About National Adoption Month

National Adoption Month is an initiative of the Children's Bureau that began as National Adoption Week in 1984. Each year, the campaign highlights the importance of finding safe, loving, and permanent families for children in foster care. Consistent with the Administration for Children and Families' A Home For Every Child initiative, National Adoption Month emphasizes the urgency of achieving quicker permanency, so children do not linger in foster care without permanent connections.

In recent years, National Adoption Month has focused on older youth, who often wait the longest for permanency and are at greater risk of leaving foster care without a permanent family. Ensuring timely adoption or other lifelong legal and relational connections is essential to young people's well-being, stability, and lifelong success.

The National Adoption Month 2026 theme, A Home for Every Child, reinforces the shared commitment to reducing time in care and strengthening efforts to help children find permanent families. Adoption as a permanency goal provides older youth with a sense of belonging, stability, and enduring support as they navigate life milestones, including succeeding in school, pursuing careers, and building healthy, lifelong relationships.

Lasting connections—including those with siblings, relatives, friends, peers, mentors, and others—are critical to permanency. Having strong relationships allows young people to feel loved, accepted, and supported throughout their lives. Research shows that siblings placed together also experience increased placement stability and improved well-being outcomes. For prospective adoptive parents who want to adopt more than one child, adopting siblings could take less time and the transition could be easier for everyone involved.

View information about National Adoption Month and the Children's Bureau's commitment to drawing attention to and supporting the families, professionals, and communities who help children find permanent homes and connections.


The vision of A Home for Every Child includes helping children and youth build the permanent, supportive relationships they need to thrive. Adoption is one pathway to achieving that vision, offering opportunities for lifelong family connections, stability, and belonging. National Adoption Month raises awareness of the children and youth waiting for adoption and the importance of creating pathways to permanency that honor youth voice and strengthen meaningful connections. When children and youth have enduring relationships with caring adults, they are better positioned to navigate life's challenges and milestones. The following data from fiscal year 2025 (opens in a new tab) appears in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (opens in a new tab):

  • Two-thirds of children in foster care in the United States also had a sibling in care.
  • In FY 2025, 31,695 children under age 18 in foster care who were legally free and had a permanency plan of adoption. 
  • 11,826 were between the ages of 11 and 17
  • Of the 43,380 children adopted in FY 2025, 8,451 were 11 to 23 years old. 
  • The average number of days a child spent in foster care was 711.

Permanency in 12 Months for Children in Care 12 to 23 Months (CFSR Round 4) (opens in a new tab)
Explore how States' performance in Permanency Outcome 1—ensuring children in care for 12 to 23 months achieve stable, permanent living situations—is evaluated in Round 4 of the Child and Family Services Review. A part of the Statewide Data Indicator Series, this fact sheet provides detailed insights, including measure definitions, calculation methods, data requirements, and national performance benchmarks to identify opportunities for improvement.

The Children’s Bureau offers a variety of activities in support of the National Adoption Month initiative each year. 

AdoptUSKids video and facilitation guide - AdoptUSKids for professionals (opens in a new tab)
This campaign promotes adoption from foster care and raises awareness of the children and teens who are waiting to be adopted.

If you are looking for other adoption-related information, you can explore the Adoption section of the Child Welfare Information Gateway website. If you are interested in adopting teens from foster care, please visit the resources and photo listing available from AdoptUSKids (opens in a new tab)

The mission of AdoptUSKids (opens in a new tab) is to raise public awareness about the need for foster and adoptive families for children living in foster care and to assist States, Territories, and Tribes in recruiting, engaging, developing, and supporting foster and adoptive families. AdoptUSKids is a project of the Children’s Bureau.

Supporting Professionals (opens in a new tab) 
AdoptUSKids supports child welfare professionals and agencies through the following free resources. 

National Photolisting (opens in a new tab)
Child welfare professionals can use the free national photolisting to match children in need of permanent homes with approved adoptive parents who can meet their needs.

Publications (opens in a new tab) 
AdoptUSKids publishes guides, tip sheets, and webinars on topics such as writing strengths-based narratives, engaging youth, creating effective recruitment and response systems, and supporting families.

Capacity Building Services (opens in a new tab)
AdoptUSKids offers consultation services, webinars, onsite and offsite training, and other opportunities for agency leaders to connect, learn, and ultimately improve their offerings for children and families.

National Ad Campaign (opens in a new tab)
The National Adoption Recruitment Campaign promotes adoption from foster care and raises awareness of the 122,000 children and teens waiting to be adopted.

Speakers Bureau (opens in a new tab)
The AdoptUSKids speakers bureau is a group of nearly 100 spokespeople who help raise public awareness of the need for foster and adoptive families and inspire others by sharing their experiences of adopting from foster care.

