Best Foster Care Agencies

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Not just a placement service but a comprehensive resource on every conceivable aspect of the child welfare system, AdoptUSKids is the gold standard when it comes to its sheer scale, commitment to advocacy, and dedication to improving foster care. With a grant from theChildren’s Bureau, a federal agency under the Administration for Children and Families, AdoptUSKids helps thousands of kids in the foster care system find placement with caring families.

Here’s how it works: once you’ve been approved to adopt or are licensed to provide foster care through your state, you can contact AdoptUSKids to streamline the process of matching with a child in foster care. You can search the site’s photo database of children in need of care and connect directly with that child’s caseworker if you’re interested in learning more about them. Usually, when you work with a public agency, you play the waiting game while staff selects a foster child for you—this can take weeks or even months.

AdoptUSKids helps you gain some control over placement, letting you search its private database and immediately interact with a child’s caseworker. The agency can also help you earlier in the process, when you simply have questions about fostering, and afterward, through its thriving online community of foster families. The best part? Since the agency is federally funded, its services are free.

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This agency was founded back in 1966 by the same person who founded UPS, but it has branched out quite a bit since then: Casey Family Programs works directly with families to put foster kids into safe homes, while also sharing its decades of expertise with state governments, federal policymakers, and American Indian tribes (which follow a specific set of standards for foster care through the Indian Child Welfare Act).

Casey Family Programs operates with eight field offices across the U.S. but provides services within all 50 states. It serves more than 1,400 kids and families each year. In addition to guiding families through the foster care system, the agency also provides important opportunities for the kids in its care; education, employment, and mental health resources are a priority, as is working to strengthen families before they need foster care assistance.

This is an agency that’s not afraid to ask and answer important questions about how foster care can be improved for kids and families. That is part of its mission to provide many of its services free of charge, but you can consult with the agency directly to inquire about costs for direct placement.

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If you’re interested in fostering an older child or a child from somewhere other than the U.S, it can be hard to find organizations to help. But Kidsave understands the importance of reaching kids both in the U.S. and abroad and the benefit of slowly building trust in relationships over time.

The agency offers foster families the chance to help kids from the U.S, Columbia, Russia, and Ukraine, with a unique program model that makes fostering more accessible. Kidsave actually calls this "hosting," and the mentorship angle of this approach allows families to make a smaller commitment—either on weekends or for a summer—so they can see if fostering is a good fit for them. For hosts, the ultimate goal is to place the child in a permanent home, either by helping to facilitate meetings between the child and prospective parents, or by considering adoption themselves.

Weekend hosting is available for kids, particularly teens, who live in Los Angeles and have been unable to be placed in a permanent home. Summer hosting programs are available for international foster kids, and there are supportive Kidsave communities all over the U.S. for summer hosting.

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If you’re based in New York City and are interested in fostering a child, The New York Foundling is one of the largest resources available. Since 1869, the agency has been placing foster children in safe homes, reuniting children with their birth parents, and supporting families of all shapes and sizes through its programming.

Every year, the Foundling serves more than 1,000 kids, including kids with developmental delays and diagnosed mental illnesses. It has established four centers of excellence and dozens of advocacy programs and child health initiatives, and it engages families at every stage of childhood and parenting to provide critical resources, therapies, and education.

The Foundling is always looking for foster parents willing to care for children with special needs, kids with siblings, and LGBTQ youth, providing ongoing training, education, and support to its foster families. The agency offers many free information sessions for people wanting to learn more about becoming a foster parent, or you can call its hotline for more information.

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For prospective foster families located in the Midwest and the South, TFI is licensed to provide direct placement services in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas. The agency has an interesting history: It began in the 1960s as a summer camp in Kansas called The Farm, Inc. (that’s where the initials TFI came from). The camp eventually turned into a residential center for kids in need and then became a child placement agency in the 1990s.

Though TFI has undergone a lot of changes since its inception, many of its old values remain the same. The staff at TFI is committed to foster and kinship care, as well as adoption and mental health counseling services. The majority of foster children in TFI's system are under 10, though there are kids of all ages needing placement (and many sibling sets, too).

成为一个养父母与TFI看起来稍微different depending on the state you live in, though generally the requirements are the same. Contact each state’s individual branch of TFI for specific information or to apply.

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Founded in 1982, Koinonia (a Greek word meaning "fellowship") prioritizes relationships, serving dozens of counties throughout Northern, Central, and Southern California as well as Reno, Nevada.

Foster parents wanting to work with Koinonia will find emotional and educational support from staff in an effort to make foster children feel they are being cared for in a loving and therapeutic environment.

One of the agency’s biggest goals is permanency whenever possible, along with reducing the number of transitions a foster child has to experience on their way to a permanent home. Koinonia also offers several ancillary programs, like its Family Preservation Program, treatment programs for mental health and substance abuse issues, Crisis Resolution Center, and Love and Logic Parenting classes.

Koinonia provides its foster parents with extensive training and a designated family caseworker for additional guidance. If you live in one of the areas serviced by Koinonia, you can start the foster parent application process online or contact a local office directly.