Foster care differs from adoption in a few ways.  A foster parent assumes care and responsibility for the foster child, but the State maintains all legal guardianship of the child. Adoption transfers legal responsibility and care over to the adopting parents.
A foster parent’s primary role is to help in efforts to reunite the child with their birth family. This may include visits between the child and birth parents, taking a child to counseling, and working closely with the foster care worker.
Sometimes, a child is unable to return home; it is then that the court terminates parental rights and the child becomes available for adoption. Adoptive parents become the child’s legal parent agreeing to a lifelong commitment and responsibility no less important than if the child was born to them.