Communications
AdoptUSKids' newsletters (opens in a new tab) and active X (formerly Twitter) channel (opens in a new tab) keep professionals informed about new resources, tools, and best practices.

Supporting Families
AdoptUSKids helps families (opens in a new tab). It supplies information, resources, and referrals that connect families and their caseworkers. It offers the only federally funded are provided to families and professionals free of charge.
 

The Children’s Bureau, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides discretionary funds for projects designed to eliminate barriers to adoption and help find permanent families for children who would benefit from adoption, particularly children with special needs and teens, who are at higher risk of aging out of foster care than younger children. This section provides a brief overview of each grant recipient as well as resources for supporting youth and families on their adoption journey.

Adoption Professional Leadership Development Program
Fellows in AdoptUSKids' Adoption Professional Leadership Development Program (opens in a new tab) design and implement action research projects to address issues in child welfare. The following projects are centered on permanency for teens and youth engagement:

National Center for Diligent Recruitment (opens in a new tab)
The National Center for Diligent Recruitment works to improve outcomes for children in foster care by helping child welfare systems and professionals develop and implement strategic, data-driven diligent recruitment plans. The center also assists States, Tribes, and Territories in their work to recruit, develop, support, and retain foster, adoptive, and kinship families who reflect the races and ethnicities of the children in foster care and can meet those children’s needs. 

National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support (opens in a new tab) 
The National Center for Enhanced Post-Adoption Support provides technical assistance and other resources to support States, Tribal nations, and Territories as they develop, implement, and sustain comprehensive, culturally responsive, and accessible postpermanency services. Child welfare professionals and others can access tools and resources (opens in a new tab) about postpermanency services, including articles, webinars, podcasts, and more.

National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services (opens in a new tab) 
The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services provides technical assistance and evidence-informed training to strengthen coordination and capacity among child welfare and mental health systems. The center also works to help children, youth, and families locate and access mental health professionals who are trained to provide culturally and linguistically relevant child welfare-competent mental health services.

National Adoption Competence Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) (opens in a new tab)
The National Adoption Competence Mental Health Training Initiative aims to improve outcomes for children in foster, adoptive, and guardianship families by infusing enhanced permanency, adoption, and mental health competency into casework and clinical practice. NTI developed two state-of-the-art, standardized, web-based trainings to build the capacity of child welfare and mental health professionals in all States, Tribes, and Territories to effectively support children, youth, and their foster, adoptive, and guardianship families.

National Training and Development Curriculum (opens in a new tab)
The National Training and Development Curriculum provides potential foster, kinship, and adoptive parents with the information and tools needed to parent children who have experienced trauma, separation, or loss. This cutting-edge resource offers culturally relevant and flexible education to support them through classroom-based and on-demand training.

Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth in Finding Permanency (QIC-EY) (opens in a new tab)
Led by Spaulding for Children and including four national partners and several implementation sites, the Quality Improvement Center on Engaging Youth works to make systemic changes in how child welfare systems authentically engage children and youth, as reflected in intentional shifts in policy, practice, and culture. The QIC-EY aims to transform how child welfare and professionals center their work around children and youth and help them authentically engage children and youth throughout their time in the child welfare system.

Adoption-Sensitive Clinical Care Training (opens in a new tab)
Funded by the Children's Bureau, the ASCC curriculum focuses on equipping hospital staff and medical professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to talk about adoption with expecting or new parents, including those who may be facing unintended pregnancies, considering adoption, or interested in learning about adoption processes. It is available online for free.

National Child Welfare Center for Innovation and Advancement (opens in a new tab)
The National Child Welfare Center for Innovation and Advancement (NCWCIA) is funded by the Children's Bureau to assist public child welfare agencies with improving performance and outcomes through evidence and sound, innovative implementation practices. NCWCIA provides agencies data-driven assistance to meet their jurisdictional goals and Federal statutory requirements so that children can remain safe and with their families whenever possible.

National Tribal Child Welfare Center for Innovation & Advancement (opens in a new tab)
Learn about collaborations with American Indian and Alaska Native nations to help strengthen Tribal child and family systems and services and find resources and tools to support Tribal child welfare professionals in their child welfare practice.
 

The Children’s Bureau prioritizes improving child safety, permanency, and well‑being by strengthening prevention services, supporting families, and reducing the need for foster care. It advances these priorities by partnering with states, tribes, and communities to build fair, responsive systems that meet families where they are. Its work is centered on reducing child abuse and neglect, expanding quality foster care and adoption options, and promoting data-informed, community-driven improvements across child welfare systems. Visit the Children's Bureau Current Issues & Priorities page (opens in a new tab).