Step 7: Placement

What is it?

Congratulations, you’ve been approved and are ready to proceed to the next step in this journey—Placement. This is where the agency and you work to assure the right match between yourself and a particular child’s or sibling group’s needs. Requirements will differ at this stage, depending on whether a child is placed with you for foster care or adoption.

What do I have to do during this step?

Licensed foster and pre-adoptive parents have the responsibility to the child, the child’s birth parents, and the sponsoring agency to:

• Make sure you have the necessary information to make an informed decision about placement.
• Provide a safe, nurturing, stable environment for the child. Provide humane and affectionate care.
• Assure that religious training appropriate to the child’s denomination be respected.
• Assure that the emotional, medical, dental and educational needs of the child are met.
• Report any changes related to the child’s care and/or your family’s composition to your family social worker.
• Promote physical, emotional, social and intellectual growth and development of each child.
• Maintain confidentiality.
• Cooperate with the agency/department, especially in treatment planning for the child.
• Respect the feelings of the foster child for the birth family.
• Support the child’s visiting plan with his/her birth parents, siblings or others, when applicable.