The children who are currently waiting to be adopted often have special needs. The plan to reunify the children with the family is no longer the goal due the family’s inability to provide a safe and nurturing environment. The children currently needing adoptive homes range in age from infants to 17 years of age, they are often part of a sibling group needing to be placed together, they are from various ethnic backgrounds, some have special emotional, medical or physical needs and many of them have experienced multiple moves since they have been in care.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) provides foster care and adoption services for children who are in the custody of OKDHS and cannot live in their own homes.
When a child is removed for his or her safety and protection, the State of Oklahoma will assist the child’s family and provide support in an effort to reunify the family. In some cases, despite everyone’s effort this is not a safe plan for children.
While we are working with the family to correct the conditions that led to the child being removed, the child is placed with a “Resource Family.” The resource family is the “BRIDGE” that connects the child and the family while working toward reunification.
The resource family makes a commitment to be the permanent placement for the child and or help that child maintain connections to those important people in their life, if the conditions cannot be corrected for the child to be reunified with the family.
If it is determined that reunification is not in the best interest of the child, the court can terminate parental rights or the family can relinquish their custody of the children. In more than three fourths of the cases where this occurs, Resource Parents eventually adopt the children they have supported through this journey.