Report: Foster System Foils Adoptions
AP ^
| 03/11/05 | DAVID CRARY
Posted on 03/11/2005 5:49:05 PM PST by nypokerface
NEW YORK - The backlog of children languishing in foster care could be sharply reduced if state agencies were more friendly and helpful to prospective parents asking about adoptions, according to a new report which says fewer than one of 16 adults who make initial inquiries actually ends up adopting.
The vast majority give up "not because they don't want to, but apparently because they decide not to deal with a system they perceive as too frustrating, bureaucratic and just plain unfriendly," the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute says.
The report urges state agencies to set up hotlines staffed by well-trained employees who provide callers with immediate, encouraging responses. Throughout the process, state employees should strive to avoid alienating applicants, be cordial in broaching the issue of background checks, and provide clear information, it said.
A preliminary version of the report circulated among adoption professionals last year, and already has had an impact. Barb Holtan, director of a new federal initiative called AdoptUSKids, said the findings prompted her program to form state recruitment response teams with the goal of providing "basic good customer services" to prospective parents.
"We recruit and recruit (parents), and then when people call they're treated less than enthusiastically," she said Friday.
The report's lead researcher, Jeff Katz, formerly headed Rhode Island's state adoption agency. He and his colleagues surveyed more than 40 states, analyzed federal data and conducted interviews in Boston, Miami and San Jose, Calif.
"To me, it's shocking," Katz said in a telephone interview. "There are kids in foster care saying, 'No one wants me' and there are parents who want to adopt saying, 'Why doesn't anyone return my calls?'"
According to the latest federal statistics, from 2002, about 126,000 children were in foster care awaiting adoption, often for many years. Roughly 53,000 children were adopted from foster care, in most cases by their foster parents or by relatives; Katz said less than 6 percent of the 240,000 other adults who inquired about adoption ended up completing the process.
Katz said state agencies — rather than spending to recruit ever more applicants — should focus on making the process more welcoming, even during the necessary screening to weed out unsuitable parents. He said at least one state agency seemed to deter applicants by fingerprinting them at their first orientation meeting.
For foster children, "an alienating experience for a prospective parent can mean the difference between a life spent in the uncertainty of temporary homes and the loving embrace of a permanent family," the report said.
Experts not connected with the Donaldson Institute expressed empathy with often underfunded state adoption agencies, but concurred with the thrust of Katz's report.
Gloria Hochman of the Philadelphia-based National Adoption Center said states should continue recruiting, to enhance the pool of prospective parents.
"Unfortunately, the agencies don't always have enough staff," she said. "They do the best they can, but they need more focus on what potential adopters need. It takes a lot of courage to apply, and people expect to be treated with courtesy."
Holtan, an adoption professional since 1980, said Katz's study confirmed what many in the field suspected based on anecdotal information.
"We'd say to people, 'The kids are waiting. Call us.' Then they'd call us, and we'd ask crazy questions. ... We need to see these folks as precious resources."
One adoptive mother, learning of Katz's study, said she "felt chills" because it so reflected her experiences.
Judith St. Onge, a hospital executive in Montgomery, Ala., said she and her husband have adopted seven children while living in three different states — but six times resorted to private adoption because dealing with state agencies proved frustrating.
"We got tired of the run-around, the lost paperwork, and, in many cases, the rudeness and lack of concern," she said. "There should be easy fixes — like having a friendly person answer when you make your first call."
St. Onge said she was often told the state's paramount concern was for the child, not the prospective parents.
"That's a false either-or," she said. "It ought to be win-win."
The Donaldson Institute's director, Adam Pertman, suggested these problems may be fueling the rise in adoptions of foreign children.
"How many times can you get hung up on you before you go elsewhere?" he asked.
Here is a thought - make it harder to adopt children from other countries than it is to adopt from our own.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
But if all these kids are removed from the Foster roles, then a large portion of those goverment jobs will have no reason to exist.
We can't do our job correctly so that we don't need so many useless slugs doing our job, can we?
"How many times can you get hung up on you before you go elsewhere?" he asked.
What he said. Good article, thanks for posting this.
This is a really good article. I know from experience that this is how it works.
I can't speak for any other state, but I know for a fact that nothing could be farthur from the truth in the state of Arkansas. We are desperately short-staffed, desperately short on foster homes amd the abuse reports keep coming in. Children end up being left in homes they should be removed from because there is no place to put them. Children whose time is running out in foster care are often faced with either being returned to the same environment they came out of, or left to be indefinitely bounced around in the system because no one wants to adopt them. It isn't so much of a problem for very young children, but the older they get, the slimmer their chances are of being placed in adoptive homes.
True, there is no shortage of bureaucratic bullsh*t, but unfortunately it isn't the bureaucrats who have to face these children every day, see the effects of abuse, watch them go through one disappointment after another as their parents repeatedly choose to put themselves and their desires of the moment above the needs and well-being of their children and their families. The bureaucrats have it all worked out on paper, but their nice, neat little profiles and policies don't translate to the real world of abused and neglected children and the people it falls to to provide for them and keep them safe.
The people who actually work one on one with these children want nothing more than to see them find permanency, stability and love, but are sadly, so entangled by the network of red tape that it's a wonder anything ever gets done at all.
Wrong direction. Make it EASIER to adopt children here than in other countries. The "foster care bureaucracy" has NO INCENTIVE to have children adopted out. Fewer children means fewer foster care bureaucrats, less dollars for foster care bureaucrat managers, and on and on.
I looked into this in Florida and contacted them about one teen I thought I could help. When I told them I had raised two sucessful children and had been a high school teacher they advised me I would need to take a ten week training course before we could even discuss it. How would I keep my mouth shut in a classroom with social workers for ten weeks? Featherbedding, again.
I would like to comment on this thread even though some of this may be slightly off the pure topic.
My parents, whom are from Philadelphia and live in the suburbs, adopted me from the Gladney home which is based in Texas. Gladney is a private organization but my parents still had to go through all the normal legal stuff to adopt me.
Now, how that worked was almost like I was adopted before I was even born. My birth mother had me (9-16-73) and ten days later I was on a plane with my parents home.
The cost for my adoption and all of the legal stuff in 1973 was about $1,800.00. Now to do the exact same thing is around $30,000.00.
Around the time my parents were doing the things they needed to do to adopt me, they also put themselves on a list in Pennsylvania for state sponsored adoption and this led to the adoption of my sister.
My sister was born 12-13-76 and was put into a foster home (her foster mother remains a great friend of our family.) 10 months later my parents receive a call out of the blue because they were on this waiting list that they put their names on before I was even born.
Now, my parents did want a boy and a girl so they jumped at this chance. However, because in this case it was through the state, my parents would have to become ‘foster’ parents of my sister until all of the adoption stuff went through. That meant that there was the possibility that my sister could have been ‘taken back’ (for lack of a better term.)
Well, obviously everything worked out
Having typed all of that, I’m not sure of that point I was trying to make, but it may be in there somewhere.
PS: I actually was contacted by my birth mother about a month ago and she came up to Philly last weekend. She met me and my parents and so on, and my parents are absolutely ecstatic about it.
I think I’ll leave it at that. If anyone wants me to expand on anything I am more than happy to.
lol ....
What ... and alienate our friends the Chicoms and "former Soviets" for whom business is booming?
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