Foster care is intended to be a temporary substitute family for the protection of a child. The goal of foster care is to re-unite the child with his or her birth family. Adoption is intended to last a lifetime and to provide a child with a permanent family when birth parents are unable to parent.
Adoption creates a legal parent-child relationship.
Adoptive parents have the same rights and responsibilities as parents whose children are born to them. A fost-adopt placement occurs when approved adoptive families take children into their homes pending the termination of the birth parents rights to the child. Prior to termination of rights, the child is in the family's home under the guidelines of foster care. Once parental rights are terminated adoptive placement papers can be signed. In concurrent planning, reunification services are provided to the birth family, but at the same time an alternative permanency plan of adoption is made for the child should reunification fail.