🪜 The Adoption Process
Every adoption journey is unique, but all follow a similar path led by the Department of Social Development, designed to ensure that children and youth find safe, stable, and lasting families where they can thrive.
The process can take time — sometimes years from application to finalization — but every step helps build understanding, readiness, and trust between the child, the family, and the system that supports them.
1. Application & Eligibility
Anyone 19 or older who is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and who lives in New Brunswick can apply to adopt.
The process begins with submitting an adoption application to Social Development — either online or by downloading a form.
You’ll be asked to share personal, financial, and medical information and complete a record check.
Applicants who are open to adopting both younger (under 2 years old) and older children (2 years and older) should complete all sections of the application.
Once submitted, the Minister of Social Development reviews your eligibility and readiness to proceed as a prospective adoptive parent.
2. Training & Preparation
All applicants complete the P.R.I.D.E. (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education) program — a 27-hour training course delivered virtually.
This training explores the realities of parenting children in care, covering topics such as:
Understanding attachment and trauma
Supporting cognitive and emotional development
Building resilience and trust
Navigating openness, loss, and identity
P.R.I.D.E. helps families prepare for the unique challenges — and rewards — of adoption.
3. Safe Home Assessment
After training, you’ll work with a social worker who conducts a comprehensive family assessment, called a safe home assessment.
This includes:
Interviews: Individual and joint discussions about your background, values, experiences, and parenting beliefs.
Home Visits: Ensuring your home provides a secure and healthy environment, with safety checks (windows, fire extinguisher, locked medications, detectors, etc.).
Background Checks: Criminal and Vulnerable Sector Record Checks for all adults in the household, plus three references.
The assessment process is detailed and personal, but it’s designed to ensure that each family is well matched to the needs of a child or youth in care.
Honesty and reflection are encouraged — openness about past challenges demonstrates resilience and resourcefulness.
Once complete, your social worker writes an assessment report, which you review before it’s submitted to the panel for approval.
4. Matching & Placement
Most children waiting for adoption in New Brunswick are two years and older, with many between 12 and 18 years old. Some are part of sibling groups, and many have experienced trauma, loss, or multiple placements.
The matching process always begins with the needs of the children in care.
When social workers identify a child or youth who is ready for adoption, they review approved adoptive families to find the home that can best meet that child’s specific emotional, developmental, and cultural needs.
Because matching is guided by the child’s circumstances — not by how long a family has been waiting — there is no set timeline or order for matches.
For adoptive parents, that can mean the wait sometimes feels uncertain. But every step in the process is designed to ensure that when a match happens, it’s because your family truly aligns with a child’s needs and story — creating the best chance for lasting connection and success.
When a potential match is identified:
You’ll be invited to review the child’s file, which may include input from teachers, medical professionals, and caregivers.
You’ll have opportunities to speak with the child’s foster parents to learn about their daily life and needs.
A placement agreement is signed, transferring custody, care, and supervision to you.
A transition period begins — typically lasting about one year — during which your family receives ongoing support from Social Development, including check-ins, and access to resources.
5. Finalization
After the transition and placement period — typically about one year — your social worker will help determine when it’s time to move forward with finalizing the adoption.
Once the placement has been stable and everyone feels ready, the Minister of Social Development applies to the Court for an adoption order. To be eligible, the child must have lived continuously in your home for at least six months.
When the Court grants the adoption order, your child becomes your legal child, with all the same rights as a child born to you. The order also formally ends the province’s guardianship and transfers full parental responsibility to you — marking the beginning of a new chapter for your family.
Before finalization, some families choose to enter into an openness agreement — a written arrangement that helps a child maintain safe, healthy connections with important people from their past, such as siblings, relatives, or former caregivers.
This kind of openness can support a child’s identity, belonging, and lifelong sense of connection.
All adoptive families receive a one-time $1,000 provincial adoption grant to help offset related costs, and continued access to post-adoption supports through the NB Adoption Support Network and Social Development.
Finalization isn’t the end of the journey — it’s the moment a new one truly begins.
6. Post-Adoption Support
After adoption is finalized, ongoing connection and learning are key.
The New Brunswick Adoption Support Network provides:
Peer and parent mentorship
Training on trauma-informed care, openness, and attachment
Individual guidance from adoption coordinators
Access to groups, webinars, and respite supports
Adoption is lifelong — and so is the need for community.
