1. Keep Reading!

Obviously if you are visiting this website and reading, you have at least started the exploration. Keep doing it! Whether that be through websites, or books, or even mailing lists, find out as much as you can ahead of time - BEFORE you sit down and begin the actual process. This will prepare you prior to having to fill out complicated forms and sitting through long classes.

2. Contact Your Local Department of Social Services

You will want to contact your county Department of Social Services to get scheduled for the next available MAPP class. MAPP is a 30-hour course required for all North Carolina adoptions or foster care liscenses, private or state.

3. Attend MAPP

This is the acronym for Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting/Group Preparation and Selection. It is a 10-session, 30-hour program for foster and adoptive parents designed to assist families in making decisions about their ability, readiness, and willingness to foster or adopt. If a family is unable to attend MAPP/GPS, an individualized program called Deciding Together is also used to help families make informed decisions about fostering or adopting.

It is VERY important that you attend all of your scheduled classes and BE ON TIME! The law states that you must complete 30-hours and the law is the law. Illness, death, or not being able to find a babysitter are not excuses. There are no excuses. You, of course, can make up these classes at a later date, but that later date maybe be several months away. No other process can be done until you have completed your required 30-hours of training.

• Who is responsible for this: MAPP/GPS leader and adoptive parents
• Time Frame: 30 hours (usually completed in 10 sessions)
  

4. Submit Your Application

During or After the first or second MAPP class, you will be handed your application forms. They should be filled out and submitted to your instructor before the end of your 30-hours of training.

Be very careful and observant if you are in a class where you are suppose to pick up the forms from a table within your class. There are forms for:

• Single Parents To Be with No Children
• Single Parents That Already Have Children
• Married Parents To Be with No Children
• Married Parents That Already Have Children
• Kids within your current family that are older than 12
• EVERYONE that is applying for adoption
• EVERYONE that is applying for foster care
• EVERYONE.

It can be tricky.

5. Contact Your Adoption/Foster Care Department For Appointment for your Preplacement Assessment

This investigation of prospective adoptive parents, made to ensure that they are suitable adoptive parents, must be completed within 90 days of the request for assessment and is good for 18 months. (After 18 months, the potential adoptive parents would need to be reassessed.) The preplacement assessment is not required when a parent or guardian places a minor directly with a grandparent, sibling, first cousin, aunt, uncle, great-aunt, great-uncle, or great-grandparent of the minor.

• Who is responsible for this: DSS
• Time Frame: Within 90 days of request
  

6. Review by Adoption Committee

An adoption committee includes a minimum of three people (a manager in children's services, the child's social worker, and the adoption worker) who meet to select a family whose strengths meet the needs of the child and to determine the child's compatibility with the adoptive family.

• Who is responsible for this: DSS
• Time Frame: As soon as possible pending completion of assessment
  

7. NCARE

NCARE is a system of exchanging information among local agencies about children available for adoption and prospective adoptive parents.

• Who is responsible for this: Agency social worker
• Time Frame: After approval by adoption committee
• Form Required: DSS 1821

8. Matching

Potential adoptive parents review the information about available children and assess their strengths and needs in relation to the strengths and needs of those children.

• Who is responsible for this: Parents and agencies involved with children
  

9. Visitation

Potential adoptive parents meet the child they may adopt and have scheduled visits to determine compatibility and their ability to meet the child's needs.

• Who is responsible for this: Agency, foster parents, prospective parents, and child
• Time Frame: As long as it takes to successfully transition the child
• Form Required: Case Plan AA

10. Placement

A child moves into the home of a prospective adoptive family, while the agency retains legal custody. North Carolina law requires the child to be in your home at least three to six months before the adoption process can be completed. In some instances the time needed for adjustment and support will be longer. During this time, your social worker will visit in your home to provide support and assistance.

