A tax credit for qualifying expenses paid to adopt an eligible child. The adoption credit is an amount subtracted from the adoptive parents’ tax liability: IRS Information page.

Is a provisional, safe place that a child may be staying at while a permanent placement is being sought after. This can include kinship care, relative placement, foster care, and placement in a care facility.

Terminal illness in advanced stage of a disease with an unfavorable prognosis and no known cure that will ultimately cause the person to die.

The legal process that involuntarily severs a parent’s rights to a child.

Treatment efforts geared to address situations where child maltreatment has already occurred with the goals of preventing child maltreatment from occurring in the future and of avoiding the harmful effects of child maltreatment.

The Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act (UAA) was signed by President Obama on Monday, January 14, 2013. UAA applies the Hague Accreditation and Approval requirements to all agencies and persons providing “adoptions services” in cases where a child immigrates to or emigrates from the United States for purposes of adoption.

A foster home in which the foster parents have received special training to care for a wide variety of children and adolescents, usually those with significant emotional or behavioral problems. Parents in therapeutic foster homes are more closely supervised and assisted more than parents in regular foster homes

The Title IV-E Adoption Assistance Program is a federal program that provides assistance to families adopting qualifying children from foster care. Money through this program is distributed to adoptive families by each state.

Funds a range of services, including adoption, day care, foster care, child protective services, health related services, and disability services. The funds are used to support state and local programs as well as non-profit programs and services. The act also specifies that states are allowed to use the funds for administration, staff training, and case management directly related to the services funded. Title XX Social Services is a block grant of money from the federal government to state governments. In some states, the money is passed from the state level to the county level, to local governments, or to non-profit service providers. It was once common practice for states to provide direct services to adoptive families from this money, but at present adoptive families, just like any other families, have access to these funds through other state provided services, such as day care or respite care.

Total care is a term referring to an individual who requires care in all areas of their life for the remainder of their life.

A treatable neurological disorder that consists of involuntary "tic" movements or vocalizations that become more apparent under stress. Common manifestations include shoulder-shrugging, neck-jerking, facial twitches, coughing, grunting, throat clearing, sniffing, snorting and barking. Children with Tourette’s often have problems with hyperactivity as well.

Acronym for Termination of Parental Rights, the legal process that involuntarily severs a parent’s rights to a child.

Most often used to refer to a domestic infant adoption through an adoption agency in which confidentiality is preserved.

The placement of a child who is of one race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group.

A foster home in which the foster parents are trained to offer treatment to children with moderate to severe emotional problems; also known as therapeutic foster home.

Tribal intervention in a child custody case occurs when a tribe acts on its right to participate in a child custody proceeding. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) states that “in any State court proceeding for the foster care placement of, or termination of parental rights to, an Indian child, the Indian custodian of the child and the Indian child’s tribe shall have a right to intervene at any point in the proceeding [italics added]” (USC Title 25, 1911.C.). This intervention can be wide in its interpretation: the tribe may request to transfer the case to tribal court (a “transfer of jurisdiction”) or the tribe may choose to only monitor the case through court records. Either the parent or the tribe can request transfer of jurisdiction. A tribe may intervene at any point in an Indian child custody proceeding.