Foster Care Requirements

You must be an adult.
Foster parents must be at least 18 years old. There is no upper age limit, as long as you are in reasonable health. The Division will not preclude a person from being a foster parent based solely on their culture, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, affectional orientation, or marital/civil union or domestic partnership status.

You must provide a safe environment for a child.
Whether you own or rent, you home must meet basic life and safety standards. It doesn't matter if your home is an apartment or a house, as long as it is a safe place for children.

You will receive training.
DYFS provides pre-service training so that you can help your foster child and work in partnership with other professionals. Ongoing training will help you be a successful foster parent.

Your entire household must be involved.
Everyone in a home participates in nurturing a child. All the members of your household must agree to the commitment of providing foster care for a child.

You can make a commitment to a child who needs help.
It's not always easy to be a foster parent. You must be willing to help a child through both good times and not-so-good times. You need to be counted on until the child returns to their family or a permanent home is found. This can take a few weeks or many months.

You can work as part of team.
Foster parents are the most important members of a team dedicated to the safety and well-being of foster children. Being a foster parent means working as a team with social workers, the court, teachers, doctors, therapists, and possibly even your foster child's birth family.

Steps to Becoming a Foster Parent

Call 1-877 NJ FOSTER or email us HERE.
A representative of Foster and Adoptive Family Services (FAFS) will ask you a few questions about yourself, your family and your interest in fostering or adopting a child.

Read the information provided to you.
Foster and Adoptive Family Services will send you a packet of information about DYFS, the children served and why foster parents are so important.

Come to an orientation.
Orientation is an opportunity to learn more about the specific issues related to foster parenting.  Sessions are held throughout New Jersey and FAFS will sign you up to attend one at your convenience.

Complete a homestudy with a Resource Family Support Worker and attend Pre-service Training.
Staff will guide you through an assessment process to help you and DYFS learn as much about each other as possible.  The pre-service training is designed to prepare you to become a foster parent.  DYFS requires that you complete both the homestudy and the pre-service training so that you may become licensed as a resource parent.

The licensing process includes nine weekly training sessions, each of which is three hours; a home evaluation; reference checks (medical, employment, personal); criminal history checks (including fingerprinting and local police checks); and a life safety home inspection. The licensing process usually is completed within five months.

http://www.state.nj.us/njfosteradopt/foster/requirements/

FAITH-BASED ADOPTIVE/FOSTER SERVICES

FAITH-BASED ADOPTIVE/FOSTER SERVICES:
FAITH COMMUNITIES’ ROLES IN CHILD WELFARE

  

Prepared for the Annie E. Casey Foundation
by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture,
University of Southern California

John B. Orr, Senior Research Associate
Grace Roberts Dyrness, Director of Community Research and Development
Peter W. Spoto, Researcher, USC School of Religion

“The nation’s Abrahamic faith communities—Christianity, Judaism, Islam—share a prophetic

tradition that promotes social justice advocacy, community organizing, and, also, the

delivery of human services for isolated, vulnerable, and politically weak populations.

Some expressions of this prophetic tradition, ironically, appear to be almost conservative—

i.e., when they supplement and extend a social welfare system that is already in place and

that is admittedly flawed. Their services often aim to make this system “work better”—in

supplementing the services that can be offered by public agencies; in humanizing the

interaction between participants and public agencies; in recruiting participants; and in

providing day-to-day support services for these participants.

Just as often—hopefully—faith-based spokespersons for the nation’s prophetic tradition

point out that even well-intended publicly-sponsored welfare services produce injustice.

They formulate and advocate needed changes in the laws and administrative policies that

guide public social programs. They pressure public agency officials to revise their missions

and/or to reshape their service strategies. They experiment with alternative service delivery

models.

In relation to public agencies that serve foster/adoptive children and families, faith

communities typically perform the following “value-added” roles.

