The practice of foster parent adoption is
growing. More and more public social service
agencies are finding that a child's foster
family often is the placement of choice when
that child becomes free for adoption. Nowadays,
a foster parent willing to adopt is seen as
a precious resource. This is especially true
when the child or children in question have
special needs or are children of color, and
when it is evident that a strong feeling of
attachment has grown between foster parent
and child during the course of the foster
care placement.
This factsheet is written for foster care
and adoption professionals charged with the
responsibility of finding permanent homes
for children in foster care who become available
for adoption. Another factsheet entitled "Foster
Parent Adoption: What Parents Should Know"
also is available from the National Adoption
Information Clearinghouse.
At the end of this factsheet there are two
appendices. The first is a list of common
characteristics of foster parents who have
adopted. The second one is a strengths/needs
worksheet to use with foster parents considering
adoption. There is also a bibliography for
additional reading and a list of organizations
with an interest in foster parent adoption.
The increase in foster parent adoptions reflects
the growing numbers of public agency adoptions
generally. Child welfare professionals have
been acting on their conviction that achieving
permanency as quickly as possible is the most
desirable outcome for children. Federal initiatives
that encourage permanency planning (primarily
Public Law 96-272, "The Adoption Assistance
and Child Welfare Act of 1980") have impacted
the way foster care casework is performed.
Return to birth parents or other relatives
is the first goal for children in substitute
care. But if return is not possible, leaving
children in foster care limbo for many years
is unacceptable. Therefore, child welfare
professionals—and foster parents—have
pushed for hearings on termination of parental
rights to occur more quickly, and thus, more
children have been made available for adoption.
With the increase in adoption generally,
foster parent adoptions in particular have
increased because agency workers have become
more aware of separation and attachment issues.
They now recognize that the attachments between
foster parents and children, especially children
with special needs, are important and valuable.
Although foster parent adoption is desirable,
it does not necessarily follow that every
child in foster care who becomes available
for adoption should be adopted by his or her
foster parent. Foster parent adoption certainly
should be neither automatic nor universal.
However, certain agency practices have been
shown to encourage foster parents to adopt.
This factsheet addresses these practices.
[back to top]
Some Numbers To Consider
Several studies were performed during the
1980's on the prevalence of foster parent
adoption among public agencies in the United
States. They showed that foster parent adoptions
constituted between 40 percent and 80 percent
of all adoptive placements with the average
being about 60 percent. One study on adoption
disruption rates found that although 90 percent
of all adoptions were successful (the criterion
was that they did not disrupt), 94 percent
of foster parent adoptions remained intact.
Another study showed that foster parent adoptions
were as good as other permanent plans implemented
for children, with a reported 88 percent of
adopted foster children "doing well."
In the 1990's the number of drug- exposed
children entering foster care in the United
States is alarming. Some estimate that as
many as 20,000 drug-exposed children will
enter the foster care system each year. It
is likely that from 25 percent to 33 percent
of these children will need to be cared for
on a permanent basis by persons other than
their birth parents. Therefore, as many as
6,600 children each year will need out-of-home
care.
Some professionals in the field are calling
for a return to congregate or group care for
drug-exposed children. Others believe that
placing these children with specialized foster
or adoptive parents who have received the
proper training is most appropriate and, not
unimportantly, more cost effective. One national
adoptive parent organization estimates that
using specialized foster or adoptive parents
instead of congregate care facilities for
drug- exposed children could save taxpayers
as much as $550 million per year.
[back to top]
Changes in Agency
Practice
As recently as the early 1970's, most public
adoption agencies had policies against the
practice of foster parent adoption. In fact,
many even required foster parents to sign
a contract saying they would never ask the
agency for preference in adoption placement
if their foster child should become legally
free. However, by the early 1980's, agency
thinking about foster parent adoption shifted.
Foster parents also became more vocal and
began advocating for the right to adopt the
children in their home. In 1987 the Child
Welfare Institute (CWI) in Atlanta, Georgia,
did a survey of public and private adoption
agencies in six States and found that virtually
all agencies encouraged foster parent adoptions.
