How to Become a Foster Parent in Maine

Right now, there are children in Maine who need someone to open a door for them. As of 2021, more than 2,200 children were in Maine’s foster care system, and the state is still working to recruit enough families to meet that need. According to FosterUSKids Maine’s foster care overview, the number of licensed foster homes grew from 1,332 in 2019 to 1,770 in 2022, which is real progress. But it hasn’t closed the gap. If you’re reading this, you may be part of what does.

The licensing process typically takes three to six months from first contact to receiving your license. It involves an application, background checks, a home study, and pre-service training. Maine’s foster home licensing rules set the framework, and this guide walks you through what each step actually looks like in practice.

Who can be a foster parent in Maine?

Most people imagine a narrow picture when they think about who qualifies to foster: married homeowners with a certain income, a certain age, a certain kind of family. The reality is much broader than that, and Maine’s rules reflect it.

Age and marital status

You need to be at least 21 years old to foster in Maine. That’s it for the age requirement. There’s no upper limit. According to Maine’s foster care licensing regulations, foster parents must be at least 21, but the rules say nothing about being too old.

Marital status doesn’t matter either. Single adults, married couples, unmarried couples, and same-sex couples can all apply. As FosterUSKids’ Maine foster care guide puts it plainly: adults of any marital status can foster or adopt in Maine.

Income and housing

You don’t have to earn a specific salary to become a foster parent. The standard, as described by Community Care’s foster care basics page, is simply that you can demonstrate you’re able to sustain your household without relying on the foster care subsidy. In other words, the foster care payment is meant to help cover the child’s needs, not to prop up your own finances.

You also don’t need to own your home. Renters qualify just as well as homeowners. You need stable housing and enough space for a child, including their own bed.

Requirements vary by county, so check with your agency for specifics on what “adequate space” looks like in practice.

Physical and mental health

Maine’s licensing rules don’t set a specific health standard that reads like a checklist, but they do ask something real of you. Maine’s administrative code for foster home licensing requires that the household members responsible for foster children be emotionally stable, mature, and able to exercise good judgment in meeting a child’s needs. The regulations also ask that anyone in the household with a serious past, including struggles with substance abuse, family violence, or mental health challenges, have successfully worked through those experiences so they don’t pose a risk to a child.

Criminal history

Some convictions will disqualify an application outright. Maine won’t issue a license to anyone convicted of a felony involving child abuse or neglect, spousal abuse, crimes against children, child pornography, or violent crimes including rape, sexual assault, or homicide. A felony conviction for physical assault, battery, or a drug-related offense within the last five years is also disqualifying. An open child protective services case, or a closed case with a substantiated finding, may also result in denial.

These are firm limits. But outside of them, the department looks at the full picture of who you are today, not just your record.

No formal education required

There’s no degree or professional background required to become a family-level foster parent. Community Care’s foster care basics page is straightforward about this: no formal education is required. What matters is your capacity to understand and meet the needs of a child in your care.

Background check requirements in Maine

Every adult in your household will go through a background check. Not just you. This is one of the first things people are surprised by, and it’s worth understanding early so you can prepare everyone in your home.

What checks are required

According to Maine’s OCFS Background Check Unit, all foster and adoptive parent applicants, and any other adults living in the home, must complete a check through Maine’s child abuse and neglect registry system. This is required under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

Beyond the child abuse registry check, Maine’s foster home licensing rules require a comprehensive criminal background check process. The checks cover:

• The FBI’s national fingerprint database
• The National Crime Information Center’s sex offender registry
• Maine’s State Bureau of Identification criminal record repository
• Maine’s sex offender registry
• Child abuse and neglect registries for every state where you’ve lived in the past five years

Who has to complete the checks

Every adult in the household. This includes anyone 18 or older who lives in your home, not just the person applying to be a foster parent. If your adult child lives with you, they go through the process too. If a household member has lived in other states in the last five years, those states’ child abuse registries will also be searched.

What it costs

The child abuse registry check costs $15 per person, paid online by credit or debit card through Maine’s child abuse registry portal. Results come back within five business days. The link to download your results expires after 30 days, so save a copy as soon as you get it.

How long the checks are good for

Background checks for foster parents aren’t a one-time event. Maine foster care background check rules require that fingerprint-based checks be completed every five years.

What can disqualify an applicant

Some findings are automatic disqualifiers. Based on Maine OCFS residential provider background check guidance, the following will make an applicant ineligible:

• Being listed on any state or national sex offender registry
• A substantiated finding of child abuse or neglect by DHHS or a comparable agency in another state
• A felony conviction for child abuse or neglect, spousal abuse, crimes against children (including child pornography), or violent crimes such as rape, sexual assault, or homicide
• A felony conviction for physical assault or battery within the past five years
• A drug-related felony conviction within the past five years
• Refusing to consent to a background check, or knowingly making false statements during the process

If you have a prior substantiation on Maine’s child abuse and neglect registry, that’s a serious obstacle, but it’s not always the end of the road. As Pine Tree Legal Assistance explains, substantiation findings can be appealed through a paper review process, and some are overturned. If you’re in that situation, talk to your licensing worker before assuming you’re ineligible.

