This initiative from Catholic Charities Southern Nevada reduces the number of infants entering and remaining in foster care by expanding informed parental choice and strengthening collaboration among hospitals, child welfare agencies, and licensed private adoption providers. When a hospital reports a newborn to Child Protective Services, parents would also receive information about private adoption services and the opportunity to request unbiased options counseling, ensuring they understand all legally available permanency options before making life-changing decisions. If an infant enters foster care, parents would continue to receive information about permanency options, including voluntary private adoption. If a parent chooses to create an adoption plan and relinquish their parental rights to a private adoption agency, child welfare would, with court approval, transfer legal custody to that agency. This collaborative model promotes timely permanency, preserves parental choice, reduces time in foster care, and helps more infants enter safe, stable, and loving families during the critical first years of life.
Challenge or Need
Across the United States, child welfare systems face a critical shortage of foster and adoptive families, resulting in longer stays in foster care and delayed permanency for thousands of children. This national crisis prompted the federal A Home for Every Child initiative, which encourages innovative strategies to expand permanency options, strengthen public-private partnerships, and ensure every child has the opportunity to grow up in a safe, stable, and nurturing family. Nevada reflects this challenge, with Clark County experiencing an urgent shortage of foster homes.
In Clark County, Nevada, Child Welfare Services has reported severe overcrowding at Child Haven, the county’s emergency congregate care shelter, and continues to issue urgent appeals for foster families. Recent reports indicate that more than 100 children are housed at Child Haven, and nearly half are under age five, including 19 infants and toddlers. While Child Haven provides essential emergency care, it is not meant to serve as a placement for babies and young children.
This initiative addresses this crisis by expanding informed parental choice and creating additional pathways to timely permanency through licensed private adoption agencies. By preventing unnecessary foster care entries and reducing the length of time infants spend in foster care, the initiative improves outcomes for children and families. The urgency is greatest during the first 1,000 days of life, when stable, responsive caregiving is essential for healthy brain development. Without a consistent caregiver, infants face increased risks of toxic stress, disrupted attachment, developmental delays, and lifelong emotional, cognitive, and physical challenges.
Why It’s Innovative
This initiative creates a collaborative model that bridges hospitals, the child welfare system, and licensed private adoption agencies to expand permanency options for infants who might otherwise spend weeks, months, or even years in foster care. Rather than replacing the existing child welfare system, it complements it by ensuring parents receive complete, unbiased information about all legally available permanency options before making life-changing decisions. Currently, when hospitals report concerns that lead to child welfare involvement, parents often receive information about foster care and reunification but may not learn they can voluntarily create an adoption plan through a licensed private agency if reunification is not a realistic option.
The initiative empowers parents to exercise their parental rights by selecting a licensed private child-placing agency to facilitate an adoption plan, subject to court approval and applicable law. This preserves parental voice, gives families greater participation in their child’s future, and creates an additional pathway to permanency. Rather than relying solely on child welfare’s limited supply of foster homes, the model leverages the existing pool of approved adoptive families served by private agencies, allowing infants to move directly into permanent families whenever appropriate.
By strengthening partnerships among hospitals, child welfare agencies, and private adoption providers, this initiative expands permanency options without requiring significant new infrastructure. The result is a family-centered, trauma-informed approach that reduces unnecessary time in foster care, relieves pressure on overcrowded emergency shelters, and gives infants the opportunity to form secure attachments during the most critical period of early brain development.
Program Impact
Although this initiative is still in the early stages of design, stakeholder engagement, and systems development, it is grounded in real-world experience rather than theory. The concept emerged after our agency successfully assisted birth mothers who wanted to voluntarily create adoption plans for their infants after Child Protective Services had already become involved. These cases demonstrated that informed parental choice, coupled with collaboration between child welfare and licensed private adoption agencies, can safely achieve timely permanency while preserving parental dignity and lifelong connections.
One case involved a birth mother whose newborn was admitted to the NICU following prenatal substance exposure. The hospital notified Child Protective Services, and a protective hold was placed on the infant. Fortunately, this mom knew from experience that adoption was an option, and she reached out to our agency for help. We met with her the same day to develop an adoption plan, select an adoptive family, and complete the necessary relinquishment documents. Our team represented her wishes in court the following morning, where the judge honored her decision and closed the dependency matter, allowing the adoption to proceed. Rather than spending five weeks in the NICU without a permanent caregiver and then being discharged into foster care, the baby was cared for every day by her adoptive parents. They fed her, held her, provided skin-to-skin contact, engaged with hospital staff, and began forming the secure attachment that is so critical during infancy. Today, the birth mother continues to receive regular photographs and updates through our agency, preserving a meaningful lifelong connection with her child.
