Ariel is a licensed adoption agency. We can facilitate Private Adoptions or Public Adoptions. Public Adoptions are when children are in foster care and their parents have had their rights terminated. Private adoptions are when a birth mom comes to Ariel and chooses to relinquish her rights.
The Home Study, or Structure Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE), is the assessment tool that Colorado uses to determine if a family is appropriate to do foster care and/or adopt. It includes individual and joint interviews, interviews with all other members of your household and an inspection of your home. Every family, adoptive or foster, has to have a home study done.
First step is to schedule a meeting to start the application process please fill out the form here. Talk to others who have adopted and start preparing your home.
Children in foster care are placed with the goal of returning home to their birth parents. If their parents do not complete their family service plan the court will terminate their parental rights, leaving the child legally free for adoption. If there are no viable kin, and they are in your home, you will be asked to be a permanent home for them.
There is no determined amount of time of when the courts terminate parental rights. There are laws to expedite the process for children under five years of age, but every case is unique. The child has to be in your home a minimum of six months before a petition for adoption can be made.
There are no costs to adopt from foster care. You are paid a foster care stipend until they are adopted. Once adoption is final each county has different policy in regards to adoption assistance and Medicaid.
After you become certified and create a profile you wait for a birth mother to choose you as the family she wants to relinquish her rights to. Once chosen we walk the remainder part of the journey with birth mom. After delivery you take the child home and an Ariel worker visits monthly. Birth parents go before a judge to complete relinquishment of their parental rights and after six months we petition the court for adoption.
Once you are chosen and have the child in your home, the child is required to be in your homes for six months to ensure attachment, development and wellbeing. At six months we petition the courts for an adoption hearing.
Ariel’s costs are extremely competitive. Our goal is to make families. You pay for the home study and licensing costs up front and the remainder after a birth mom has chosen you.