From the moment I first held our beautiful daughter in my arms, I was filled with an indescribable feeling of awe and wonder. I thought I knew what love was. Only I didn’t. In all my life, I never truly understood what it felt like to be a mother. The bond between a parent and a child is like no other. I get it now. Being a mom has given me a whole new perspective. Let me explain.

When you become a mom through adoption you:

•       Love your child like she was born to you and sometimes forget she wasn’t.
•       Want to become a better person because she deserves it.
•       Know you will do whatever you can to protect your child and keep her happy, healthy and safe.
•       Spend sleepless nights worrying about her when she’s hurt or sick.
•       Put your child’s needs ahead of your own, always. 
•       Marvel at your child’s accomplishments and milestones.
•       Feel immense gratitude for the sacrifice her birth mom made.
•       Witness a unique blend of nature and nurture that is present in every child who is adopted.
•       Sometimes feel unworthy of the incredible role you’ve been given in shaping another’s life.
•       Wonder how you got so lucky to be chosen as the parent to this child.
•       Truly understand what unconditional love is.

I would have never known such a deep and powerful love if I hadn’t become a parent by adoption. In some ways, I understand this tricky emotion better than I would have had I given birth. Not only have I experienced the unique mother-daughter bond, I’ve witnessed the selfless love an expectant parent displays when she places her child for adoption. I also understand that you don’t have to be blood-related to care deeply about each other and become a strong, healthy family. And I know that my child has so many other people who love her, even if they are not a part of her daily life.

Biology may make us similar to our families, but love is what connects us. It’s this love that is the best part of adoption.

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Below are six foster children benefits to consider when adopting a child from foster care.

1. Practically Free

Adoption is a wonderful way to grow your family, however; the steep cost can make some people shy away from adoption. Adopting through foster care costs the adoptive parents little, if any, money at all. Most adoptions through foster care only cost if the adoptive parents chose to use a private lawyer and not one the state is able to pay. The average cost of a private adoption is close to $30,000, but adoption through foster care averages less than $1,000. The difference is huge.

2. Insurance

Health insurance is one of the most important things to have in today’s time. It also is one of the hardest due to the rising costs of healthcare. A major benefit for adoptive foster children is their ability to keep state-funded health insurance at least until age 18. Special needs children may qualify to keep this benefit longer.

3. Monthly Subsidy

Many people would love to grow their family through adoption but worry about the overall expense of raising a child. Just like foster parents receive a monthly subsidy to help care for basic needs of a child, adoptive parents may be eligible to continue to receive this as well.

4. Respite Care

Respite care is when another licensed foster home cares for a child placed in your home to allow the current foster placement a break due to emergency or even exhaustion. A child adopted through foster care may qualify for state-funded respite care by another home if needed.

5. Tax Credit

All adoptions qualify for a tax credit of over $13,000 and can be used for five years. If your tax liability was $3,000 one year, you can carry the other amount over the next five years until the credit is spent or five years, whichever is less.

6. Free College

Yes, FREE!! One of the biggest benefits offered to children adopted through foster care is the ability to attend college for free. This benefit is not in every state, but there are several who participates. The average cost of a four year degree plan is $33,480. This is a huge amount taken off of the parents and child, resulting in more children attending college.

Adoption is a great way to grow a family and adoptions can have many forms, but when considering adoption, the benefits of adopting for foster care should be considered.

Click here to learn more about foster children benefits and adoption.

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But, you have to get over the icky—and figure out a way to afford it. If you can’t do it on your own, perhaps your employer can help—even if it means making “only a dent” in the cost of adoption services. Every little bit really does help. A dent can make a HUGE difference.

Less than half of all U.S. employers offer adoption benefits. Although the word is getting out, we still have a long way to go. And some of the most adoption-friendly workplaces have earned that reputation because of employees who have lobbied hard for change—and have convinced their employers to add, or increase, their adoption benefits.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption—North America’s only national nonprofit charity dedicated solely to finding permanent homes for children in foster care—recently ranked the Top 100 Adoption-Friendly Workplaces 2017. This annual report includes companies of every size. Here are the top three companies that made that cut in 2017—and some special facts that make some of these companies stand out from all the rest.

The Dave Thomas Foundation’s credo is as follows: “Our goal is to find a permanent, loving family for every child waiting in foster care. And just as every child deserves a home, we believe all parents deserve support and time to bond with their children. While this is a moment of celebration for these employers, it’s also a moment of awareness for our nation concerning children waiting to be adopted from foster care in the United States. Adoption-friendly policies are easy to implement and cost-effective, and create loyal and happy employees.”

