CHOICES is proudly sponsored by West Jet!
For emergencies or for birth parents call 1-866-533-9811
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
CHOICES Adoption & Counselling Services
CHOICES is committed to providing a professional comphrehensive, client centered adoption service which best meets the needs of everyone in the adoption constellation with paramount consideration given to the best interests of the child.
Process
THINK TEEN ADOPTION!
Why are children and youth placed in foster homes and adoptive homes?
Children and youth are placed in adoptive homes if efforts to reunify them with their birth families are unsuccessful. Children and youth whose parental rights have been legally terminated may be adopted by relatives, a foster family, or an adoptive family.
Children and youth are placed in foster homes because they have been removed from their own families due to abuse, neglect, or other family problems that endanger their safety. The children and youth may range from infancy through 19 years of age, and may have special medical, physical, or emotional needs. The children and youth may belong to any ethnicity or race and be a part of a group of brothers and sisters who need to be placed together.
How do I Become an Adoptive Family?
Step 1: Attend Information Meeting
You need to attend an informational meeting in your area where you can discuss the scope and requirements of being an adoptive parent. You will get basic information and questions are welcome. Your local Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) office will furnish you with this information if there are no informational meetings in your area.
Step 2: Preparation and Selection
If you can meet the basic requirements, you are invited to meet with MCFD staff to decide if adopting is right for your family. You will also be assessed through a home study process. This process furnishes you with information about MCFD and the youth who come into the foster care system, as well as about adoption issues and the lifelong journey of adoption.
Step 3: Training
You will attend training to learn more about the youth available through MCFD and to assess your strengths in parenting youth. The classes also boost your knowledge and confidence to meet the challenge of taking children into your home and to be sure you are ready to follow through on the commitment.
Step 4: The Family Study
You will also be assessed through a home study process. A social worker will visit you in your home. The purpose is to discuss your personal history, family interests and lifestyle, child-care experiences and your strengths and skills in meeting a youth’s needs.
Responsibilities
Adoptive Parents:
- provide permanent homes and a lifelong commitment to youth into adulthood.
- provide for the short-term and long-term needs of youth.
- provide for youth’s emotional, mental, physical, social, educational, and cultural needs, according to each youth's developmental age and growth.
Post Adoption Support
Post adoption support is available to adoptive families to help cover the costs of special services needed by children, such as therapy, counseling, extraordinary corrective dental treatment, or medical care and supplies. The level of assistance is based on the child's needs and availability of resources to meet those needs.
Can foster families adopt?
Many families are interested in both fostering and adopting. They agree with the agency that the children's needs come first. In most cases, this means helping prepare children for reunification with their birth family, mentoring the birth parents, or working toward a relative or kinship placement. When termination of parental rights is in the children's best interest and adoption is their plan, then foster parents who have cared for the children often are given the opportunity to adopt.