New Report Highlights Barriers to Adoption from Foster Care

The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids recently released a report that presents the findings of two longitudinal studies led by Dr. Ruth McRoy of the University of Texas at Austin Center for Social Work Research. Key findings from the study include:

Barriers

Families interviewed most frequently cited the following agency barriers to adoption:
- agency emotional support
- adoption process logistics
- jurisdictional or interjurisdictional issues
- agency communications/responsiveness

All of these factors, except for jurisdictional/interjurisdictional issues, correlated with whether a family successfully completed the adoption process.

Workers surveyed saw barriers due that included:
- the type of child (age, behaviors, sibling groups, etc.)prospective families were willing to adopt
- prospects' criminal background
- lack of experience with children who have special needs
- the availability of post-adoption services

Successes

Families cited the following factors (among others) as important to the success of their adoption:
- parents' commitment to the child
- child's showing progress in the home
- the parents' and child had bonded
the parents had realistic expectations of the child

A majority of families also found post-adoption supports (adoption subsidies, counseling, medical care, and more) to be very or extremely helpful. More than 40 percent of families, however, reported a problem accessing services. When asked to offer advice to adoption agencies, families suggested improved access to services such as respite, subsidy, support groups, and counseling.

To learn more, download a copy of the full report.

House Bill Seeks Adoption Assistance Equality

This month, Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN) introduced HR 4091, a companion bill to the Senate's Adoption Equality Act (S 1462). the bill, which has nine co-sponsors, would de-link Title IV-E adoption assistance eligibility from the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program requirements. By removing the link between a child's eligibility for adoption assistance from the child's biological parent's income, the legislation makes it easier for children to receive the support they need after they leave foster care to a permanent, loving adoptive family.

NACAC strongly supports this legislation and hopes to see it move quickly through Congress.

Research Shows Importance of Post-Adoption Services

Two new articles highlight the need for ongoing support for children adopted from the foster care system. The first, "Adopted foster youths’ psychosocial functioning: a longitudinal perspective," in the November 2007 issue of Child & Family Social Work compared youth adopted from foster care with adopted non-foster children. Researchers asked parents to complete an inventory of behavioral problems at about two, four, and eight years after the adoption. The authors founds that "a striking number" of the former foster children had behavior problems, far exceeding those found in the general population.

The second article, "Influences of Risk History and Adoption Preparation on Post-Adoption Services Use in U.S. Adoptions," in the October issue of Family Relations, found the usage of post-adoption services (including casework, support groups, and clinical services) during the six-year study period. Those families who adopted children with special needs were more likely to use clinical post-adoption services. As the abstract notes, the study "[f]indings support the need for long-term post-adoption services for adoptive families, especially for families who adopt a child with special needs."

The federal government must dedicate new resources to enable states to create and maintain effective post-adoption services.