Agency calls for foster parents

CEBU, Philippines — The National Authority for Child Care-Regional Alternative Child Care Office (NACC RACCO) VII is calling on interested individuals and families in Central Visayas to become licensed foster parents.

“If we have more foster parents available, more children will be able to experience the stability and safety of a family environment." NACC RACCO VII Officer-in-Charge Concepcion Solera said in a statement.

Foster parents are individuals licensed by the NACC to provide foster care or temporary parental care to a child. This family-based care supports the well-being and development of children who have experienced difficult circumstances.

It said that the Foster Family Care License given to foster parents is valid for three years, renewable, and non-transferable. Each family is allowed to foster a maximum of three children, or one child with special needs. A government subsidy is given to support foster children.

In Region 7, there are 58 licensed foster parents and 74 children under foster care.

These children --who have been abandoned, neglected, or surrendered-- are either waiting to be reunited with their biological families, to be adopted, or preparing for independent living if they are nearing the age of majority.

NACC is a quasi-judicial agency attached to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, created under Republic Act No. 11642, or the Domestic Administrative Adoption and Alternative Child Care Act.

It is strengthening the country’s adoption and alternative child-care system to ensure that children who cannot remain with their biological families are placed in safe, permanent and nurturing families or appropriate alternative care.

Its primary mandate is to protect the best interests and rights of children while making adoption and alternative child-care processes simpler, faster and more accessible.

Among its major responsibilities is determining whether a child is legally available for adoption and processing domestic administrative adoptions, including regular, relative, step-parent, and adult adoption.

The NACC also handles inter-country adoption and oversees various forms of alternative care, including foster care, kinship care, family-like care and residential care.

The agency seeks to streamline adoption and alternative child-care services to make the process more expeditious and less costly for qualified applicants while ensuring that safeguards for children remain in place.

Another key objective is to protect children from abuse, exploitation, trafficking and illegal adoption, including illegal child selling.

The NACC is also tasked with developing policies and reforms to strengthen the country’s alternative child-care system.

Through these efforts, the agency aims to ensure that children who need alternative care are provided with environments where their safety, welfare, rights and long-term well-being are protected.

The NACC’s overall approach places the best interests of the child at the center of adoption and alternative child-care decisions, particularly for children who need permanent family care and protection. — (FREEMAN)