Adopt a Child

We encourage families to work with other adoption agencies and are always happy to explore this option with you. We can provide services, such as a home study and post-placement supervision for families in the Southern Illinois region that do not want to be a part of the agency’s private adoption list.

There are no guarantees with adoption until finalization, and timing is very unpredictable. We find there is no such thing as an average wait time. The time an adoptive family waits for a match can be affected by any number of factors. According to a 2022 report from the National Council for Adoption, the data also points to the importance of appropriate expectations for people who are considering private infant adoption in the U.S. “They need to be prepared for longer wait times, and increasing costs, because the reality is that there are far more hopeful adoptive parents than there are infants being placed for adoption each year,” Hanlon advised. “As the report shows, that is a trend we’ve seen continue over the last several years and accelerate during the pandemic,” he added. See report: https://adoptioncouncil.org/press-release/new-re port-from-ncfa-shows-dramatic-decline-in-adopt ions-during-pandemic/

As you can imagine, selecting an adoptive family to raise your child is a very challenging decision. Some expectant / birth parents desire to select a family that can offer similar childhoods to their own. Others may be looking for an entirely different experience than the one they had. We aim to provide an array of adoptive families to meet whichever criteria the birth parents we work with desire, and we strive to provide adoptive families who reflect the diversity of the birth parents we serve.

At this time, Caritas does not have a program for adopting children through foster care. If a family desires to be a foster parent without the expectation to adopt, families can be referred to the Caritas foster care program.

We begin working with expectant parents (women and men considering adoption), or birth parents (those who are already parenting) at any point in which we are contacted, this includes through website inquiries, on-call support, and referrals from professionals. We attempt to connect with expectant or birth parents through online and social media advertising, and networking with adoption attorneys, social workers, physicians, pregnancy crisis centers, hospitals, churches, schools, and other adoption agencies. Our services to expectant parents are always free, educational, supportive, and non-coercive.

Caritas is a small local agency that completes less than 5 adoptions a year with an emphasis on growing the program. There is no limit to how many placements Caritas can complete and as we grow, we will add staff to meet that need.

We assist individuals of any ethnicity, race, and/or religion who reside in Southern Illinois. We follow the laws within the State of Illinois regarding adoption for all types of families including single parents, as well as families with other biological and/or adopted children. For agency-assisted domestic adoptions, Caritas requires you to be 25 years of age or older to the age of 55; if married, we require one year of marriage before making an application and one person must be a U.S. citizen. We are unable to serve families that are seeking a closed adoption; however, we accept families who are already working with an adoption agency, adoption professionals, or desire to work with another agency. We allow one adoption or placement at a time, unless the children are siblings, as we believe each child or sibling group should have 9 months between placements. We can assist with all types of adoptions and do not have the same eligibility criteria for the home study or post-placement process as those families that are seeking placement independently.

Caritas only accepts families into the program that are open to some level of openness in the adoption process. Each family will decide on the level that best meets the adoption placement needs and an openness contract will be drawn up and agreed upon at placement by all parties. The birth parents and adoptive parents will be comprehensively educated on ways to support open adoptions if it is chosen by the birth parents and is healthy for the adoption triad: birth parents, adoptive parents, and the adoptee.