TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Prospective adoptive and foster parents attended the orientation on adoption and alternative child care organized by the Protective Services Division of the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO).
The orientation provided a comprehensive discussion of R.A. 11642, or the ”Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act.” The said legislation, as explained by Gauis Lou Fangasan of the Regional Alternative Child Care Office (RACCO), provides parameters and conditions for adoption.
The goal of the law is to guarantee that all children receive the love, care, understanding, and security necessary for the complete and harmonious development of their personalities while still being under the custody and care of their parents. He stressed that proper placement or adoption by an unrelated individual is only taken into consideration when such attempts prove insufficient.
He claimed that this law has made it possible to access more affordable and straightforward domestic administrative adoption procedures, as well as more efficient options for alternative child care. It likewise provides that the child’s best interests and welfare must come first when offering alternative care, custody, and adoption options.
Jane Quizzagan, a Social Welfare Officer III with the RACCO discussed foster care, kinship, and residential care—the three alternative child care options.
She clarified that kinship care is an alternate form of care provided to a kid by relatives who are within the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity, as opposed to residential care, which offers a child 24-hour care. This type of alternative care arrangement is known as foster care, and it involves a licensed foster parent providing a child with planned substitute parental care.
According to Quizzagan, a kid in foster care may have unique needs, whose family is unable to offer appropriate care, or the child is awaiting an alternative placement and must be ready for family life.
Foster children also receive benefits in the form of monthly stipends, approval as a qualified PhilHealth dependent, and enhanced attention to their medical and psychological needs.
To become a foster parent, an individual must fulfill certain prerequisites, such as being of legal age, possessing a strong moral value, having a desire to parent, and having the ability to start a family.
In order to guarantee that the child’s best interests are met, the CSWDO is encouraging people and parents who want to file for foster care and adoption to always go through the legal system. By Darwin S. Serion
