Written by Katelyn Hall, sponsored by Seven Homes

Adoption Awareness Month: Could Foster Care Be Part of Your Family’s Story?

Every November, National Adoption Awareness Month brings adoption into the conversation.

Families begin asking questions. “Could we adopt? Where would we start? What does the process look like in North Carolina? Could we really make a difference in a child’s life?”

Those are important questions.

But at Seven Homes, we’d like to invite families to ask one more: “Could foster care be part of your family’s story, too?”

Adoption and foster care are connected, but they aren’t interchangeable. Foster care begins with providing a safe, nurturing home for a child while their family works toward reunification whenever that can happen safely. Sometimes a child’s journey leads to adoption, but many times, it leads back home.

Either way, that child needs caring adults willing to show up during a season when life feels uncertain. And those adults need people willing to show up for them, too.

That’s where Seven Homes comes in.

For more than 30 years, Seven Homes has served children and families in North Carolina. We don’t simply help families become licensed foster parents, place a child in their home and then leave them to figure it out on their own. We provide trauma-informed training, practical resources, ongoing education, family activities, community and individualized support throughout their fostering journey. We believe healing happens through relationships.

Thinking About Adoption?

Maybe you’ve thought about adoption for years.

Maybe the idea is brand new.

Maybe you know you want to help a child, but you aren’t sure whether that means adoption, foster care or something else entirely.

You don’t have to have all of those answers today.

There are several paths to adoption, including domestic infant adoption, private and agency adoption, relative or kinship adoption, stepparent adoption, international adoption, and adoption through foster care.

Each one is different.

For Seven Homes, however, the conversation begins with “foster care.”

Our mission is to reach children who need love, safety and stability and to serve the needs of the whole child. We believe children heal through relationship and connection, and we equip foster parents to help create environments where that healing and connection can grow.

So if what is underneath your interest in adoption is a desire to give a child a safe place to land, foster care deserves a closer look.

One of the most important things prospective foster parents can understand is that becoming a foster parent is not the same thing as joining a waiting list to adopt.

Children enter foster care because their families are experiencing circumstances that have made it unsafe for them to remain at home. The goal is to address those circumstances so children can safely return to their families.

Sometimes reunification isn’t possible, and a child’s permanency plan changes. Adoption can then become part of the story, and in some situations foster parents may become adoptive parents.

Seven Homes wants families to enter foster care prepared to serve the child in front of them, not focused solely on what the eventual outcome might be.

You don’t have to know how the story ends to make a meaningful difference in the chapter you’re being invited into.

Why Foster With Seven Homes?

Becoming a foster parent is a big decision. We don’t believe you should have to make it, or live it, alone.

Seven Homes has built our foster care program around three pillars:

Trauma-Informed Training.
Exceptional Foster Family Support.
Community.

Those aren’t simply words on a website. They shape how we prepare and support our families.

We Prepare You for More Than the Licensing Requirements

Children entering foster care may have experienced trauma, disrupted relationships, loss and significant changes in a short period of time.

Love matters enormously.

But foster parents also need tools.

Seven Homes provides trauma-informed and trauma-responsive training designed to help caregivers better understand the needs behind a child’s behavior and respond in ways that promote safety, trust and connection.

Seven Homes was the first agency in North Carolina to have licensed TBRI® Practitioners on staff. Trust-Based Relational Intervention® is a care model designed to address the relational and developmental needs of children and youth impacted by trauma that Seven Homes has adopted.

Our goal isn’t simply to help you become licensed. We want to help you become equipped.

We Walk You Through Becoming a Foster Parent

The process can feel overwhelming when you’re looking at it from the outside.

Applications. Training. Background information. Home inspections. CPR. Paperwork. State approval.

Where do you even begin?

With Seven Homes, you begin with an Information Session.

It’s an opportunity to learn about foster care, meet our team, understand expectations and ask questions before making a commitment.

From there, we walk families through the process.

Our Support Doesn’t End When a Child Walks Through Your Door

There is a moment in foster care that doesn’t always make it into the brochures.

The training is finished. The paperwork is complete. The house is ready.

And suddenly, there’s a child standing in your living room. Real life begins.

There may be appointments and school transitions. Big emotions. New routines. Questions you didn’t know you would have. There can also be laughter around the dinner table, tiny breakthroughs, family adventures and moments of connection that couldn’t have been planned.

That’s when support matters most.

Seven Homes doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to foster family support.

Sometimes you need advice. Sometimes you need a car seat or sensory item. Sometimes you need continued training. Sometimes dinner showing up at your door can make an exhausting week feel manageable. And sometimes you simply need another person who understands the journey and is willing to listen.

Our team works to meet families emotionally, practically and spiritually because foster parents shouldn’t have to carry everything themselves.

Foster Families Need Community, Too

We talk often about children needing belonging.

Caregivers need it, too.

Seven Homes hosts family events throughout the year that give foster families opportunities to connect, make memories and simply enjoy being together. Those experiences can include events such as Easter egg hunts, beach trips, Free Childcare and Christmas celebrations.

These aren’t extras to us. Community is part of the work.

When foster parents know other families who understand the complicated, beautiful and sometimes exhausting realities of foster care, isolation begins to give way to connection.

Children get opportunities to simply be children. Parents get to look around and realize, “We’re not doing this by ourselves.”

That’s the kind of community Seven Homes works to create.

Adoption Is a Lifelong Experience

When a child can not return home, adoption becomes the new permanency plan. Often times, the foster family they are with is asked if they wish to adopt and many times they do. When they do not, they become a part of the process of transitioning a child to a pre-adoptive home.

Now you are probably asking, “Does It Cost to Adopt From Foster Care?”

For families whose foster care journey eventually leads to adoption, adoption from foster care is often completed at little or no cost to the adoptive family. Depending on a child’s eligibility and circumstances, post adoption assistance and other resources may also be available as well.

What If I Can’t Foster or Adopt?

Here’s something we want people to understand during National Adoption Awareness Month:

You don’t have to become a foster or adoptive parent to help create belonging for a child.

Foster families need a community around them.

Seven Homes offers several ways to be part of that community.

You can volunteer your time. Help provide childcare at events or summer camps. Organize a donation drive. Prepare meals for a foster family. Help with community events. Donate needed items. Or make a financial gift that helps Seven Homes continue providing resources and support to children and families.

Businesses, churches, community groups and individuals can all have a role.

Maybe you aren’t being called to open your home.

You can still help strengthen the homes that do.

National Adoption Awareness Month Can Begin With One Conversation

Maybe you came here looking for information about adoption.

Maybe you expected a checklist.

Instead, we hope you leave with something more important: an understanding that there are many ways to help a child experience safety, healing and belonging.

For some families, adoption will become part of that story.

For others, it will be foster care and reunification.

And for many more people, their role will be standing beside the families who say yes.

At Seven Homes, we’ve seen how powerful relationships can be. That’s why our work doesn’t stop at licensing or placement. We prepare foster parents, support families, build community and walk alongside them as they care for children who need stability during an uncertain season.

You don’t need to know today whether you can do this. You just need to be willing to learn more.

Attend a Seven Homes Foster Care Information Session. Meet our team. Ask the hard questions. Learn what foster care actually looks like and discover whether your family could be part of creating a place of safety and belonging for a child.

Because sometimes changing a child’s story begins with something surprisingly simple:

A family willing to open the door.

A community willing to stand behind them.

And someone willing to say, “You belong here.”

“Belonging Starts With You.”

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