The State agency with responsibility for placing children in out-of-home care and supervising those placements must ensure through careful and thorough assessments of personal characteristics and home environments that foster parents and other substitute caregivers are capable of providing safe, nurturing homes that are in the best interests of the children in out-of-home care.

A licensed foster family home is one that is approved by the State to provide care for children and that meets basic standards of safety set by law and regulation. Laws and policies for licensing or approving family foster homes vary considerably from State to State. These standards reduce predictable risks to the health, safety, and well-being of children in out-of-home care. The goal of foster care is to provide a safe, stable, nurturing environment until the child is able to return home or until a permanent family is found for the child. For this publication, State statutes, regulations, and policies regarding the requirements for approving foster family homes were collected from all 50 States, and the results are presented below.