New Jersey Department of Children and Families
Office of Adoption Operations Kinship Legal Guardianship Subsidy Program

The New Jersey Adoption Subsidy Program provides support and assistance
to families after their adoption is finalized. Although a caseworker is no longer assigned to
your child, your family now has an assigned Subsidy Specialist to assist you with concerns or questions, and obtaining community resources. Your Subsidy Specialist can help with Medicaid, subsidy payments, address changes, and other issues important to your family.

Working With Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Families in Foster Care and Adoption

WHAT’S INSIDEGetting to know the LGBTQ communityLanguage and terminologyAdvantages of including LGBTQ familiesTips for effective recruitment/retentionChallenges faced by LGBTQ adoptive parentsPossible challenges professionals face while working with LGBTQ familiesTips for representing LGBTQ families as potential adoptive parentsSupporting transgender parentsThe basics of creating a welcoming agencyConclusionReferences
During the last decade, child welfare professionals and agencies alike have welcomed the increasing visibility of families headed by LGBTQ parents. A growing number of agencies in the United States, both public and private, have established more supportive practices and are becoming increasingly proactive in recruiting families within the LGBTQ community, which means a larger pool of highly motivated and qualified prospective parents for children who need them. As written in the American Academy of Pediatrics (2013) policy statement titled Promoting the Well-being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian, “Scientific evidence affirms that children have similar developmental and emotional needs and receive similar parenting whether they are raised by parents of the same or different genders.”

Adoption has a lifelong impact on those it touches,
and members of adoptive families may want
professional help when concerns arise. Timely
intervention by a professional skilled in adoption,
attachment, and trauma issues often can prevent
concerns from becoming more serious problems.
This factsheet offers information on the different
types of therapy and providers available to help,
and it offers suggestions on how to find an
appropriate therapist. Foster parents also may find
definitions and descriptions in this factsheet useful.

A major step in building your family through adoption is the home study. The laws of every State and the District of Columbia require all prospective adoptive parents (no matter how they intend to adopt) to participate in a home study conducted by a licensed social worker or caseworker. This process has three purposes:
Educate and prepare the prospective family for adoption
Evaluate the capability and suitability of the prospective family to adopt

For an adoption to take place, the person available to be adopted must be placed in the home of a person or persons eligible to adopt. All States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands have laws that specify the persons who are eligible to adopt and the persons who can be adopted. In addition, all States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the territories have laws that designate the persons or entities that have the authority to make adoptive placements.