ND Heart Gallery: North Dakota's Waiting Children

There are roughly 1,237 children in North Dakota's foster care system at any given time. Most will reunite with their families — that's the goal. But a portion of them have had parental rights terminated and are waiting for an adoptive or long-term foster family. The ND Heart Gallery exists to make those children visible.

If you've arrived here after seeing a photo exhibit at a library, a church event, or a social media post, here's what you need to know about who these children are, how the gallery works, and what the realistic path forward looks like.

What the ND Heart Gallery Is

The ND Heart Gallery is a rotating photo exhibit produced through a partnership between the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the "Reel Hope Project" photography initiative. Professional photographers volunteer their time to take dignified, compelling portraits of children in foster care who are legally free for adoption — meaning termination of parental rights has already occurred.

These are not children in temporary placements. They are children whose reunification goal has closed and who now need a permanent family.

The exhibits travel to public venues across the state — community centers, hospitals, university campuses, and faith communities in Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, and Minot. The photography is intentionally warm and child-centered, showing each child doing something they love rather than posing against a clinical backdrop.

The goal isn't marketing. It's humanity. The families who ultimately respond to a Heart Gallery child often describe the experience of seeing a specific photo as a moment that shifted something fundamental in how they understood their own capacity to parent.

Who the Children Are

The children featured in the ND Heart Gallery skew older and are more likely to be part of sibling groups than the general foster care population might suggest. Nationally, children who wait longest for adoptive families tend to be:

• Age 8 and older
• Part of a sibling set of two, three, or more children who need to be placed together
• Children with medical, developmental, or behavioral needs that require specialized parenting
• Children who identify as Native American — a demographic that represents nearly 40% of North Dakota's foster care population, despite Native American children making up a much smaller share of the state's overall child population

That last point matters for anyone who responds to a Heart Gallery child. North Dakota codified the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) into state law in 2023. If a child you're interested in is an enrolled member of one of the state's five tribal nations — Spirit Lake, Standing Rock, Turtle Mountain, the Three Affiliated Tribes (MHA Nation), or the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate — the tribe has specific placement preferences and must be notified. This doesn't mean the placement can't happen, but it adds steps and timeline.

How to Respond to a Heart Gallery Child

Seeing a photo and wanting to learn more is the beginning of a process, not the end of one. Here's how it actually works:

Step 1: Contact the HHS Children and Family Services (CFS) section. The toll-free inquiry line is 1-833-FST-HOME (1-833-378-4663). Each child in the Heart Gallery has a child-specific case manager. You can ask for information about a specific child by the name or identifier shown at the exhibit.

Step 2: Understand that you must be licensed first. North Dakota will not match a Heart Gallery child with an unlicensed family. If you're not already a licensed foster or adoptive parent, the clock starts on licensing before any match conversation can happen. Licensing takes three to six months from first inquiry to approval.

Step 3: Go through the home study. The home study is a mutual assessment — the agency is evaluating your household, but you're also evaluating whether this is the right path. The state looks at finances, physical home standards, background history, and family dynamics. For children with higher needs, the assessment may include an additional evaluation of your capacity to support therapeutic needs.

Step 4: Work with the child's case team. If you're licensed and interested in a specific child, the case manager will facilitate a matching process that typically involves supervised visits before any placement occurs. For Heart Gallery children, this is deliberate — these kids have often experienced multiple placements, and the state wants the match to hold.

What "Heart Gallery" Doesn't Mean

There's a common misconception that responding to a Heart Gallery child is a fast track to adoption. It isn't. Even children who are legally free for adoption still go through a placement process that can take many months from first contact to finalization.

It also doesn't mean these children are easy to parent. The Heart Gallery is honest about the needs of the children it features. A child who has been in care for three or four years, who has lost their birth family, who may have experienced trauma and multiple placement disruptions — that child needs stability above all else. The families who do best in these situations are usually the ones who've done the most preparation.

The 2025 Legislative Change Worth Knowing

Under House Bill 1120, passed by the 2025 North Dakota Legislature, foster parents who have been continuously licensed for more than one year are now "presumed suitable" for adoption. This significantly reduces the additional home study burden for foster families who want to adopt the child already in their care. It doesn't eliminate the adoption home study, but it streamlines it considerably.

This matters for Heart Gallery families because it reinforces the state's preference for foster-first pathways. If you've been providing care for a child and that child becomes legally free, you're now in a stronger position than ever to pursue adoption without starting over.

Where to Start

The Heart Gallery is most useful as an introduction — a way of making the abstract concrete. But the real work begins with becoming a licensed resource family. If you're ready to take that step in North Dakota, the guide to the full licensing process — from the initial inquiry call to your first placement — is at /us/north-dakota/foster-care/.

Starting the process before you're matched with a specific child means that when the right match comes, you're not waiting on paperwork.

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