Adoption & Foster Care Services

Foster Care Services (FCS)

FCS provides services to court-committed children and to adults who are interested in becoming foster or adoptive parents.

Foster care is a substitute family life experience that provides care and services for children who must live outside of their own families. Foster parents provide nurturing, stable care to children until permanency; either through reunification or with adoption. When the court has found the child to be a “Child In Need of Assistance” (CINA) and Baltimore City Department of Social Services has become the guardian for the child, the child is placed with a Foster Resource family.

For information on how to become a Foster/Adoptive Parent, click here or call 410-685-8231.

Adoption services focuses on developing profiles of children and placement of children who are legally free to be adopted. Adoption services are provided to relatives and non-relative caretakers. Post adoption services may include information and referral, outreach assistance and a monthly subsidy.

Adoption is a permanent living arrangement that has legal sanction via the court system. An Adoption can be finalized only after termination of parental rights (TPR). Adoptive parents have all the rights and responsibilities as if the child were born to them.

People interested in foster care or adoption should know that they may be married or single, may or may not have children of their own, do not need to own their home, and may work outside the home. The home must meet basic health and safety standards. Everyone living in the prospective foster/adoptive home must pass a health exam and everyone over 18 must be fingerprinted for a police check. For more information about foster care and/or adoption, click here.

Give a child a home! Call: 410-685-8231