You should start by contacting your local public child welfare agency. Public agencies place children who are in foster care and are available for adoption with prospective adoptive families. Some States have privatized their child welfare systems, and children may be placed in private agencies that contract with the public agencies to provide foster care. You can locate listings of public and licensed private agencies in your area by searching the National Foster Care & Adoption Directory at http://www.childwelfare.gov/nfcad/index.cfm.

Child Welfare Information Gateway, a service of the Children’s Bureau, has a listing of State adoption photolisting websites showing children in the foster care system waiting for families at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/reslist/rl_dsp_website.cfm?typeID=82&rate_chno=AZ-0005E. The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids manages a national online photolisting of  children across the United States who are waiting for families at http://www.adoptuskids.org/.

Information for foster parents interested in adopting a foster child in their care is provided in the Child Welfare Information Gateway’s factsheets, Foster Parents Considering Adoption: A Factsheet for Families, available online at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_fospar.cfm, and Helping Your Foster Child Transition to Your Adopted Child: A Factsheet for Families, available online at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_transition.cfm.

For more detailed information on adopting a child in foster care, please see the Foster Care Adoption section of Child Welfare Information Gateway’s website at http://www.childwelfare.gov/adoption/foster.