homes.

Whether you’re just starting to think about adoption and foster care or have completed the process and have questions, you can depend on Military OneSource for both the guidance and information you need to make the process go more smoothly and for ongoing support of your new family.

Military families have six adoption options:

• Agency adoption
• Independent adoption
• Identified adoption (a blend of agency and independent adoption)
• Open adoption (where there is communication between adoptive parents, the birth parents and the child)
• Intercountry adoption
• Foster care adoption

You’ll want to know the ins and outs of each option so you can think carefully about what kind of support you’ll need in the process.

Foster care provides temporary homes to children who are removed from their homes due to health, safety or other circumstances. Foster care is designed with the goal of reuniting families once the crisis or situation leading to foster care has been resolved.

When reuniting children with their families is not possible, foster children may be placed for adoption. An estimated quarter of a million children are placed in foster care in our country each year, and there are not enough foster homes to meet the need.

Military families can play a critical role in helping foster children overcome challenging life experiences by providing a stable and supportive home environment through the foster care program in their state. There are a variety of different resources to assist military families who are exploring foster care opportunities.

Military families can find an array of parenting and family support from the Defense Department, Military OneSource and the Military Family Readiness System, which promotes military family well-being by offering programs and services that enhance family readiness, resilience and quality of life.

Find additional parenting support through:

• Military Family Readiness System
• Military Parent Resource Center
• Thrive Helps Military Parents and Children
• FOCUS, or Families OverComing Stress

Parents can also learn about the expanded military parental leave program. Service members may be eligible for 12 weeks of non-chargeable, paid parental leave to welcome a child into their family through adoption or long-term foster care.