• Who is responsible for this: DSS
• Time Frame: As soon as possible following successful visitation
• Form Required: DSS 5094, Status Change Form

11. Petition for Adoption

This is the request to the court for approval of an adoption. It must be done not later than 30 days after a child is placed with the adoptive parent. An attorney often prepares the petition, but many adoptive parents are now filling out their own forms to save money, particularly in stepparent adoptions.

The petition must be signed by the adoptive parent, who must be a resident or domiciled in the state for at least six consecutive months before filing the petition. The petition may be filed in the county where the adoptee lives, where the child placing agency is located or where the petitioner lives at the time of filing. The following documents must be filed with the petition:

Affidavit of parentage
Legal clearance documents
Preplacement assessment (home study)
Non-identifying background information and health history form
Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children documents, if applicable
Legal risk statement, if applicable
Child support obligation, if applicable

Once a petition is filed with all of the proper documents, the Clerk of Court will order the agency to make a report on the proposed adoption, if required for that type of adoption.

• Who is responsible for this: Prospective parents (or their attorney)
• Time Frame: Within 30 days of placement date
• Form Required: DSS 1800, also 5102 and 5103, Agency Consent, Affidavit of Parentage

12. Adoption Assistance

These are benefits available to families who adopt special needs children (children with factors or conditions that cannot be placed without adoptive or medical assistance). Benefits can be monthly cash payments, vendor payments to medical or therapeutic providers, payment for non-recurring adoption expenses, eligibility for Medicaid, and other social services benefits. The agency and adoptive family should negotiate the adoption assistance benefits and sign and adoption assistance agreement prior to the decree of adoption.

• Who is responsible for this: DSS and prospective parents
• Time Frame: Prior to final decree
• Form Required: DSS 5012 and 5013

13. Order for Report to the Court

Once the petition for adoption has been filed, the clerk of court will direct the order for the report to the court to the agency that is working with the adoptive parents, requesting a report to assist the court in deciding if the proposed adoption is in the best interest of the child.

• Who is responsible for this: Clerk of Court
• Time Frame: Within 10 days of the petition being filed with the clerk
• Form Required: DSS 1807

14. Report to the Court

The agency provides a written report to the court describing any changes since the preplacement agreement and any concerns about the adoption. It includes an assessment of the relationship between the child and the adoptive parents and an update on the physical, mental, and emotional condition of the child. It includes a recommendation as to whether the adoption should be approved. The agency has 60 days from the time it receives the order for the report to the court in which to provide to the court its findings and recommendation.

• Who is responsible for this: DSS
• Time Frame: 60 days following the filing of the petition unless extended by the court
• Form Required: DSS 1808

15. Dispositional Hearing

During this court hearing, the petition to adopt will be either granted, if it is recommended that the child should be adopted by the petitioner, or dismissed, if it is recommended that the child should not be adopted by the petitioner. This hearing is held at least 90 days following and within six months of the filing of the petition for adoption.

• Who is responsible for this: Clerk of Court
• Time Frame: Court sets date within 90 days of filing the petition; date must be within six months of the petition
  

16. Final Decree Issued

This document establishes the legal relationship of parent and child. It gives the adoptee all the rights of a biological child, and it severs the relationship and responsibilities of the former parents, except that of past-due child support. If the adoptive parents do not have an attorney, they will be the party preparing the final decree for themselves. This document will be filed with the court and sent in to the state Department of Social Services.

• Who is responsible for this: Clerk of Court
• Time Frame: 90 days to six months
• Form Required: DSS 1814

17. Birth certificate

The child is issued a new birth certificate after the adoption documents are sent to the N.C. Division of Social Services where they are indexed for permanent retention. The division notifies the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the state in which the child was born to issue a new birth certificate. The certificate shows the adoptive parent(s) as the child's parents and reflects the child's new name, if changed.

The adoption agency that had custody of the child prior to the placement for adoption will permanently retain the adoption record. If the agency is not known, contact may be made with the N.C. Division of Social services for that information. These agencies may release any non-identifying information, but the law does not permit any identifying information to be released.