Adoption in The United States - Foster Care System

Foster Care System

The United States has a system of foster care by which adults care for minor children who are not able to live with their biological parents. In fiscal year 2000, 150,703 foster children were adopted in the United States, many by their foster parents or relatives of their biological parents. The enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997 has approximately doubled the number of children adopted from foster care in the United States. If a child in the U.S. governmental foster care system is not adopted or returned to the custody of their birth parents by the age of 18 years old, they are aged out of the system on their 18th birthday.

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