The long-term foster care matching process starts with the child, not the family. A caseworker builds a detailed profile of the child’s medical, educational, behavioral, and cultural needs, then reviews approved home studies to find a household whose skills, setup, and location actually fit that profile. A matching team weighs the fit against the child’s documented needs, background checks on every adult in the home must clear, and only then does the agency approve introductions and move toward placement.
Getting the match right matters. Children who cycle through multiple placements face compounding behavioral difficulties, academic disruption, and trouble forming lasting attachments. The steps below are what agencies look at, in roughly the order they happen.
When Long-Term Foster Care Is Even the Plan
Long-term foster care is a last-resort permanency goal, not a first choice. The formal label is “another planned permanent living arrangement,” or APPLA, and since 2014 federal law restricts APPLA to youth age 16 and older. At every permanency hearing, the court must ask the child about their desired outcome and the agency must document compelling reasons why returning home, adoption, legal guardianship, and placement with a fit and willing relative are all not in the child’s best interest.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675a – Additional Case Plan and Case Review System Requirements The agency must also show it made intensive, ongoing efforts to find a permanent family, including searching social media and other technology for biological relatives.
For children under 16, APPLA is not available. Long-term foster placements for younger children exist in practice, but the agency has to keep pursuing adoption, guardianship, or relative placement in the background. That changes how aggressively the agency searches and how closely the court watches each review hearing.
What the Agency Looks for in a Match
The child’s case plan drives the search. It must include health records, educational history, grade-level performance, immunization records, known medical conditions, and current medications.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675 – Definitions Social workers use that profile to identify families whose skills, home setup, and experience line up with what the child actually needs, not just what the family prefers.
Cultural background, religious practices, and primary language factor in. So does geography: some children need to stay near birth family for regular contact, others need distance for safety reasons. The agency also looks at whether the foster parents can realistically provide care for all the years remaining until the child reaches adulthood, including the skills to manage any specific behavioral or emotional challenges documented in the case file.
Sibling Groups
Federal law requires agencies to make reasonable efforts to place siblings in the same foster home. If siblings cannot live together, the agency must facilitate frequent contact through visits, phone calls, or other communication. The only exception is when the agency documents that a joint placement would be contrary to the safety or well-being of one of the siblings.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 671 – State Plan for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Sibling groups are among the hardest placements to make because few families have the room and resources for multiple children. But togetherness is the legal default; separating siblings requires documentation, not convenience.
The Child’s Role in the Decision
Children age 14 and older have a federally protected role in their own case planning. The case plan must be developed in consultation with the child, who can choose up to two people other than their foster parent or caseworker to serve on the planning team. One of those people can be designated as the child’s advisor and advocate.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675 – Definitions For younger children, agencies still consider the child’s expressed preferences, though how much weight those preferences carry varies. At APPLA hearings, the court must ask the child directly about their desired outcome regardless of age.
What Race and Ethnicity Can and Cannot Do
Federal law prohibits using race, color, or national origin to deny or delay a foster placement. Under the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act as amended in 1996, no agency or individual may deny someone the opportunity to foster based on race, or delay placing a child based on the race of either the child or the prospective parent.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1996b – Interethnic Adoption An agency can consider a child’s cultural needs as one factor among many, but race alone can never be the reason a match is made or rejected.
What You Have to Complete Before You Can Be Considered
Two things have to be done before a family’s name ever appears next to a child’s: a completed home study and clean background checks on every adult in the household.
The Home Study
The home study is the agency’s full assessment of your household. Expect at least three home visits by a social worker, individual and family interviews with each adult, income verification, a tour of the home, and preservice training. Personal references are collected, and at least some are verified through in-person interviews rather than written statements.
The home itself has to meet safety standards that vary by state but generally cover fire safety, sanitary conditions, adequate sleeping space for each child, and secure storage for medications and hazardous materials. States set their own bedroom size minimums, so check with your local licensing agency for exact square footage requirements. Weapons and firearms must be stored so no child in the home can access them, and many agencies require a written firearms policy as part of the licensing file.
The home study also records your preferences on the age, gender, and types of needs you feel equipped to handle. This is where many families either set themselves up for a good match or quietly guarantee a future disruption. If your file says you’re comfortable with teenagers but you’re actually terrified of adolescent defiance, no caseworker can match you well. The completed home study is the document child welfare workers pull up when they are considering your family for a specific child.
Background Checks and Disqualifying Convictions
Every prospective foster parent and every adult living in the household must pass fingerprint-based criminal background checks through national crime databases before a placement can be approved. The agency must also check child abuse and neglect registries in every state where any household adult has lived in the past five years.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 671 – State Plan for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Fees vary by state but are generally modest, often under $40 per person.