A second case involved a mother with an open child welfare case concerning her six-year-old daughter. During a later pregnancy, she contacted our agency because she did not want her unborn son to experience the same uncertainty as her older child. She participated in counseling, reviewed adoptive family profiles, personally selected the family she believed was best for her son, and developed a thoughtful adoption plan before delivery. On the day her son was born, a Child Protective Services worker arrived at the hospital to initiate a dependency case. Instead, the birth mother introduced the worker to the adoptive parents who had been present throughout her labor, delivery, and hospital stay. Because she had exercised her parental rights to create an open adoption plan before court intervention, her son was able to leave the hospital directly with his adoptive family rather than entering foster care.
These families illustrate the transformative potential of this initiative. The birth mothers retained dignity, choice, and an ongoing connection with their children. The infants avoided unnecessary time in foster care and instead experienced consistent love, nurturing, and attachment from their forever family. These cases demonstrate that when parents are informed of all legally available permanency options and supported in making voluntary decisions, outcomes can improve for everyone involved. This initiative seeks to make those opportunities available consistently rather than by chance, creating a replicable model that helps more children achieve timely permanency while reducing the number of infants entering or remaining in foster care.
Lessons Learned
One of the most important lessons we have learned is that meaningful systems change begins with education. Before hospitals, child welfare professionals, and community partners can support informed parental choice, they must first understand the role of ethical private adoption within the child welfare continuum. We discovered that several misconceptions about adoption must be addressed before this initiative can gain meaningful support. Educating professionals is the first step; only then can they effectively educate and support the families they serve.
The most common misconception is that discussing adoption with a parent whose child is about to enter—or has already entered—the foster care system is inherently coercive or takes advantage of a parent during a vulnerable moment. We have addressed this concern by ensuring that information sharing is always paired with unbiased options counseling provided by a trained professional. The purpose is not to influence a parent’s decision, but to ensure they understand every legally available permanency option and have the support needed to make the decision that is right for their family.
Our experiences have shown that parents make the best decisions when they receive complete, unbiased information and have access to supportive services, regardless of the path they choose. This initiative is not about promoting adoption, it is about promoting informed choice. Catholic Charities is uniquely positioned to lead this work because we accompany families across the entire continuum of care—from crisis pregnancy and parenting support to reunification services and ethical adoption. We can walk alongside families, whether they choose to parent, pursue reunification, or voluntarily create an adoption plan by offering parenting education, counseling, case management, material assistance, and ethical adoption services within one trusted organization.
Another key insight is that achieving safety is only the beginning; achieving healthy development must also be the goal. As part of this initiative, we are developing educational training for hospitals, child welfare professionals, and community partners on infant brain development, the importance of secure attachment during the first 1,000 days of life, and the lifelong effects of early childhood trauma. While emergency shelter care and foster care are often necessary to protect children from immediate harm, infants also need stable, responsive caregivers to support healthy brain development. Frequent placement changes, prolonged stays in congregate care, and repeated disruptions in caregiving increase the risk of toxic stress and lifelong developmental challenges. Understanding these realities reinforces the urgency of achieving timely permanency for infants.
Equally important, we found that ethical adoption cannot be assumed—it must be understood. Concerns about adoption tourism, coercive practices, and excessive financial assistance have created understandable skepticism about private adoption. We are developing training to help hospitals and child welfare professionals recognize the hallmarks of ethical adoption, including informed consent, independent options counseling, transparency, legal compliance, post-adoption support, and a steadfast commitment to protecting the rights, dignity, and well-being of birth parents, children, and adoptive families.
Our greatest lesson is that collaboration is most successful when it is built on education, trust, and a shared commitment to the well-being of children. By serving as trusted conveners, educators, and providers of family-centered services, Catholic Charities agencies can demonstrate that informed parental choice, ethical practice, and timely permanency are complementary goals that, together, transform outcomes for vulnerable children and families.