By the conclusion of the course, students will be expected to 
be able to:
•	Describe the historical roots of foster care and 
adoption and their emergence into the social work profession,
including the philosophical and ideological underpinnings, which
are the foundation of current federal policy as it attempts to 
legislate competent social work practice.
•	Understand and describe pertinent federal legislation 
impacting foster care and adoption.
•	Analyze the court process, including how to prepare 
foster care and adoption cases for court as well as identify
elements of effective court testimony. 
•	Understand and describe the process of parent/child 
attachment and identify indicators of secure/healthy and 
insecure/unhealthy attachments.  
•	Identify child development milestones within the 
family life cycles of biological, relative, foster, and adoptive
families. 
•	Identify and understand the effects of parental child
maltreatment upon children's development and describe 
appropriate interventions to prevent or reduce developmental
problems. 
•	Describe the process of separation and loss for 
children and parents served by foster care and adoption 
programs. 
•	Describe the process of moving children to minimize 
the negative effects of changing caretakers.
•	Define and critically discuss current child welfare 
policy and practice dilemmas involved with permanency planning
and remediating parental child maltreatment. 
•	Develop diagnostic assessments and intervention plans 
from an ecosystems perspective that reflect an understanding of
the child’s need for a permanent family. 
•	Describe and critically assess each permanency plan 
option, including reunification, adoption, kinship guardianship,
independent living, and situations for which each is most
appropriate.
•	Identify and problem-solve values-centered, cultural, 
and ethical issues in foster care and adoption assessment and
intervention with biological, kinship, foster, and adoptive 
families. 
•	Describe the effects of institutional and 
organizational goals, resources, policies, and procedures on
service delivery, especially to the vulnerable populations served
in foster care and adoption programs, as well as strategies to
empower those served through strengthening self-efficacy beliefs.

•	Welcome, introduction to foster care, and adoption
•	The work of foster care and adoption and the role of 
foster and adoptive parents
•	Attachment and early brain development
•	Child and parent separation and loss 
•	Child development
•	Brief history of foster care and adoption in the U.S.
•	Legal aspects of the court process
•	Minimizing the trauma of moves for children
•	Assessment and working with biological family visitation 
and parent/child relationship
•	Ongoing work with biological family and permanency 
planning
•	Kinship/guardianship and needed support
•	Behavior problems and direct work with children
•	Adoption, including subsidies, post-adoption services,
disruption, and dissolution
•	Transcultural adoptions and Multi-ethnic Placement Act 
of 1994 and IEPA of 1996
•	Trauma-informed practice 
•	Evidence-based interventions with children and their 
parents
•	Future directions of foster care and adoption 
•	Surviving and thriving in child welfare work and 
employee safety