Can I go from Fostering a child to Adopting the child?

There is a difference between the terms, "foster care" and "foster to adopt". The ultimate difference about your current status with DSS is what your intent was when you began working with DSS. If you are a licensed foster parent, you began working as a foster parent to provide a temporary, stable, loving, nurturing home for South Carolina's abused and neglected children. It was not necessarily your intent to adopt any of the children who began living in your home.If you approached DSS with the intention of finding a child to adopt - not to have random children placed in your home for temporary placement then you are seeking a "foster to adopt" placement.

Either is fine, but there is a legal difference between the two.South Carolina has a policy that the reunification of the children with their family serves the best interests of the child and is the preferred approach in removal cases so long as the abuse/neglect that occurred has been remedied and the child can be safe and healthy in the home with family.An adoption of a child from DSS cannot take place until the child is legally free for adoption - meaning the parental rights of the birth parents have been terminated.  Sometimes based on past history with birth parents or just in observing the progress (or lack of progress) the birth parents are making toward completing their DSS treatment plan, the focus of the agency may begin to shift from reunification to termination of parental rights and adoption for a child. At that point the agency begins to look for permanent placements (adoptive resources) for that child. It is possible if you have been serving as a licensed foster home for that child to apply for a foster to adopt placement for that child - even if you didn't originally have the intention to adopt the child from the beginning.  If you are starting out as a foster to adopt family then you will be waiting to be matched with children who are legally free or whose parents are not looking like they will remedy the situation that lead to the removal of the children.