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Policy Manual
ADOPTIONS
Adoption Placement Process

48-15-8
Transition Process

Understanding the Transitional Process During the transitional process of moving from a foster home to an adoptive home, the adoptive family members are helped to understand the child's grief reaction on leaving those with whom the child is familiar.
Helping the Transition Throughout the placement planning process, the child needs to be helped to prepare for the new placement and separate himself/herself from the foster parents.

A sudden separation from the familiar home is to be avoided to lessen the possibility of emotional disturbances associated with an adoption placement.

The worker explores with the child in a way that he/she can best understand, the factors which prevent his returning to his/her natural parents and the need to move on from the foster home into the adoption home. This is often accomplished through the Life Book process.

Establishing and sustaining a trusting relationship with the child will help the worker prepare the child for the placement with the prospective adoptive parents. The child's foster parents need to provide positive reinforcement concerning the planned placement.

The foster parents should understand the impossibility of the child's returning to his/her birth home and the need for a permanent home for the child. By being convinced of the need for adoption, the foster parents can then talk with the child about what adoption would mean to the child.
The Older Child The older child particularly needs to know what is happening at each step and what he/she can expect from one day to the next in the process of going to a home of his/her own. He/she needs to actively participate in the placement and must have time to develop a desire for this change.

Only as the older child accepts the fact that he/she cannot return to his/her own parents and can express his/her feelings about this and understand it was not his/her fault that he/she is no longer a member of the birth family, can he/she fully accept the move.

Connecticut Department of Children and Families Issued: March 1, 1994

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