(1) The department provides the following general adoption services prior to the finalization of an adoption:

(a) Social work services to birth parents and children to achieve a permanent family for each child;

(b) Use of the courts, legal counsel, and juvenile court specialists for termination of parental rights and granting of adoption petitions;

(c) Obtaining available child and family medical and social background information for disclosure to adoptive families;

(d) Recruitment, study, and approval of adoptive and foster-adopt families;

(e) Assessment of the child and the current caretaker to determine if the placement is an appropriate adoptive placement;

(f) Placement of children with waiting adoptive or foster-adopt family;

(g) Social work services and/or referral of children and families to services after placement to facilitate the adoption;

(h) Development of alternate plans when the planned adoptive placement is not in the best interest of the child and/or the adoptive family; and

(i) Location and exchange, on a state and national basis, of information about children and adoptive families.

(2) The department administers the state's adoption support program on behalf of eligible children adopted through the department or a private child-placing agency (see WAC 388-25-0120 and following).

(3) The department administers the interstate compact on the placement of children (ICPC) and the interstate compact on adoption and medical assistance (ICAMA) and cooperates, upon request, with other state and tribal child welfare agencies in adoptive planning for children.