Why did agencies in the past discourage foster
parent adoptions?
One reason was that workers were afraid foster
parents would not work to help reunite a child
with his or her birth family if the possibility
that they would be able to adopt the child
existed. Since family reunification is always
the first goal of foster care, workers felt
that families who were secretly wishing to
adopt a child would either consciously or
unconsciously sabotage the reunification effort.
Also, workers felt that if foster parents
were allowed to adopt their foster children,
they would drop out of the foster care program.
Placement workers did not want to lose their
good foster parent resources for future children
who might come into care.
Another phenomenon working against foster
parent adoptions was that workers and supervisors
had strong biases and often did not share
decisionmaking with foster parents when making
placement decisions. Child welfare workers
would think, "That family is acceptable for
foster care, but for adoption, I want the
best possible family for this child." In some
cases, this sentiment meant they hoped to
find a family better suited to meet a child's
long-term emotional needs. Other times, the
worker hoped to place the child with a permanent
family of a different socioeconomic class
(perhaps one more similar to that of the worker).
Additionally, workers felt that long- time
foster parents would not be able to change
their thinking and perhaps behaviors from
those associated with being temporary caretakers
to those of permanent and committed parents.
Child welfare professionals also were concerned
that if foster parents adopted one particular
child but continued to be foster parents for
other children, the remaining foster children
might be affected adversely by that child's
adoption.
For these reasons and others, a child who
was doing perfectly well living with a certain
foster family would be moved to another family
when freed for adoption. This other family
would have been recruited and prepared specifically
as a permanent adoptive family. The foster
parents would not even be consulted in this
decisionmaking process.
Today the situation has changed almost completely.
As mentioned previously, Federal initiatives,
including the availability of adoption subsidies,
have encouraged foster parent adoption. If
a family is having difficulty committing to
adoption because of financial concerns, then
that barrier is removed. Workers and supervisors
have come to grips with their biases and fears
with the realization that placing children
with special needs in permanent adoptive families
is not an easy task. If a foster parent is
interested in discussing adoption, chances
are the agency is willing to listen. Further,
the recognition of the importance of attachment
in the lives of children also has played an
important role. This issue is discussed in
more detail below.
[back to top]
The Role of Attachment
In the late 1970's and early 1980's a new
body of literature on the attachment of children
in substitute care became widely disseminated.
This literature began to describe what workers
were seeing in their everyday practice—children
in foster care who had experienced multiple
moves exhibiting troublesome behavior and
having severe emotional problems. These children
did not trust anyone and were having difficulties
in their interpersonal relationships at home,
at school, with their peers, and in the community.
For instance, one study during this period
showed that growing up for many years in foster
care had demonstrable negative effects on
children's identity formation and level of
self- confidence. Adopted children as adults
felt more secure, confident, and better able
to cope with life than adults who had been
raised in foster homes for many of their childhood
years.
Research at this time began to show that
without the consistent, permanent presence
of at least one caring, nurturing adult in
a child's life, that child is at a high risk
for psychological harm. Children who do not
have one such person essentially feel there
is little reason to do well in life. If all
the adults in a child's life have rejected,
betrayed, or given up on the child (at least
in the child's perception), there is no core
of self-esteem upon which to build a healthy,
happy life. It is difficult for that child
to achieve his or her full potential and develop
satisfactory adult relationships.
No matter what the circumstances, children
view a move to a new home as their fault.
They think that they must have done something
wrong or that there must be something intrinsically
wrong with them. Moving from home to home
to home contributes to this downward emotional
spiral.
The new thinking growing out of this body
of literature, then, is to capitalize on the
positive attachment that has taken place within
the foster family. If a child is loved by
the foster family, has made friends in the
neighborhood, has adjusted successfully to
the neighborhood school, and is accepted and
loved by the extended family and friends of
the foster family, and the family is willing
to adopt the child, then the child should
stay there. In many cases, the child already
has lost all those things with regard to his
or her birth family. Why should his or her
life be disrupted all over again? Why should
the child incur a second, or perhaps even
a third, set of traumatic losses?
