Becoming a Foster Parent in Maryland: Requirements, Training, and Pay

To become a foster parent in Maryland, you must be at least 21 years old, pass state and FBI background checks, complete pre-service training, and pass a home study through a local Department of Social Services or a licensed private placement agency. The full licensing process can take up to 120 days from the day you apply.¹ Maryland calls licensed foster parents “resource parents,” and the rules you’ll work under are set out in COMAR 07.02.25 for public agencies and COMAR 07.05 for private ones.²

Who Qualifies

The baseline rules are set by COMAR 07.02.25. You must be at least 21, and your household must have enough income to cover its own expenses without relying on the board rate paid for a foster child.³ The income test isn’t a fixed dollar figure; the caseworker looks at whether your budget works on its own.

Maryland does not require you to be married, to own your home, or to have raised children before. Single applicants, renters, and first-time parents all qualify if they meet the other requirements.

Every adult in the home must get a medical exam from a physician or certified nurse practitioner within the year before you apply. The exam has to confirm you’re free of communicable diseases and have no physical or mental condition that would interfere with caring for a child.³ Anything the doctor flags will be followed up on, so schedule these exams early.

Maryland licenses several tracks. Regular foster care is the standard path. Kinship care is prioritized when a relative or a trusted adult with a strong bond to the child is available; kinship caregivers go through the same licensing but get support aimed at keeping the child connected to family.⁴ Treatment foster care serves children with more intensive physical, emotional, or behavioral needs and requires extra training on top of the standard curriculum.

Getting Your Home Ready

Your house doesn’t have to be large or new, but it has to be safe. COMAR 07.02.25 spells out the conditions a caseworker will check.

Fire safety means working smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors throughout the home, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and a written evacuation plan posted where household members can see it. You’ll practice that plan with everyone in the home at least twice a year.⁵

Firearms must be unloaded and locked where children cannot reach them, and ammunition must be stored separately, also locked. Law enforcement officers living in the home may keep a loaded firearm if they follow their agency’s storage rules.⁵ Cleaners, medications, and other hazardous items also have to be stored out of children’s reach.

Sleeping arrangements get inspected too. Each foster child needs an individual bed, and children of different genders generally cannot share a bedroom, with an exception for infants.⁶ Adding a foster child shouldn’t force anyone already in the household out of their existing sleeping space.

Background Checks and Paperwork

Under the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, every prospective foster parent and every adult living in the home has to clear fingerprint-based state and FBI criminal history checks.³ The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services handles fingerprinting. The fee is $50 per person in person or $30 by mail.⁷

Every adult also has to clear a child protective services history check. If anyone in the home has lived in another state within the last five years, the agency must request abuse registry checks from those states as well. Interstate checks are one of the most common reasons a timeline slips.

Your caseworker will also collect:

Three personal references: one relative and two non-relatives. At least two of the reference interviews are done in person or by video.⁸
A written school reference for each school-aged child already in your home, from a staff member or homeschool monitor.⁸
Proof of income, usually tax returns, showing the household can support itself without the board rate.
The medical exam forms described above.

Get these documents together before your first meeting with the caseworker. The most common preventable delays are outdated phone numbers for references and expired medical exams.

Training and the Home Study

Maryland requires pre-service training before licensing. Many local departments use PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education), which covers how trauma affects children’s behavior, working with birth families, and supporting a child’s development. Private agencies operating under COMAR 07.05 require at least 20 hours of training before certification.⁹ The exact hour count varies by agency and curriculum, so confirm what your local department expects.

The home study runs alongside training. A caseworker visits your home for a series of interviews about your background, your relationships, your parenting approach, and your reasons for fostering. It has to include at least two home visits, with the first one covering the physical inspection and interviews with every household member.¹⁰ Children 10 and older who live in the home are interviewed individually.¹¹

Caseworkers are not looking for a perfect family. They’re looking for honesty, emotional stability, and a willingness to work with social workers and the child’s legal advocates. Rehearsed answers usually backfire.

How Long It Takes

From application to license, plan on up to 120 days.¹ Actual timelines depend on how fast you finish training, how quickly background results come back (interstate checks are the usual bottleneck), and your local agency’s caseload. Some families finish in under three months; others wait longer when references are unresponsive or paperwork gets lost.

Before a license is issued, the home has to pass a health and safety inspection. The caseworker may use a standardized survey and can escalate to the local health department or fire marshal if concerns come up.⁵ Once you’re approved, placements can come quickly based on the ages and needs you identified in the home study.

Licenses aren’t permanent. Renewal includes updated background checks, a home visit, and confirmation that you’ve completed any required ongoing training. Keep your records organized through the year.

What You’ll Be Paid

Resource parents receive a monthly board rate for each child placed with them. The money is intended to cover the child’s day-to-day expenses, not to supplement your household income, which is why the income eligibility rule exists.

For regular foster care, the base rate is $887 per month for children from birth through age 11 and $902 per month for ages 12 and up. Both include a monthly clothing allowance ($60 for younger children, $75 for older). Intermediate-level placements pay $1,008 to $1,024 per month. Treatment foster care adds stipends of $350 to $800 per month on top of the base rate, depending on the level of care.¹²

The board rate is expected to cover food, the child’s share of housing and utilities, transportation, school fees, toiletries, over-the-counter medication, bedding, birthday and holiday gifts, and a small allowance.¹²

Support After Licensing

Children in foster care who receive Title IV-E maintenance payments are automatically Medicaid-eligible with no separate application and no income test.¹³ You shouldn’t be paying out of pocket for a foster child’s medical care, dental visits, or prescriptions. Your caseworker will provide the child’s Medicaid information at placement; if a provider refuses the card or coverage lapses, call the caseworker instead of paying the bill yourself.

Most foster care payments are not taxable. Under federal law, qualified foster care payments from a state, local government, or licensed placement agency are excluded from your gross income, including difficulty-of-care payments for children with extra support needs. The exclusion phases out if you care for more than 10 children under age 19 (for difficulty-of-care payments) or more than five individuals age 19 or older.¹⁴ One trap: if the state pays you to hold empty space for emergency placements, those standby payments are taxable.

Federal law also requires that you receive notice of, and a right to be heard in, any court proceeding involving a child placed in your home.¹⁵ That doesn’t automatically make you a party to the case, but your firsthand account of how the child is doing reaches the judge. The corresponding responsibilities are ongoing: regular case reviews, updates to the caseworker, and cooperation with visitation for the child’s birth family. Reunification is the goal of most placements, and supporting it is a core part of the role.

1
Maryland Department of Human Services. Licensure Processes and Information
2
Maryland Department of Human Services. Out-Of-Home Care
3
Maryland Department of Human Services. COMAR 07.02.25 Resource Home Requirements
4
Maryland Department of Human Services. What is Kinship Care in Maryland?
5
Library of Maryland Regulations. COMAR 07.02.25 – LDSS Resource Home Requirements
6
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 07.05.02.10 – Foster Parents Home, Equipment, and Supply Requirements
7
Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Background Checks
8
Library of Maryland Regulations. COMAR 07.02.25.08 – Home Study
9
Library of Maryland Regulations. COMAR 07.05.02.12 – Training Requirements
10
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 07.05.02.11 – Method of Foster Parent Home Study
11
Legal Information Institute. Maryland Code of Regulations 07.05.03.11 – Home Study
12
Maryland Department of Human Services. SSA 19-16 Guidelines for Foster Care Board Rate and Expenditures
13
Medicaid.gov. Children with Title IV-E Adoption Assistance, Foster Care or Guardianship Care
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 131 – Certain Foster Care Payments
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 675 – Definitions