Cagayan de Oro — The Department of Social Welfare and Development recently oriented families representing Misamis Oriental, Lanao del Norte, and Bukidnon to the Alternative Family Care Forum last February 19, 2016 to deepen the knowledge among families on Adoption and Foster Care.

The DSWD, an active advocate on legal adoption, said that the forum served as a venue to discuss how legal adoption is being processed, its effects, and how foster care is being done in the communities.

Adoption is the socio-legal process of providing a permanent family to a child whose parents have voluntarily or involuntarily relinquished their parental authority over the child. In adoption, the legal ties between the biological parent(s) and the adoptee, except when the biological parent(s) is the spouse of the adopter, is severed.

Adoption shall also deem the adoptee as a legitimate child of the adopter and gives both the latter and the adoptee equal rights and obligations arising the relationship of parents and child, including but not limited to, the right of the adopter to choose the name the child is to be known and the rights of the adopter and adoptee to be legal and compulsory heirs of each other.

Foster on the other hand, is the provision of planned temporary substitute parental care to a child by a foster parent, who is duly licensed by the DSWD to provide foster care.

Families who wish to adopt or foster a child may visit the DSWD regional office at Masterson Ave., Upper Carmen, this City to orient them on the legal process, its effects, and the documents required by the national government.

The said forum was conducted as an observance to the Adoption Consciousness Month slated every February.

Written by Charmaine P. Tadlas, DSWD