It now has become clear to agencies that
foster parent adoption can be beneficial.
Realizing that foster care and adoption issues
are moving closer and closer together, some
agencies that have been preparing foster parents
and adoptive parents separately are now moving
toward joint training. Workers too are trained
to decide whether a child's initial placement
should be with a foster or adoptive family.
One agency's practice illustrates this trend.
[back to top]
One Agency's Practice
Some social service agencies are now recruiting
and training substitute care families with
the initial understanding that the families
may make a choice as to whether they wish
to be considered as foster parents, adoptive
parents, or fost/adopt parents. Other terms
used for the fost/adopt practice are "flexible
family resources," "permanency planning foster
parents," or "high risk adoptive parents."
When agencies operate under this philosophy,
a child is placed with a certain kind of family
depending on the placement goal for that child.
A child who very likely will be able to return
home to birth parents or relatives is placed
with a family who chooses specifically to
be a foster family. A child who very likely
will not return home but who still must maintain
his or her foster care status for a time is
placed with a fost/adopt family. In this case,
the family will serve as a foster family as
long as necessary but will get first preference
as a potential adoptive placement if the child
becomes available for adoption. A family who
only wants to adopt will be recruited for
a child whose foster parents, for whatever
reason, are not able or willing to adopt the
child for whom they have been caring. This
potential adoptive family perhaps cannot deal
with the ambiguity of foster parenting but
is willing to work with the former foster
family to make the transition to permanence
as smooth as possible.
How do agencies decide at an early point
in the placement process whether a child is
likely to return to birth parents or move
on to adoption? In the St. Louis County office
of the Missouri Division of Family Services,
Maryanne Mica and her staff developed a checklist
for this purpose. They knew from their prior
experience that when a certain combination
of family factors are present, children are
more likely to proceed from foster care to
adoption. For these children, a fost/adopt
parent or a flexible family resource could
be identified for initial placement. Some
of the factors they identified are:
- A child's sibling has died as a result
of abuse or neglect;
- The parents have abandoned their child
and have not been located in 45 days;
- The child had returned home and is now
returning to foster care as a result of
abuse or neglect similar to the circumstances
that initially brought him or her into care;
- The child's legal parents signed consent
for adoption and cooperated in the planning
for adoptive placement; or
- Both the child's legal and/or biological
parents are deceased.
In this agency, these factors and many others
are considered by the intake or foster care
worker. If he or she feels there is a strong
likelihood that a child will move forward
to adoption, a meeting is held with the appropriate
foster care worker and supervisor, an adoption
worker and supervisor, and the agency's legal
counsel, if necessary, to decide if indeed
a flexible family resource is appropriate.
If this group comes to a consensus that placement
with a fost/adopt family is the best way to
proceed, the group identifies a family and,
if possible, a backup family.
The worker who did the original home study
on the family makes the initial approach to
the family. If the family agrees, the placement
is made. If the family does not agree, the
worker approaches the backup family. If the
backup family does not agree, the group reconvenes
and either decides to recruit a new family
or reconsiders the decision to place the child
with a flexible family resource.
The staff in the agency, then, receives training
on the precise case factors that must be present
in order to proceed in a certain direction
on a case. Each child and family is assessed
carefully and thoroughly before that direction
is taken.
[back to top]
Training Resources
The reality today is that for a significant
number of foster children, their foster care
placement becomes their adoptive placement,
especially if the children have special needs,
are part of a sibling group, are older than
6 years old, or are children of color. Several
training curricula have been developed that
deal with this reality. Agencies can receive
instruction for their workers from the training
developers, and then the workers are able
to use the training with the agency's prospective
parents.
There are two national organizations that
have developed several new curricula in the
areas of joint foster and adoptive parent
preparation and foster parent adoption training.
They are CWI
in Atlanta, Georgia, and the National
Resource Center for Special Needs Adoption
(NRCSNA) in Southfield, Michigan.