What to expect from the home study

You’ve done the paperwork, you’ve gathered the documents, and now someone is going to come to your home and get to know you. That’s really what the home study is: a process of getting to know each other. It’s not a white-glove inspection. It’s a conversation, spread across more than one visit, with a caseworker who wants to understand who you are and how you live.

Who does the home study

According to Maine DHHS, the home study is conducted by a caseworker from the state or from a licensed child-placing agency. If you’re working with an agency like Community Care, the person conducting your home study, often called a Foster Care Developer, will likely be the same person who has been walking you through the application from the beginning. As Community Care’s foster care overview describes it, that developer meets with families in their home and provides hands-on assistance throughout the entire process, including the home study itself. By the time this visit happens, you won’t be meeting a stranger.

What the caseworker is looking for

The caseworker isn’t looking for a perfect family. They’re looking for a stable, honest one. Maine’s foster home licensing requirements describe what that means in practical terms: foster parents need to be emotionally stable, able to exercise good judgment, and capable of meeting a child’s developmental and individual needs. The caseworker will want to know that you’ve worked through any significant challenges in your past, whether that’s a period of substance abuse, a difficult relationship, or a mental health struggle. That doesn’t mean your past disqualifies you. It means they want to see that you’ve dealt with it honestly.

They’ll also be asking about your household relationships, your daily routines, how you handle stress, and how you think about parenting. The licensing rules put it this way: the relationships within a foster family should “generally be positive and adequately meet the social, emotional, and developmental needs of each family member.” In plain terms, your home doesn’t need to be conflict-free. It needs to be a place where people feel supported.

You’ll also be asked to disclose certain things proactively: any arrests, involvement with Child Protective Services, mental health or substance abuse treatment, or prior investigations while working with children. Maine’s regulations require applicants to bring this information to their licensing worker within three business days of it becoming relevant.

The visit itself

The home visit includes both conversation and a look at your physical space. The caseworker will want to make sure the home meets basic fire and safety requirements, that there’s adequate room for a child, and that the environment feels like somewhere a child could settle in. Beyond the physical space, expect interviews, sometimes with each adult in the household separately, and sometimes with your children if you have them.

How long it takes

The overall licensing process, from application to license, takes roughly three to six months, according to FosterUSKids Maine’s foster parent guide. Community Care’s experience suggests closer to three months for families who stay on top of the paperwork. The home study is one piece of that timeline, not the whole thing.

Requirements vary by county, so check with your agency for specifics on scheduling and how many visits to expect.

The process moves at a real-world pace. Life gets busy, documents take time, and caseworkers carry full caseloads. If things slow down, following up is completely appropriate.

Pre-service training requirements

You won’t be handed a child and left to figure it out. Before any placement happens, you’ll need to complete training, and that’s genuinely a good thing. The training exists because the children coming into foster care have often been through things no child should experience, and you deserve to walk in prepared.

What the state requires

Maine’s foster care overview from FosterUSKids describes pre-service training as roughly 30 hours of formal instruction covering essential topics, from what to expect as a foster parent to trauma-informed care. This happens before a child is placed in your home.

The training you’ll complete covers:

• What trauma-informed foster care looks like in practice
• The characteristics of children in Maine’s foster care system
• State foster care rules and regulations
• What the foster parent journey actually involves, day to day

According to Maine DHHS’s resource parent page, training from the Department comes after your application is approved, and sessions have been offered virtually. The state partners with A Family for ME to recruit new families and connect them with licensing and training information, including live information sessions.

Treatment-level homes have additional requirements

If you’re pursuing a treatment-level license rather than a family-level license, the bar is higher. Community Care’s foster care basics page explains that treatment-level foster parents must complete an initial 18 hours of training before they begin, and then 36 hours of ongoing training over the following two years to maintain the license. That’s on top of meeting the experience qualifications for treatment-level care in the first place.

Family-level foster parents don’t face the same formal education or hour requirements to get started. No specific degree or credential is required.

How training is delivered

Training is provided through DHHS and through licensed child-placing agencies. If you work with a private therapeutic foster care agency, that agency will typically provide the training directly. Community Care, for example, runs its own training program for foster families it works with, and foster parents have described those sessions as one of the more valuable parts of the support they receive.

Requirements vary by county and by agency — check with your specific agency about the format, schedule, and any additional training they require beyond what the state mandates.

