Onslow County Government

The Onslow County Department of Social Services is mandated to provide foster care and adoption services for children in the agency's custody. We can help you with the steps for becoming a foster and or adoptive parent.

The majority of the children waiting for adoption have been in our foster care program and have been removed from their homes by the Court because they have been abandoned, neglected and or abused by their parents or caretakers. The children ages range from infancy to eighteen but most are school age. We need families who can take sibling groups.
Some of the children have emotional or behavioral problems ranging from very mild to severe. Many of the children are healthy but there are children who do have health issues. All of the children who have special needs quality for adoption assistance benefits.
The state of North Carolina requires that we do background checks on everyone. We rule out that you have ever been involved in child neglect or abuse proceeding. Fingerprint cards, which are reviewed by the SBI and FBI, must be completed and we will help you with this process. Criminal records of any felony, drug involvement, crimes of violence or crimes against children will prevent us from going forward. Other crimes will be looked at on an individual basis. All the adults involved will have a current medical examination so we know how healthy you are. If you do have medical problems we look at whether it will interfere with your ability to parent a child.

The state of North Carolina also requires that you have 30 hours of training. Here at Onslow County Department of Social Services we will provide this training to you at no cost. We use a state approved training curriculum called Model approach to Partnership in Parenting Group Preparation and Selection or better known as MAPP-GPS. We hold training sessions every three months, one night a week for 10 weeks from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM and it's usually on Thursday eve