Certain felony convictions permanently disqualify an applicant. Federal law bars approval if anyone in the household has ever been convicted of a felony involving:
- Child abuse or neglect
- Spousal abuse
- A crime against children, including child pornography
- A violent crime, including rape, sexual assault, or homicide (but not other forms of physical assault or battery)
A felony conviction for physical assault, battery, or a drug-related offense within the past five years also bars approval.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 671 – State Plan for Foster Care and Adoption Assistance A decades-old drug conviction will not automatically disqualify you; a decades-old sexual assault conviction will. These are federal minimums. Some states add restrictions on top.
How the Match Decision Gets Made
Once the home study is approved and a potential match surfaces, the child’s caseworker and the family’s caseworker collaborate on a detailed review. The child’s worker shares a summary of the child’s needs, history, and permanency goals. The family’s worker provides the home study. If that initial review looks promising, the family gets more detailed information about the child and time to ask questions and confirm their interest.
The formal matching decision is made by a team that can include supervisors, caseworkers from both sides, mental health professionals, and sometimes the child or their advocate. The team evaluates the match against the child’s documented needs, not the family’s preferences. Key questions:
- Can the family meet the child’s current medical and therapeutic needs?
- Are other children in the household compatible in age and needs?
- Does the family have a support network outside the agency?
- Can the family realistically raise the child to adulthood?
The team’s recommendation goes to a designated decision-maker inside the agency for final approval. If the match is declined, the caseworker keeps searching. If it’s approved, the decision is documented in the child’s permanent case file and the parties move toward introductions. Timelines vary considerably by agency and jurisdiction.
Transition to Placement
An approved match does not mean the child shows up at your door the next day. A structured introduction period lets the child build trust with the new family before moving in. It usually starts with short daytime visits at the foster home and gradually works up to full-day outings and overnight stays. The pace depends entirely on how the child responds. Rushing this phase is one of the most common mistakes agencies and families make, and it is where placement disruptions often start.
During the introduction period, the foster parents and the agency sign a placement agreement spelling out financial support, legal responsibilities, medical care protocols, confidentiality requirements, and the conditions under which a child can be removed from the home. Logistics like transferring the child’s belongings, enrolling them in school, and setting up medical appointments are generally finalized before the official move-in date.
School Stability During the Move
A new placement often means a new neighborhood, but it does not have to mean a new school. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, a child in foster care has the right to stay enrolled in their school of origin unless a determination is made that it is not in the child’s best interest. That decision has to weigh the appropriateness of the current school setting and how close the child’s new home is to the school.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 6311 – State Plans When a school change is necessary, the new school must enroll the child immediately even without the usual records, and must contact the previous school to obtain academic records without delay.
Each state education agency designates a point of contact for child welfare agencies to oversee these protections.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 20 USC 6311 – State Plans If keeping the child in their current school is a priority, the geographic search radius for a matching family may narrow considerably. Raise this with the caseworker early.
After the Match: Support and Review
The match doesn’t end at move-in. Agencies are required to visit children in foster care on an ongoing basis, and most states mandate at least monthly in-person visits during the first year, with more frequent contact in the opening weeks. These visits track the child’s adjustment, the family’s coping, and whether the services in the case plan are actually being delivered.
Foster parents can request respite care when they need a temporary break. Respite programs vary by state and agency, but they typically provide short-term care by another licensed foster parent. Burnout is a leading cause of placement disruption, so ask your agency what respite options are available before you commit to a placement.
Permanency hearings continue at least every 12 months for as long as the child remains in care. At each one, the court reviews whether the current placement is still appropriate and whether the agency should keep pursuing other permanent options. For a child with an APPLA goal, the agency must document at every hearing that it is still actively searching for a permanent family and explain why each alternative remains unsuitable.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675a – Additional Case Plan and Case Review System Requirements Long-term foster care is never treated as a closed case.
When a Match Doesn’t Hold
Not every match works. Placement disruptions happen, and they are harder on the child than most people realize. Each move severs relationships with foster parents, neighbors, teachers, and friends. Children who experience multiple disruptions are more likely to struggle with aggression, depression, and difficulty trusting adults. The academic damage alone can take years to undo.
If a placement is struggling, ask for help before it reaches a crisis. Agencies can adjust the service plan, provide additional therapeutic support, offer respite, or arrange family counseling. Foster parents have the right to request a child’s removal with reasonable notice, but doing so without first engaging the agency’s support resources is a missed opportunity. When a disruption does happen, the agency has to find a new placement and restart the matching process, ideally using what it learned from the failed match to make a better one.