OVC Support Toolkit  >  Living environments  >  Alternatives to community care in extended families 

Placement of a child with another family

This section looks at situations where a child may be placed with another family, that is one that is not part of the extended family. Other sections look, in general, at other alternatives to extended family care and in detail at residential care.

Various terms are used to describe these situations. Commonly used terms include:

• Adoption - This involves a child being taken into the care of adults other than their parents. It is done on a permanent basis and the child legally becomes the child of those parents. The term adoption is usually only applied where the people 'adopting' the child are not relatives. Once a child is adopted, the state usually stops being financially responsible for that child.

  In some cases, the child may be adopted by a person from another country. This is called inter-country adoption. There are many problems with this form of adoption. These include:

  - Loss of connection to home culture

  - Falsification of records to make a child seem like an orphan when their parents are still living

  - In situations of poverty, parents or relatives may place children in orphanages hoping they will be adopted by someone overseas, leading to more children in orphanages

  - Lack of possibility for follow up - therefore risk of abuse etc

  - Inadequate systems and social work infrastructure meaning that children might get taken to another country without the proper checks and research being done. This could lead to involvement in forms of child trafficking.

  Consequently, it should only be used when no other forms of care are available.

• Fostering - This also involves a child being taken into the care of adults other than their parents. It is usually a temporary arrangement and the state retains financial responsibility for the child. It is a formal/legal arrangement and usually involves non-related adults. In many cases, people foster large numbers of children. These 'foster homes' are essentially small institutions.

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