The joint foster and adoptive parent preparation
curriculum developed by CWI is called the
"Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting"
or MAPP. CWI also has published a training
manual about foster parent adoption called
From Foster Parent to Adoptive Parent:
Helping Foster Parents Make an Informed Decision
About Adoption. A resource guidebook accompanies
the manual and explains how to use it. The
worksheet in Appendix II is a composite of
several of the exercises found in the guidebook.
The contact at CWI about these curricula is
Heather Craig-Oldsen.
The joint foster and adoptive parent preparation
curriculum developed by NRCSNA is called "Preparation
for Permanency: Joint Orientation to Foster
and Adoptive Parenting." In addition, NRCSNA
recently completed the production of a comprehensive
6-day video-based worker training in all aspects
of special needs adoption called the "Special
Needs Adoption Curriculum." A full 2 days
of this curriculum is devoted to the topic
of foster parent adoption. The contacts at
NRCSNA about these curricula are Nancy Burkhalter,
Linda Whitfield, or Drenda Lakin.
Both of these national organizations have
staff available, for a fee, to travel to a
local agency site and train local agency workers
in their curricula. Another way to arrange
the training is for local agencies to send
their staff to the trainers. A number of agencies
already have received training from these
organizations.
In the last few years, professionals working
in local agencies also have written new training
curricula in the areas of joint foster and
adoptive parent preparation and foster parent
adoption. Linda Katz of Lutheran
Social Services of Washington-Idaho, working
under a Federal grant, published a training
curriculum called Seeing Kids Through to
Permanence: Preparing Permanency Planning
Foster Parents. The curriculum has the
perspective of preparing foster parents from
the beginning as potential permanent resources
for children. Winona Boyd, formerly of Tabor
Children's Services in Philadelphia has used
a curriculum called "Transitional Training,"
which is designed for foster parents who have
had a child in their home for a while and
are now proceeding to adopt. Its main goal
is to help foster parents refocus on specific
adoption issues and make the transition from
foster care to adoption.
See the list of organizations at the end
of this factsheet for the addresses and telephone
numbers of these foster parent adoption experts.
[back to top]
Considerations
for Agencies Wanting To Encourage Foster Parent
Adoption
If your agency's foster parents are not adopting
children in substantial numbers and you want
to increase these adoptions, you might want
to take a look at your placement policy. Following
are important issues to consider.
Financial matters.—Have financial
matters been taken into consideration? Is
there an adequate subsidy component in your
program so that a family would not be worse
off financially if adoption takes place than
if it continues as a long-term foster family?
A family that absolutely relies on the foster
care payment and medicaid coverage to meet
a child's needs is not likely to give that
up simply to finalize an adoption.
Postadoption services.—Are postadoption
or postlegal services available through your
agency? "Postadoption services" are those
provided after a child is considered to be
in an adoptive placement but before the adoption
is legally finalized. "Postlegal services"
are those provided after the finalization
of the adoption in court. Perhaps a family
worries that all the supportive services that
the foster care worker provides will disappear
if the family chooses to adopt. Reassurance
in the form of a contract for postadoption
services will help put these fears to rest.
Further, are there adoptive parent support
groups and therapists with expertise in adoption
issues in your area? Can you connect the family
to other foster parent adopters? If you know
of these, provide their addresses and telephone
numbers to your foster parents considering
adoption. Concrete support such as this is
indispensable to parents.
Home study.—Is the adoption home
study significantly different from the foster
home study? Is the adoption home study time
consuming and intimidating? Agencies whose
home study formats are the same for both foster
care and adoption are able to obtain consent
from a larger percentage of foster parents
to adopt. The adoption home study process
must recognize and acknowledge the foster
family's experience with the child. The home
study should help prepare the family for the
future, acknowledging the child's place in
it.
Initial contact person.—Who asks
the foster family if they want to adopt? Research
shows that to get the consent of more foster
parents to adopt, the person who asks the
family about adoption should be the worker
who knows the family best and with whom the
family feels the highest level of trust. It
is preferable, for example, for the long-term
foster care worker rather than a newly assigned
adoption worker to ask the family about adoption.
