Modeled after the Dave Thomas Foundation’s Adoption Friendly Workplaces, the Adoption and Foster Friendly Schools movement helps schools become consistent partners in permanency, embedding understanding, alignment, and mental health informed practice into everyday systems and classrooms.

The Adoptive and Foster Friendly Schools designation gives schools a clear, visible way to signal their commitment to children and families with complex stories. Participating schools commit to three core actions: building an understanding of how relational loss and displacement impact learning, behavior, and belonging; integrating adoption and foster-informed practices into professional learning, equipping staff with shared language, practical tools, and confidence; and ensuring that at least one staff member completes the School-Based Mental Health Professional Training to serve as a point person.

It’s about saying yes: yes to preparedness, yes to partnership, yes to hope. Because becoming an Adoption and Foster Friendly School changes how a building feels the moment a family walks through the door.

The Badge

Adoption and Foster Friendly Schools are easily identified by a badge they proudly display on their website and in communications. The badge is more than a symbol. It signals that the school has intentionally taken steps, through training, tools, and policy alignment, to understand adoption, foster, and kinship care experiences.

To families, that badge speaks loudly. It says: you belong here, your story will be honored, we have done the work to be prepared for you. As adoptive, foster, and kinship families search for schools, they will look for that badge. It becomes a beacon, not just of light, but of understanding, stability, and welcome to families.