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14 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • November 2020 WRITTEN BY AMY TAYLOR November is Adoption Awareness Month, with National Adoption Day being observed on November 21, 2020. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Center, in 2016 Virginia was ranked 49 th in the nation for kids aging out of the foster system. This means 19% of foster children available for adoption grew too old to be cared for by that system before they were adopted. In honor of Adoption Awareness Month, we wanted to dive into what adoption entails, figure out why Virginia is ranked nearly last in the nation for adoption and how we can start to change this moving forward. TYPES OF ADOPTION When you adopt a child the agency or social services will help decide what type of adoption is best for the child. If you adopt through foster care, the birth parents' rights have already been terminated and social services will decide the appropriate type of adoption. If you adopt through a non-agency placement you and the birth parents will work out type of adoption, sometimes with attorneys guiding the process. Here's some more information on the three types of adoption. Closed adoption. You and the birth parents agree that the child will have no contact with the birth parents after you adopt the child. Open adoption. You and the birth parents have an agreement that allows the birth parents to have contact, updates and sometimes visitation with the adopted children. Semi-open adoption. This type of adoption has more contact than a closed adoption, but less contact than an open adoption. The child's birth parents may receive updates and some contact with the children. ADOPTION PLACEMENT In Virginia there are two types of adoption placement. You can adopt a child through agency or non-agency placement. Agency placement is when you get custody of a child through the local department of social services or a licensed child-placing agency. When you adopt through an agency, they terminate the child's birth parents' parental rights and the agency will agree to the adoption. Non-agency placement is when the birth parents or legal guardians place a child with the adoptive parents. These adoptions usually take place when a stepparent adopts their stepchild, a close relative adopts a child or someone over the age of 18 is adopted. ADOPTIVE PARENTS Virginia Needs More