After you’re licensed

Training doesn’t stop once you have your license. Ongoing training hours are required to renew it, and your agency will help you track and meet those requirements.

License types and renewal in Maine

If you’ve ever wondered whether one license fits all situations in foster care, the answer in Maine is no, and that’s actually good news. The state has built different approval categories so that the license you hold reflects the kind of care you’re actually prepared to provide.

Family foster home license

The standard license is for a family foster home, which means a private residence where you provide substitute parental care around the clock to children under 18. According to Maine’s foster home licensing rules, the total number of children in your home, including your own legal children under 16, generally can’t exceed six, and no more than two of those children can be under age 2. There’s an important exception: if keeping a sibling group together would push you past that number, the rules allow it as long as at least one licensed slot is vacant and you have enough space.

Specialized and therapeutic foster home license

Some children need more than a standard placement. They may be dealing with developmental, emotional, or medical disabilities that require a higher level of structured support. For those situations, Maine has a separate specialized, or therapeutic, foster home license. Maine DHHS partners with several agencies specifically to support therapeutic resource parents, including Woodfords Family Services, Community Care, Spurwink, and others.

The bar to reach therapeutic licensure is higher than for a family license. Community Care’s foster care overview explains it this way: you need either one year of experience as a family-level foster home, or at least six months of paid professional experience working with youth who have mild to moderate disabilities. Personal experience doesn’t count toward that threshold. Paid work as a group home staff member, teacher, educational technician, or counselor does.

Requirements vary by county, so check with your agency for specifics.

Provisional and temporary approvals

Not every household that applies walks out the door with a full license on day one. Maine’s licensing rules recognize that some families are still working through parts of the process, and provisional or temporary approvals exist to bridge that gap while the department finishes its review. The full licensing rules for both categories, including the procedures governing how provisional approvals are granted and what limits apply, are laid out in Chapter 16 of Maine’s family foster home licensing rules.

How annual renewal works

Your license doesn’t last forever, and that’s intentional. Renewal keeps the department current on your household, your training hours, and whether anything has changed in your home or circumstances. The process happens annually, and if you’re licensed through an agency like Community Care, you won’t be doing it alone. Their foster care developers, who walk with you through the initial licensing process, also handle the renewal on an ongoing basis. As Community Care describes it, facilitating annual licensure renewal is a direct part of what their support staff does for foster families.

For therapeutic foster parents, maintaining your license requires keeping up with ongoing training: 36 hours over every two-year period, on top of the 18 hours required before you begin.

Staying licensed: what’s required after approval

Getting licensed isn’t the finish line. It’s the beginning of an ongoing relationship with the state, and there are real obligations that come with it. Most of them are manageable once you know what they are.

Reporting changes in your household

This one is time-sensitive. Maine’s foster care licensing regulations require you to notify your licensing worker within 3 business days if certain things happen involving you, anyone who lives in your home, or anyone who regularly spends time on your property. That list includes:

• Arrests, indictments, or convictions for sexual or violent crimes, crimes involving children, or operating under the influence
• Admission to a mental health or substance abuse treatment facility, or involvement in counseling for either
• Any serious physical health problem that results in a hospital or inpatient stay
• A Child Protective Services investigation, whether it involves you now or happened in the past
• The removal of children from your care or custody
• Any suspension, revocation, or denial of a license or certificate you hold

If any of those situations come up, you’ll also need to sign written releases so the department can gather relevant information. That sounds intimidating, but the purpose is straightforward: DHHS needs to confirm that whatever happened doesn’t create a risk for children in your home.

Moving to a new home

If you move, your license doesn’t automatically transfer with you. Community Care’s foster care overview explains that you’d complete a new application and have an addendum added to your license. Because the physical home itself is licensed, not just you as a person, another fire and safety inspection would be required at the new address. Any repairs needed to meet safety standards would need to happen before children could be placed there.

Requirements vary by county, so check with your agency for specifics on how they handle the transition.

Annual renewal and ongoing training

Your license isn’t permanent. It requires annual renewal, and your agency will facilitate that process with you. Treatment-level foster parents have specific training obligations: according to Community Care’s foster care overview, treatment-level homes must complete an initial 18 hours of training before they begin fostering, and then 36 hours of ongoing training over every two-year period to keep that license active. A Foster Care Developer or similar support person at your agency will help you track your hours and meet those requirements.

Cooperating with the case plan

Staying licensed also means staying actively involved with the children in your care. Maine’s Chapter 16 foster home licensing rules require foster parents to participate in counseling and treatment plans as needed, to consult with therapists, physicians, social workers, and teachers, and to cooperate fully with any plan developed by DHHS or the placing agency. Supporting a child’s connection to their family, including cooperating with visitation arrangements, is also a licensing requirement, not just a best practice. Visitation can never be used as a form of discipline.