Recurring cast and characters

• Daphne Keene (Daffany Clark) is Callie's close friend who she meets in juvy and later lives with at Girls' United. She begins working for Justina, the investor in Fost and Found, to win back custody of her daughter.
• Timothy (Jay Ali) is a teacher, who is quite popular among his students at Anchor Beach Community Charter School.
• Ana Gutierrez (Alexandra Barreto) is Jesus and Mariana's biological mother, and a member of AA. In the first season, Ana initially bribes Jesus and Mariana for money. She later dates Mike and also gives birth to a daughter, Isabella, during the third season and becomes engaged to Mike in season five.
• Dana Adams (Lorraine Toussaint) is Lena's mother.
• Stewart Adams (Stephen Collins; Bruce Davison in the third season) is Lena's father.
• Emma (Amanda Leighton) is a member of the wrestling team and STEM with Mariana. She becomes Jesus' girlfriend before they break up but are reconciled in season 3.
• Sophia Quinn (Bailee Madison) is Callie's biological younger half-sister and Jude's cross-sister. Sophia clings on to Callie as though they are really close despite only meeting each other recently, even acting out after Callie makes it clear to she and her family that she does not want to live with them. Through counseling, Sophia's parents discover that she has a personality disorder, which her father discloses to Callie.
• Mat Tan (Jordan Rodrigues) is a founding member of Someone's Little Sister. Since the second season, he and Mariana have been dating each other only to find themselves constantly breaking up and getting back together again.
• Monte Porter (Annika Marks) is the principal of Anchor Beach Community Charter School. Monte has a divorce and, in Lena's office at school, she briefly kisses Lena. By the third season, Monte begins dating Jenna after revealing that she is reevaluating her sexual orientation.
• Daria (Madison Pettis) is Jude's classmate.
• Taylor (Izabela Vidovic) is Jude's friend and classmate.
• AJ Hensdale (Tom Williamson) is an adolescent boy whom Mike is potentially expecting to adopt but initially has Stef and Lena foster him for a short while. While staying over the Adams Foster household, AJ and Callie start dating and they later kiss before he runs away with his brother, Ty, as the latter commits a crime. This only leads to AJ being sent to juvie while his brother goes under arrest. Following his release from juvie (as the court determines his brother is not guilty), he and Callie continue with their relationship.
• Cortney Strathmore (Denyse Tontz) is Brandon's ex-girlfriend, and is three years his senior. She also has a very young son and is going through a divorce so Brandon lived with Cortney and helped pay off her house rent.
• Nick Stratos (Louis Hunter) is Jesus' friend and Mariana's unstable boyfriend. In the fourth season, Stef and Mike discover that Nick sets the warehouse on fire, and then they realize that he has fled from school with his father's gun; the school subsequently goes on lockdown. When Callie finds him holding Mariana hostage in her bed the next morning, Stef has him go to prison. Following Nick's release from a psychiatric hospital, the court places a restraining order on him. However, during the neighborhood's celebration for Callie potentially passing her new foster care bill, Mariana sees Nick walking in the crowd without realizing that she is only hallucinating, a side effect resulting from taking Jesus's ADHD medication. Fearing her safety is at risk, she subsequently calls Jesus before running away. Jesus then contacts Nick, who is alone at his house, demanding him to release Mariana but Nick makes it clear that he is not with her. Not believing him, Jesus goes searching for Nick where he later finds him having an argument with Mariana. Acting on impulse, Jesus attempts to beat him up only to find himself being attacked to the ground, which is when Stef abruptly appears trying to stop their fight. Nick, then, provides Jesus with a blow to the head before he immediately loses consciousness.
• Gabriel "Gabe" Duncroft (Brandon Quinn) is Jesus and Mariana's biological father, who is on a sex offenders list for only being 18 when he started dating 15-year-old Ana, and, at the time, her parents filed a restraining order against him, which led to his subsequent arrest. Years later, Jesus meets Gabe while helping him on a construction site without initially disclosing that he is his son. Gabe later assists Brandon in setting up his school musical, but after the board of directors at Anchor Beach learn about Gabe's background, Lena is at risk of losing her job so she, alongside Stef, Mike, and a lawyer help remove Gabe off the list.
• Aaron Baker (Elliot Fletcher) is a law student who helps Callie release her younger ex-foster brother out of jail as the latter has been falsely accused of murdering an elderly women that he had worked for. He later reveals he is transgender and becomes Callie's boyfriend in season five.
• Noah (Kalama Epstein) is Jude's second boyfriend who he meets at Taylor's church youth group. He convinces Jude to eat his medical marijuanna gummy worms with him and they later find themselves smoking marijuana frequently to get high together. However, after the two are caught smoking it one night in the family's garage, Stef and Lena forbid Jude from seeing Noah again. Stef and Lena later encouraged the relationship because of how much Jude was affected by Callie going to jail.

