Common Foster Care Terms

See full child welfare glossary.

• Adoption - The social, emotional, and legal process through which children who will not be raised by their birth parents become full and permanent legal members of another family while maintaining genetic and psychological connections to their birth family
• Legal Guardianship – a viable permanency option once reunification and adoption have been ruled out
• Resource parent – also known as foster parent - provides a home to a child in foster care until the child can be reunified with their biological parent(s).
• Foster care – A temporary service for children who cannot live with their families.
• Foster care agency – also known as specialized agency - recruits, trains, assesses, and certifies families to provide foster care services and then provides case management for the children that are placed with those families upon certification
• Homefinder – the type of social worker assigned to potential foster families to oversee home certification
• Respite – short term and temporary foster care placement designed to offer relief to a family
• Home study – the process of collecting documentation and information and writing it into a report to determine a family’s fitness for providing foster care services
• DHHR – Department of Health and Human Resources, entity that becomes the child’s legal guardian during their time in foster care
• DHHR Worker – the social worker or case manager assigned to a child’s case through the Department of Health and Human Resources. This person is the physical representative of the child’s legal guardian during their time in foster care.
• GAL – Guardian Ad Litem – child’s attorney and legal representation in court.
• CASA worker – court appointed special advocate worker – is a trained volunteer from the community who is appointed by the judge in some counties to represent the child’s best interest in court
• MDT – Multi-disciplinary team – are all parties involved in a child’s case including foster parents, biological family, DHHR worker, agency social worker, GAL, CASA worker, the child if old enough, and any other party as appropriate such as a therapist or school representative. These people attend regular meetings to discuss the child and any progress in the case.