Top 3 Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in 2017

The 2017 Top 100 Adoption-Friendly Workplaces Report is out, and these three companies are the final cut, scoring the highest points for being amazing adoption-friendly workplaces.

#1: American Express

This company offers 20 weeks of paid parental leave. U.S.-based employees are eligible for reimbursement of expenses up to $35,000. This is to help with the cost of an adoption or surrogacy event.

#2: Capital One Financial

Offers adoptive and foster parents up to 12 weeks of time off to care for and bond with their child. Eight weeks of parental leave, paid at 100%, can be broken up into two-week increments. Two of those eight weeks may be used prior to the expected adoption or placement in the home.

#3: Ferring Pharmaceuticals

Offers employees up to five weeks of paid leave and reimbursement of up to $25,000 in expenses related to adoption. Counseling and other parenting resources are also available.

To see the full list and details about all 100 workplaces that made the Dave Thomas cut, go to https://davethomasfoundation.org.

My Company’s Not on the List: What Now?

If your employer currently does not offer adoption benefits, consider bringing up the possibility to your company’s decision makers, movers, and shakers. Just because an employer doesn’t offer adoption benefits doesn’t mean they can’t or aren’t willing to, sometime in the future. Maybe they aren’t aware of the need among their employees or among the country (or society) as a whole.

So . . . ask.

Encourage your employer to become an adoption-friendly workplace.

The post 3 Awesome Employers Offering Adoption Benefits appeared first on Adoption Benefits | Employer Assistance Program & Payments.

1. If the child has a completely absent parent, adoption may add another layer of security for the child.   

Often, when a parent marries or remarries, it’s easy for a children to feel left out. They went from being the most important relationship in their parent’s life, to sharing that loved one with another adult. If the child has previously experienced a parent walking away, adoption may be one route for a stepparent to demonstrate wanting to build a permanent relationship with the child(ren), and not just with the child’s parent.

2. It may help the stepparent make legal what has already been happening: parenting.

A stepparent can often feel like a bit like a beloved camp counselor. A stepparent may perform all the duties of a parent, while having zero legal rights. Adoption allows the stepparent to make decisions on behalf of their stepchild, like signing permission slips, medical care, and other important life decisions. It can help make the stepparent feel more like a family member than a camp counselor.

3. In the case of divorce, the child still has two parents.

As stated above, stepparents have no legal rights over their spouse’s children, unless they legally adopt them. If the parents should get a divorce, the adoptive parent has all the legal rights of the biological parent. This includes visitation, medical care, religious decisions, expenses, and the like.

4. It evens the playing field.

In the case where there are children from different relationships being raised in the same family, formal adoption can help level the playing field in the house. There is no longer ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ All the kids are ‘ours.’ The formality of adoption allows for even inheritance, medical coverage, decision making, and the like.

If you’re interested in learning more in stepparent adoption, click here.

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Free Adoption

While it is true that domestic and international adoption are extremely expensive, sometimes costing well over $40,000, often adoption from foster care is completely free. There are currently hundreds of thousands of children awaiting adoption from foster care. One can find an adoptive child by doing a google search of children waiting to be adopted in their home state or even from another state. The state often pays the attorney fees to finalize an adoption with adoption from foster care. The key is to find an attorney who will settle on those fees as payment and not charge anything more.

Subsidies

With domestic and international adoption, there are no subsidies from the state or otherwise, while with foster care the majority of children available for adoption are also eligible for a monthly subsidy depending on the state and the qualifications that each child falls under. The subsidy also lasts until that child turns 18. For example, the qualifications for subsidy in Texas are: child must be over the age of two if a minority, if Caucasian the child must be over the age of six, sibling groups also qualify in the state of Texas. Currently the max subsidy for a child adopted in Texas is $400 per month per child.

College Tuition

With domestic and international adoption, children likely do not qualify for free tuition to college once they graduate high school or free dual-credit courses while they are in high school. In some states, community colleges will waive tuition and frees for students who were in the foster care system. This is a huge benefit to parents and to children once they reach the college age.

Adoption Tax Credit

There is also an adoption credit at tax time that you can file. For more information on adoption credits for taxes you can click here.

Those who fear the cost of adoption should really look into adopting a child from foster care. While it is true that it is difficult and rare to adopt an infant from foster care, some may find it easier to adopt an older child who is already past the toddler stages of potty training, tantrums, and daycare. They could save a life, keep a group of siblings from being split up, adopt at no cost to themselves, and could have their children earn college degrees at little cost to the family.

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