When working with a licensed child placing (adoption) agency, prospective adoptive parents must be carefully screened and give a lot of personal information before they can be approved to adopt a child. Social workers visit their homes several times. Adoptive parents provide personal references and they usually undergo a background check. They also learn about becoming an adoptive parent before the adoption. By the time an agency has approved adoptive parents, they have gotten to know them well and feel confident they’ll make good parents. The adoption process varies from state to state and the private adoption process is different that the agency process. To find out about the laws concerning private adoptions in your state, you can do a search on the Child Welfare site.