Adoption and fostering systems play an important role in society in order to provide care in a family environment to children without adequate care from their biological parents. Documents of the state institutions of the competent ministry show a growing trend of interest in adopting children without parental care. However, foster care is unevenly developed in Croatia. In some parts of Croatia, foster care is quite well developed, while in other parts it is very poorly developed, and in general, Croatia is still not in the category of countries where the entire social protection system is excellently developed, a category in which it strives to be. The primary purpose of this work was to prove that foster care and adoption are not synonymous and that they are two separate social welfare systems. For the purposes of the work, research was conducted on how teacher studies in Croatia prepare future teachers for work with adoption and foster care, and an interview with one foster mother was also conducted in order to gather information about the system itself. The results of the research showed that teacher studies in the Republic of Croatia hardly prepare their students for work with the fostering and adoption system, and through an interview data were collected on personal experiences and viewpoints of one foster mother about the system itself. Based on the information obtained from the interviews, it can be concluded that the system exists and functions relatively well, but also that there are needs for its further improvement and development.