ADOPT A CHILD
We believe every child deserves a loving family and a safe home. Our goal is to unite children and youth in foster care with permanent, loving and nurturing families.
Before You Can Adopt
Anyone wishing to adopt a child in state custody is required by Kansas and Missouri to complete requisite training. These free courses consist of lectures, activities, Q&A sessions and homework assignments and can take 4-9 weeks to complete. Most participants develop a connection with some of the other adoptive and foster parents in the trainings and start to develop a support network.
Children and Youth for Adoption
If you’re interested in adopting an infant, we recommend contacting a private adoption agency. While infants and toddlers are sometimes available for adoption, the majority of children in state custody are school age.
We are pleased to implement Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, a signature program of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, that brings children waiting to be adopted from foster care one step closer to safe, loving, permanent homes. Through Wendy's Wonderful Kids, the Foundation provides grants to adoption agencies to hire and train adoption recruiters who implement the Foundation's evidence-based, child-focused recruitment model. This model is up to three times more effective at serving children who have been in foster care the longest, including:
- Older adolescents and teens. More often than not the perception of teens in state custody is that they are troubled, aggressive and delinquent. However, they can be just as engaging, resilient and rewarding to parent as are younger children. And most importantly, they can benefit from the emotional and financial stability a family and loving home can offer.
- Large sibling groups. This could include a sibling group of 3+. We do our best to keep siblings together when they are removed from a home, as for many children in our care, their brothers or sisters have been the only constant presence in their lives.
- Youth with special needs. We believe that children with special needs are first and foremost just children.
Additionally, our goal is to limit the number of transitions (or homes) a child experiences. To that end, we give preference to foster families that have provided a home to a specific child (including infants) for at least nine months. So perhaps becoming a foster parent first might be a consideration. The training and licensure process is similar.