Former recurring cast and characters

• Justina Marks (Kelli Williams) is the lobbyist who Callie initially collaborates with on a bill that will repair the issues currently facing foster care legislation in the state. After realizing the intent of the bill, which privatizes foster care, is to only worsen things for the sake of Justina and her company earning a profit, Callie takes a photo online of the check Justina receives in the mail in her office at work so this becomes visibly known to the public. Callie, then, decides to compete against Justina by designing her own bill that will genuinely improve the lives of those in foster care. Nonetheless, in the midst of Callie's celebration party, one of Justina's workers informs Callie that if she goes through on passing her bill, Justina will have Callie sent to prison by disclosing to the police how she read through her mail, thereby allowing her own bill to gain approval instead.
• Talya Banks (Madisen Beaty) is Brandon's initial girlfriend; they break up after she discovers his feelings for Callie.
• Lexi Rivera (Bianca A. Santos) is Mariana's best friend, and Jesus's girlfriend. Lexi moves to Honduras before residing back in San Diego after she and her family get their visas.^[4] When returning to Anchor Beach, Lexi finds out that while she was away, Emma was on the wrestling team where she met and later started dating Jesus. Lexi later reads the text message Jesus sent to Emma about how he likes the latter even more, leading to Lexi breaking up with him.
• Wyatt (Alex Saxon) is Callie's first boyfriend, with whom she runs away.^[8] He later returns during the second and third season before they break up.
• Connor Stevens (Gavin MacIntosh) is Jude's best friend, classmate and first boyfriend. The two have problems in their relationship, mostly due to Connor's homophobic father and Jude's refusal to label himself as gay, but they work through them. In season 3, Connor and Jude admit they love each other but the pair break up after struggling to maintain a long distance relationship following Connor's permanent move to his mother's house in Los Angeles.
• Frank Cooper (Sam McMurray) is Stef's father, who is not fond of his daughter's sexual orientation. Despite being homophobic, Frank decides to attend Stef's wedding but she disinvites him the night before marrying Lena. A few days later, Stef finds him dead on the couch at her parents' house only to later regret missing out on potentially relieving the tensions she had with her father.
• Kiara (Cherinda Kincherlow) is one of Callie's friends from Girls' United.
• Cole (Tom Phelan) is a transgender boy from Girls' United, who Callie escorts to prom.
• Dani Kirkland (Marla Sokoloff) is Mike's girlfriend who he met at AA. Brandon, later, discloses to his parents and step mother that after returning to his father's house sober one night, Dani sexually seduces him. The next morning, the two break up when the police come to arrest Dani at her house.
• Donald Jacob (Jamie McShane) is Jude's biological father who initially raised Callie and Jude with their late mother. One night, however, he drove drunk with his wife in the car before getting into an accident which killed her instantly. He was subsequently arrested for quite some time so Callie and Jude ended up in the foster care system. Donald later signs the papers in court that would allow Stef and Lena to have full custody over Jude.
• Hayley Heinz (Caitlin Carver) is Jesus's second girlfriend and a member of the school dance team. Before the pair break up, Jesus tattoos her name on the side of his chest, and after their split, his parents find out about his tattoo and have him laser it off.
• Robert Quinn (Kerr Smith) is Callie's biological father. It was not until the court discovers his name on Callie's birth certificate that they realized Robert—not Donald—was her biological father. Against Callie's wishes, Robert initially fights for her custody before realizing that it would not be in Callie's best interest, and instead gives up his parental rights to Stef and Lena.
• Adam Stevens (Chris Bruno) is Connor's abusive and homophobic father. He finds Connor's homosexuality uneasy to bear and disapproves of his son's relationship with Jude.
• Lucy "Lou" Chan (Ashley Argota) is Brandon's former love interest, and a member of the band Someone's Little Sister.^[9]
• Jack Downey (Tanner Buchanan) is a socially inept teenager, who befriends Jude after meeting him at a foster youth event where Callie was a speaker. Jack, later, catfishes Callie by pretending to be AJ and ends up kissing Jude. Callie and Jude's abusive former foster father later kills him.