· They recruit foster/adoptive parent candidates. In Los Angeles, for example,

ChildShare, a faith-based foster/adoptive parenting organization, actively recruits

foster/adoptive parents in congregations, often by issuing “biblically-based

invitations” during worship services. It uses staff members and volunteers to recruit

in Latino, African-American, and Asian-American congregations. Recently its reach

has extended to hearing-impaired congregations. It attempts to locate

foster/adoptive parents who adhere to a child’s own faith tradition. It tries to locate

foster/adoptive parents in a child’s own community.

Nationally, faith communities have established networks of organizations that recruit

foster/adoptive parents and then connect these recruits with public agencies to

assure that legal requirements are met. Examples: Catholic Adoptive Services,

Presbyterian Children’s Homes, Christian Child and Family Services Association

(Churches of Christ), the Salvation Army, Jewish Family Services, Lydia Home

Association (Evangelical Free Church of America), and an extensive system of

Southern Baptist state-based foster/adoptive organizations.

· They provide support services for foster/adoptive families in their own and other

congregations. Encouraged by ChildShare, FosterHope, Catholic Family Services,

Jewish Family Services and other similar faith-based organizations, congregations

offer support groups for foster/adoptive parents, respite child care services, food and

clothing, transportation, and sometimes even financial assistance. Fellow 2

congregation members send cards and flowers to celebrate the contributions of

foster/adoptive parents. They offer prayer support.

· They offer mentoring relationships for families, youth, and children who are at-risk.

Faith communities have a long history of mentoring services through organizations

such as Catholic Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Jewish Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Now

with the cooperation of these organizations, they are expanding mentoring

relationships to the children of prisoners and to children who are in danger of being

removed into the foster care system.

· They provide specialized family support service agencies for at-risk families and

children. Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic communities have constructed an

extensive network of shelters, multi-service agencies, specialized human service

agencies, clinics, and community centers that collaborate with public agencies.

While many of these are subsidized by public grants, they depend heavily on

monetary gifts, in-kind contributions, and volunteer hours from members of faith

communities. These organizations significantly expand the pool of crisis intervention

services that are available in urban low-income neighborhoods. They are often

perceived by residents as “neighborhood-based”—a perception, according to many

national and local studies, that reduces the fears of residents who are often wary of

public institutions.

· They participate in regional/city/neighborhood coalitions that try to assure a

continuum of care for at-risk families and children. Faith-service organizations

cooperate with other private sector welfare agencies, public welfare agencies,

universities, and congregations in informal and incorporated coalitions that expand

and reinforce each other’s contributions. For example, Project Hope in Los Angeles

has created a coalition that tries to assure that at-risk families have access to

needed family support services. The San Fernando Interfaith Council cooperates

with a large number of public and private agencies in their services for at-risk

families. Now that Council is making plans to participate contractually in a publiclyoperated

mall of family services that will be built in Los Angeles’ San Fernando

Valley.

· They put pressure on public agencies and legislative bodies to humanize

foster/adoptive strategies that are experienced as unjust. In California, for example,

the faith-based Faith Communities for Families and Children, which is associated

with the California Youth Law Center, actively opposes current public policy that

provides financial incentives for at-risk children to be placed in the foster care. Public

policy, they argue, is shaped by the fact that child welfare systems rely heavily on

federal funds that are directed toward children who are removed from their unstable

homes. The organization dramatizes abuses in Los Angeles County’s foster care

system, and calls for broad-scale reform—at least for the formulation of a

demonstration project, which, over a five year period of time, would test family

preservation theory.”

To read the full research study visit: http://www.fostercaremonth.org/GetInvolved/Toolkit/Support/Documents/Faith-based_Report.pdf

THE ISLAMIC VIEW OF ADOPTION AND CARING FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN

 
THE ISLAMIC VIEW OF ADOPTION AND CARING FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN

By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.