Collaboration and coordination.—Is
there collaboration or coordination between
foster care and adoption staff? It is important
for foster care and adoption staff to be on
the same wavelength and work together to achieve
permanency for each child in care. Each should
know well the foster care and adoption issues
that are similar and those that are different.
Some smaller agencies even have changed to
a model of having one worker take responsibility
for a case from entry into care until a decision
is made in regard to a permanent placement.
The child's status may change from foster
care to preadopt to adoption, but the worker
stays the same. This provides enormous stability
for both the child and the family.
Staff involvement and continued contact.—Do
your staff members stay actively involved
in their cases and encourage substantial contact
between foster families and birth families?
Foster families that decide to adopt generally
know more about a child's background from
the beginning than families who choose not
to adopt. Families that choose to adopt also
have had more contact with the agency in general
and more caseworker involvement. These families
are more likely to feel comfortable talking
with their worker about difficult issues and
to trust that the worker has fully disclosed
pertinent information about the child's history.
Matching.—Is significant effort
put into the matching of foster children with
the right foster parents at the time of initial
placement? Foster parents are more likely
to adopt a child to whom they have developed
a strong attachment. They are more likely
to become attached to a child whom they view
as similar to themselves and whose needs they
are able to meet fairly easily, even if there
are special needs. Parents' stated preferences
during the course of the home study for the
type of child that they feel best suits them
are very important if you think a foster care
placement may result in a future adoption.
Preplacement visits.—Does your
staff invest the time and energy in facilitating
preplacement visits between children and potential
foster families? As noted in Appendix I, "Common
Characteristics of Foster Parents Who Have
Adopted," older children who have preplacement
visits are more likely to be adopted by their
foster parents than those who do not visit.
That extra bit of preparation for both the
child and family increases the development
of a positive attachment and can have long
lasting positive effects for all concerned.
Foster family empowerment.—Are
foster families empowered to examine their
strengths and needs and those of the child,
agency, and community to help them determine
whether a change from foster parenting to
adoption is desirable? Are they given training
or any structured assistance to help them
make this decision? Do you discuss with families
the grieving process, issues of separation
and attachment, and the idea of creating a
special ceremony or event for the child that
will mark the change from foster care to adoption?
Have you helped your foster families to understand
that they will have to incorporate the child's
birth family experiences—and possibly
former foster care experiences—into their
family life? Are they prepared to honor the
child's birth heritage and positive memories,
and even consider maintaining some kind of
contact with previous significant people,
if that is appropriate?
Child preparation.—Are the children
with whom you work adequately prepared for
adoption? Does your staff do lifebook work
with them? Do the children truly understand
the difference between foster care and adoption?
Proper attention to all of these issues has
been identified by research and experience
as encouraging foster parent adoption.
Conclusion
Foster parent adoption is a fact of life.
With proper preparation of children and families,
with agency practice that encourages foster
parent adoption and empowers families to evaluate
their own strengths and needs, and with the
availability of postadoption supports, foster
parent adoption can be an extremely beneficial
way to provide permanence for children. In
many cases, foster parent adoption can help
interrupt the downward emotional spiral that
is associated with moving through the foster
care system from home to home to home.
The practices discussed in this factsheet
may represent significant changes in your
agency's policy or structure. It may take
a series of strategy sessions to determine
the best way to accomplish these changes.
Perhaps changes can be incorporated gradually
rather than all at once. Permanence for more
children may well be the result of your efforts.
Acknowledgments
The Clearinghouse would like to acknowledge
Heather L. Craig-Oldsen of CWI and Linda Whitfield
of NRCSNA for their invaluable assistance
in the preparation of this factsheet.
Written by Debra G. Smith, A.C.S.W., National
Adoption Information Clearinghouse, 1991.
Organization list revised June 1994.
Internet links added by Adoptions.com
2000 - 2003
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For more information, contact the National
Adoption Information Clearinghouse at naic@calib.com.
