‘Quasi-Family’ is one of the State Welfare Organization’s (SWO) plans to help support foster kids, which aims at preventing emotional ailments in such children by providing them the opportunity to live with foster parents, reduce their duration of stay at SWO centers, and put brakes on the establishment of new 24/7 care centers, ISNA reported.
According to the plan, the kids’ relatives or any volunteer family deemed eligible as guardian can adopt one to three children living in the care centers for a short or long period under the regular supervision of SWO workers.
The conditions under which foster parents can adopt a child are: being Iranian and Muslim, having no criminal record, sound physical and psychological health, ability to raise a child. Moreover, the family must be committed to upholding Islamic tenets regarding the child’s gender and age.
All volunteers should at the least be diploma holders. The child’s relatives and those with university degrees in education, psychology, sociology or social work will priority in the selection process.
Couples should be e aged between 25 and 50, and besides a reasonable financial status, the size of the family should not exceed seven members at the time of adoption.
Furthermore, the organization is now also allowing unmarried women over 30 , whose qualifications are approved by the ‘Quasi-Family’ special committee of the province (the committee consists of the SEWO provincial director general, his deputy for social affairs, the ‘Quasi-Family’ expert in the province, and a legal expert) to adopt one to three girls.
Based on regulations announced by the directorate for children and adolescence affairs at the SWO, Hamidreza Alvand, single women’s eligibility wanting to adopt includes: no bad record regarding upholding Islamic norms, a good financial status, physically and psychologically fit, practicing one of the religions stated in the Islamic Republic Constitution, no record of drug or alcohol addiction, being free of sexual transmitted diseases (STDs) and other incurable ailments.
