North Dakota Foster Care Photo Listing: The ND Heart Gallery and Waiting Children

The first time many people see the ND Heart Gallery, it stops them cold. It is a collection of portraits of North Dakota children who need permanent families — children in foster care whose parental rights have been terminated and who are legally free for adoption. The photographs are professional, the children are looking directly at the camera, and there are typically dozens of them. For people who have been researching foster care in the abstract, the gallery makes the need concrete in a way that statistics do not.

Understanding what a photo listing is, what it means for a child to appear on one, and what it actually takes to respond to one helps prospective foster parents engage with this part of the process thoughtfully rather than impulsively.

What the ND Heart Gallery Is

The ND Heart Gallery is North Dakota's official photo listing for children in foster care who are legally free for adoption and have not yet been matched with a permanent family. It is coordinated by the North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Children and Family Services (CFS) section and is available through the HHS website.

A child appears on the Heart Gallery only after parental rights have been terminated — meaning the legal relationship between the child and their biological parents has been formally severed by a court. These are not children who are temporarily in foster care with reunification as the goal. These are children for whom the permanency plan is adoption, and who do not yet have an identified adoptive family.

The gallery is updated regularly. Children are added when they become legally free and have not been matched through other means. Children are removed when a family is identified and the match moves toward legalization.

What a Photo Listing Does Not Tell You

A Heart Gallery profile typically includes the child's first name (sometimes a pseudonym for privacy), age, a brief paragraph about their personality and interests, and the photograph. What it does not include is the child's full history — their reason for entering care, their medical and behavioral needs, their sibling relationships, their prior placement history, or their educational status.

This is not an oversight. Child welfare agencies are legally and ethically constrained in what can be publicly disclosed about a child's case. The profile is designed to generate initial interest and start a conversation, not to give you everything you need to make a decision.

Families who respond to a photo listing are connected with the child's assigned case manager, who can share significantly more information about the child's needs, history, and the type of family being sought. That conversation is the real beginning of the matching process.

Who Is Typically on the Photo Listing

Nationally, children who remain on photo listings tend to be older children, sibling groups, and children with significant medical, developmental, or behavioral needs. North Dakota's Heart Gallery reflects these same patterns. A significant portion of the children on the ND Heart Gallery are:

• Older children and teenagers, often ten and above
• Sibling groups of two, three, or more children who need to be kept together
• Children with identified disabilities — developmental delays, autism spectrum disorder, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or serious mental health needs
• Native American children, who represent nearly 40% of children in North Dakota foster care and who bring specific placement considerations under the Indian Child Welfare Act

This is not to discourage families from engaging with the listing. It is to set accurate expectations. If your licensing application specifies that you are prepared for young children only, or that you cannot manage a sibling group of four, the children on the Heart Gallery who match your capacity are a smaller subset of the full listing.

The ND Provider List: Matching Before a Child Is on the Gallery

Many foster parents do not realize that the Heart Gallery represents children who were not matched through the internal placement process. Before a child appears on a public photo listing, the Human Service Zone case manager searches the ND Provider List — the database of licensed foster and adoptive families — to find potential matches based on the child's age, gender, and specific needs.

If you are licensed and have documented your willingness to care for children with particular characteristics — older children, children with developmental needs, sibling groups — your profile exists in the system. Placement coordinators may reach out to you directly before a child's profile ever becomes public.

This means that being proactively open in your licensing application about the types of children you can welcome is one of the most effective ways to be considered for matches that never make it to a public listing.

Responding to a Photo Listing

If you are not yet licensed and you find a child on the ND Heart Gallery whose profile resonates with you, the process is not as simple as raising your hand. You must be a licensed foster or adoptive family — or at least be actively in the licensing process — to be considered for any match.

If you are already licensed and want to inquire about a specific child on the listing:

1. Contact your Human Service Zone case manager or the CFS Licensing Unit and indicate your interest in the specific child by name
2. Your case manager connects with the child's case manager to discuss whether the match is appropriate given both the child's history and your licensed capacity
3. If the case managers agree it is worth exploring, an informational meeting is arranged — the child's case manager shares more detailed background, and you ask questions
4. If both sides want to proceed, a trial visit or extended visit may be arranged before a full placement decision is made

This process can take weeks to months. It is deliberately careful, because a failed placement — where a child is moved in and then moved out again — is traumatic for a child who has already experienced significant loss.

The Reel Hope Project

In addition to the Heart Gallery, North Dakota uses The Reel Hope Project — a national initiative that creates short video profiles of waiting children. These videos are more revealing than a photograph and a paragraph. They show the child talking, playing, and engaging with adults, which gives prospective families a sense of the child's personality and demeanor that a static profile cannot convey.

For families who are serious about adopting from foster care, watching the Reel Hope videos for North Dakota children is a meaningful step in understanding who is waiting and what they need.

What Comes First

If you are moved by the ND Heart Gallery and want to be in a position to respond to a photo listing, the path forward is through the licensing process. Families cannot be matched with waiting children without a current license. The licensing process in North Dakota takes three to six months from orientation to approval.

The North Dakota Foster Care Licensing Guide walks through the full licensing process — from the first phone call to the CFS Licensing Unit through the home study, PRIDE training, background checks, and final approval — so you can move through each step without unnecessary delays.

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