Minaret of Freedom Institute, Bethesda, MD
[Published in Adoption Fact Book III (Washington: National Council for Adoption, 1999)]

The most famous orphan in Islamic culture is, without doubt, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. His father died before he was born and by the time he was eight he had lost both his mother and the grandfather who named him. He was subsequently raised by his Uncle Abu Talib who continued to be his protector until his own death, when Muhammad was an adult of almost fifty years of age.
When Muhammad's wife Khadijah gave to him a slave named Zaid, Muhammad freed the boy and raised him as if he were his own son. The importance of taking homeless children to care for them is well-established in Islam. Given these facts, it is somewhat startling to hear Muslims assert that adoption in prohibited in Islam. The confusion is over the precise definition of the term adoption. We shall seek to clarify the issue here.
The Islam form of "adoption" is called kafâla, which literally means sponsorship, but comes from the root word meaning "to feed." It is best translated as "foster parenting." Algerian family law defines the concept thusly: "Kafala, or legal fostering, is the promise to undertake without payment the upkeep, education and protection of a minor, in the same way as a father would do for his son".
If "legal fostering" in Islam requires fulfilling these parental duties "in the same way as a father would do for his son," then how does it differ from legal adoption as understood in the United States? There are three significant differences: denial or acknowledgement of identity by blood lineage, inheritance, and implications for the possibilities of marriage partners. I shall discuss these in reverse order.
Although the specifics differ in the two cases, both American law and Islamic law use proximity of relation as a criterion for the permissibility of marriage. Under Islamic law and in some states first cousins may marry, but under neither law could a father marry his daughter. Under Islamic law a man may not marry his son's ex-wife, but he may marry his adopted son's ex-wife. This fact does not mean that adoption is illegal, it only means that a legal system that imposes a prohibition on marriage to the ex-wife of an adopted son is imposing an additional constraint beyond that imposed by Islamic law. An examination of the relevant Qur'anic verse clearly shows its purpose is to reform the practice of adoption by removing such prohibitions rather than to end the practice:

God has not made … your adopted sons your sons. Such is (only) your (manner of) speech by your mouths. But God tells (you) the Truth and He shows the (right) Way. Call them by (the names) of their fathers: that is more just in the sight of God but if ye know not their father's (names call them) your Brothers in faith or your Maulâs. But there is no blame on you if ye make a mistake therein: (what counts is) the intention of your hearts: and God is Oft-Returning Most Merciful. The Prophet is closer to the Believers than their own selves and his wives are their mothers. Blood-relations among each other have closer personal ties in the Decree of God than (the Brotherhood of) Believers and Muhajirs: nevertheless do ye what is just to your closest friends: such is the writing in the Decree (of God). 

The wording is very significant here. The text does not ban adoption, but only says that the use of the word "son" with respect to an adoptee is just a phrase and not a blood (or genetic) fact. Nor should it be inferred that it is prohibiting the use of the word son (in a metaphorical sense), since it should then logically follow that the term brother (explicitly approved in the text) would also have to be prohibited for the same reasons. Our adopted sons are not our genetic sons any more than our brothers in faith are our genetic brothers. The purpose of the verse is clearly to prevent drawing legal restrictions from the metaphorical use of the word "son" in describing a foster relationship. Thus one might marry the ex-wife of one's foster son (as one might marry the ex-wife of a blood brother), but one can no more marry a daughter than one could marry a sister.
Analogy to blood relations is not the only relevant issue here. Islamic law forbids a man to marry a woman who had been suckled by the same wet nurse as the man, regardless of whether either was adopted by the wet nurse. Here, too, we see that the issue is not adoption, but how social relationships bear on the question of marriageability.

The issue of inheritance may be dealt with briefly. In most American states, an adopted child has the same automatic rights of inheritance as a genetic child. In a few states, as under Islamic law, inheritance is not automatic but needs to be specified in the will. American law recognizes the validity of wills that specify an inheritance distribution based on Islamic law, so this constitutes no objection to adoption by American Muslims.

