District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency
Over 500 District children and teens are living outside their birth homes under the care of the public child welfare system. All these young people deserve to grow up with the security, guidance, and support only a family environment provides. What’s more, they deserve to know their community cares. Yet nearly half of all District children and youth in care are placed in Maryland. We need more foster homes in the District to keep children in their community.
CFSA continuously recruits, trains, and licenses District residents to be foster parents. CFSA offers two pathways to adoption from the public child welfare system: foster to adopt and child-specific adoption.
Services and information
- Traditional Foster Care
- Emergency Foster Care
- Respite Foster Care
- Adoption
Requirements to become a foster parent
Because there aren't enough foster parents in the District of Columbia, many foster kids end up living in nearby Maryland. However, D.C. has its own minimum requirements for licensing foster parents. Parents for District foster children need must:
- Be at least 21 years old
- Prove financial resources to support a child
- Rent or own a home
- Show you are healthy enough to care for a child
- Provide enough space in the house for each foster child
- Complete 30 hours of training
- Pass a Home Study
There is no minimum parenting experience required. Foster parents in the District of Columbia can be single or married, with or without biological children at home. In fact, licensed homes are often a mix of biological and foster or adopted children.
You can work outside the home or be a stay-at-home parent. To help offset the costs of childcare, foster families receive assistance for every foster child in the home.
Ratings and Reviews
Average user rating
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Aug 26, 2023
IT was a wonderful experience 🙂
May 05, 2023
Dissappointing. I called the hotline to make a report and was met with sarcasm and rudeness. It is inappropriate for someone to be sarcastic when I am calling to report a potentially endangered child! I thought I called the wrong number at first/ I was being pranked.
Apr 28, 2023
A supporting service to the community,
Dec 14, 2022
Great help and wonderful workers
Nov 16, 2022
I hate these mfers more than anything. When I was dealing with my custody case they ignored EVERY SINGLE REPORT(legit reports of child neglegance) that I made against my son's mom. They never gave me a chance to provide documents which shows me that CPS doesn't provide justice for fathers at all.