PERMANENCY SERVICES: Considering Adoption or Guardianship from foster care?
We are here to help guide you, support you and answer questions you have about the process.
Please contact us at 401-865-6000 x363 or scroll down to learn more about:
Adoption from Foster Care
Considering adoption but aren’t sure where or how to begin? Adoption Rhode Island will help you through the process!
Although most are school-age children, generally between the ages of 5 and 18. These children deeply want a chance for love in a happy, permanent family setting. We invite married and single adults of any race, ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation to apply. Most importantly, we are looking for families that can make a life-long commitment to provide a safe, loving home to a child. There is no cost to adopt any of these children.
Client Non-Discriminatory Policy
Adoption Rhode Island is firmly committed to equal opportunity and equity of access and does not permit and takes actions to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability/ability, marital status, and/or family status in provision of serving youth, children, pre-adoptive or adoptive families, or waiting families at the organization.
We welcome and encourage LGBTQ+ families interested in adoption! Adoption Rhode Island believes that all youth deserve to be loved, cared for, and given a sense of belonging and all families have the right to provide safe and loving homes for children seeking connections. “Family” comes in all forms, without exclusion.
Allegations of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation on any of these bases should be brought to the attention of agency administration immediately by reporting such conduct to the: (1) CEO/ED, (2) COO, (3) a member of management with whom the concerned staff feels comfortable, or (4) immediate supervisor.
Information Meetings
Do you have questions about adopting or becoming a guardian of a child who is in Rhode Island state care? Are you trying to decide whether it’s right for you? Or would you like to get the adoption process underway?
If the answer is yes – or even maybe, to any of these questions, we suggest that you come to one of our Information Meetings. These meetings are held once a month and feature presenters from Adoption Rhode Island and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, who will explain the steps of the adoption process and provide an overview of the children waiting to be adopted, and the rewards and challenges involved.
There will also be plenty of opportunities to ask questions. Applications to start the process are available at the meeting if you decide you are interested, or if you’d like to start the application process immediately, you can access the ‘Binti’ portal via the DCYF website at https://family.binti.com/users/signup/ri-rfa. Note that only Rhode Island families can utilize the Binti portal.
Families also learn about other routes they can take to become involved in the lives of waiting children.
To register for any of our Information Meetings, please contact Allison Forte at aforte@adoptionri.org. Click the image to the right for a printable flyer of our upcoming Info Meetings.
Adoption Rhode Island welcomes families living out of state to be registered with us and be considered for RI youth waiting to be matched with licensed adoptive families.
We can only accept a home study from a licensed child-placing agency adoption or licensing worker, who will need to send the following documents:
- A completed, up-to-date home-study with signatures of the family and agency representative
- Documentation that background checks have been completed and contain no disqualifying results (this can be indicated in the home-study)
- Copy of the child placing agency’s license to verify they are a licensed child placing agency
- Agency cover letter, email, or fax cover letter
- A completed Rhode Island Matching Form Found here
Once Adoption Rhode Island receives the above documents from the family’s agency, we will email the family a welcome letter. We enjoy meeting all registered families and look forward to getting to know them through virtual Meet & Greet meetings where families learn about the matching process and waiting youth.
If you are interested in adoption but have not begun the process yet, the first step is to locate an agency in your own state to get a home study. National organizations like AdoptUSKids.org may be able to help you locate an appropriate agency.
Heart Gallery
The Heart Gallery is a recruitment and awareness building initiative of Adoption Rhode Island. The Heart Gallery is a traveling exhibit of professional portraits of children waiting in foster care for adoption.
This initiative is only possible through the generous support of the community. Thank you to our Heart Gallery photographers – Allison Forte Photography, Gene Hutnak Photography, Joan Corey Photography , Oggi Photo/Julie Brigidi, Options Photography, Sabrina Scolari Photography and David Silverman Photography.
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Learn About Our Adoption and Permanency Services
The Adoption and Guardianship Services program is a contract with the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families to provide a range of recruitment strategies to identify potential families for children in foster care, raise awareness about the needs of children in foster care and assist with matching children and families. Some of the strategies include general, child-focused, child-specific and targeted recruitment strategies, case mining, family search and engagement, education and support to families, adoption, guardianship and permanency work with children and families to help prepare them for permanency and promote best practices in adoption and guardianship. Children are referred to these services by DCYF.
Tuesday’ Child is an award winning news segment featured on WJAR-Channel 10. Adoption Rhode Island partners with Channel 10 to create and produce features of children waiting to be adopted as well as stories about foster care and adoption. This partnership has provided enormous visibility for children who would otherwise not have a voice. Hundreds of inquiries about a child or the adoption process occur because of the partnership. The segment airs on Tuesdays during noon and 5:30 shows.
The Extreme Family Finding program is an innovative and promising model that pairs an experienced adoption social worker with a private investigator to identify extended family members for children and youth in foster care. This program is very prescriptive in it’s approach and when implemented to fidelity, is very successful. In less than a year after launching the program, the EFF team has helped to identify hundreds of lost and unknown relatives and other supportive adults for high- need children in the Rhode Island foster care system. Originally funded through the Children’s Bureau as a pilot program, Adoption Rhode Island’s program was one of several programs to offer this model throughout the country. Because of the success, the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families ( RI DCYF) has continued to fund the program and remains a strong and critical partner in achieving the positive outcomes. All referrals for this program come from RI DCYF.
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is a signature program of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. It is the only evidenced-based model of adoption recruitment in the country.
Adoption Rhode Island’s WWK Recruiters implement this evidenced-based, child-focused recruitment model that is proven to be up to three times more effective at serving children who have been in foster care the longest, including teenagers, sibling groups and children with special needs. In part, due to our staffs’ successful implementation and fidelity to this model, Adoption Rhode Island has more than tripled the size of the RI WWK chapter. For more information about the model click here.
In late 2024 Adoption RI and WWK expanded our services to include WWK Post-Permanency Services. This offers in-home support for families and youth who have finalized through WWK Recruitment Services. Using the TBRI (Trust-Based Relational Intervention) model, our Family Support Specialist, focuses on family stability and cohesion to increase positive attachment outcomes with our most vulnerable youth.