Finally, we consider the issue of identity by blood lineage. It has been the custom in America to downplay (or even) hide the identity of blood parents in cases of adoption. Recently there has been a welcome trend giving adopted children some rights to discovery in this matter. In this respect American laws are moving in an Islamic direction. The advantages from a medical point of view to such knowledge are obvious, but there are also issues of the subjective importance of knowing one's own identity. The verses of the Qur'an quoted above makes it clear that identity is defined by blood. Experience shows that openness about the true identity of children need not be an obstacle to love and caring between foster parents and adoptees. This is an especially important issue for American Muslims adopting children from abroad. It is neither necessary nor desirable to deny the cultural heritage of these children.

Inroduction

 

Assalamu Alaikum! 

Recent events including a Muslim family from our community that had 3
boys placed in a non-Muslim foster home is among many numerous similar
incidents that has led to the formation of this initiative to raise
awareness of this growing need for Licensed Muslim Foster Resource
Parents. Perhaps the most publicized problem with the current system
became apparent in March 13, 2010.

[Ahmed was born to Muslim parents. However, Ahmed was separated from
his natural parents and placed with a Christian foster family even
though Muslim foster parents were available, including Ahmed’s
paternal uncle, who completed all the paperwork and the training
required to qualify to provide foster care. More recently, Ahmed has
been denied all visitations with his natural parents, even though they
continue to seek reunification through the courts. Also, police
reports and hospital emergency room reports have been brought to our
attention that indicate the alleged abuse of this little child while
he has been under the care of the foster parents. It has been reported
to CAIR-NJ that, during open court proceedings, the foster mother
admitted to hitting Ahmed with a hair brush, later saying that it was
a mistake and that it only happened because she forgot to take her
medication that day. Accompanying hospital emergency room reports
reflect that the bruises on the child were “consistent with corporal
punishment or physical abuse.”

The foster parents have stated their intent to adopt Ahmed and have
apparently begun the adoption process. CAIR-NJ has been informed that
Ahmed’s name has been changed and he is being raised as a Christian.
DYFS policy specifically mandates the requirements on foster families
to continue the religion of the parents or obtain written permission
for a child to attend services of a different religion.] CAIR-NJ June
25, 2010 Update

The following is a plea for Muslim Foster Parents by a Christian
organization, Lutheran Social Services.

"We get calls for Muslim foster families, for Muslim children...and we
cannot place them. When everyone says no, that means they are placed
wherever the state can place them. That will be within a culture and
religion that is foreign to them. Every day they are within a non-
Muslim home diminishes their Muslim identity." Molley Dagget, MSW,
Lutheran Social Services. 

We are looking to start up a Muslim Foster and Family Services non-
profit organization with the following goals:

-to raise awareness for the urgent need of Muslim foster parents to
serve the growing number of Muslim children placed in the state foster
care system and prevent the placement of Muslim children in non-Muslim
homes.

-to highlight the importance of the immediate formation of a support
network for all social aspects of our growing Muslim community.

-to alleviate the anxiety and sense of suffering due to financial,
health, or emotional burdens through the use of open discussion and
referrals to professional for each problem.

-to become a strong positive presence in the community by assisting
people of all faiths.

-to educate the Muslim community of their legal rights with regards to
NJ Department of Children and Families.

We are looking for motivated members of the community to assist in the
following areas:

o       Potential foster parents
o       Family lawyers
o       Child psychologists
o       Social workers
o       Liaison to sister organizations with similar interests
o       Media/ public outreach coordinator
o       Hotline operator
o       Fundraising director 
o       Event planner
o       Website developer
 
Immediate goals for May/June are:

* to spread the word in the Muslim community through the use of social
media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in and other various
list-servs to generate interest and support.

*create a website with all relevant resources

*contact DCF and begin training and licensing of interested families
by July 2011.

*create a referral database and start a dialogue with organizations
that share similar goals.

Please forward this email to anyone you feel that might be interested
in joining this effort. Together insha'Allah we can make a difference!