|
|
www.HelpStartsHere.org |
Posts Tagged ‘ assistance ’
Adoption and Foster Care Current Trends
 |
Adoption Statistics and Trends |
|
Adoption Options |
|
Financial Resoures for Adoptive Families |
|
Post-Adoption Assistance for Families |
|
Foster Care Statistics and Trends |
|
Children and Teens in Foster Care |
Adoption Statistics and Trends
- Since 1987, the number of adoptions annually in the United States has remained consistent from 118,000 to 127,000 children.
- Adoption costs range from no cost to more than $40,000. Foster care adoptions are the least expensive, costing a maximum of $2,500. Independent adoptions tend to be the most expensive. Intercountry adoption fees range from $7,000 to $30,000, but additional fees may include travel, translation fees, and other expenses.
- In a 2003 study, a majority (60%) of adoption agencies accepted applications from gay or lesbian couples and 40 percent had already placed children in GLBT homes.
- Foster parents are strongly encouraged to adopt children in their care.
- In the past, child welfare agencies did not consider placing children with relatives when the children were in foster care due to abuse or neglect. Today, more agencies are working with extended families on successful kinship adoptions.
Adoption Options
- Kinship adoptions: when a grandparent, stepparent, or other relative adopts a child
- Adoption from the foster care system
- Adoption from the United States using a public agency, private agency, or an attorney
- Open adoption, in which adoptive parents have information about or contact with birth parents before, during, or after placement (not legal in all states)
- Adoption from another country through a licensed adoption organization
Financial Resources for Adoptive Parents
- Federal adoption subsidies for eligible children (special needs)
- State adoption subsidies for children from foster care
- Federal and state tax credits
- Employer benefits, such as paid or unpaid leave of absence, reimbursement for adoption expenses, assistance with adoption services
- Adoption loans and grants for eligible parents
- College tuition and scholarship programs for youth aging out of foster care
Post-Adoption Assistance for Families
- Counseling and psychotherapy
- Educational services
- Support groups
Foster Care Statistics and Trends
- More than 500,000 children live in foster care in the United States.
- Foster care placements have increased dramatically in the past 10 years.
- African American children make up two-thirds of the foster care population and stay in foster care longer than other children.
- Children are placed temporarily in foster care due to parental problems, such as abuse, neglect, substance abuse, abandonment, and incarceration.
- Most states encourage programs that provide birth parents with support so that their children can return home.
- Child agencies attempt to place children with relatives. In 2001, 24 percent were living in relative homes and nearly 50 percent were living in foster family homes.
- The average foster care stay is 32 months.
Children and Teens in Foster Care
- The average age of children in foster care is 10.
- More than 30 percent of children in foster care have severe emotional, behavioral, or developmental problems.
- Nearly 20,000 youth age out of foster care at age 18 each year. Without support and community services, they are vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, poverty, substance abuse, and incarceration.
- In a study of former foster care children, only 54 percent earned a high school diploma, 84 percent became a parent from 12 to 18 months after leaving foster care, and 25 percent had been homeless.
Related Articles:
Adoption and Foster Care – How Social Workers Help
|
Introduction | |
Legal Risk Adoptions |
|
Types of Adoption | |
|
|
|
Post-Adoption Challenges | |
|
Public Agency Adoptions | |
How Social Workers Help |
Introduction
Children need parents. When a birthparent is unable to parent a child, adoption creates a new family for the child. In adoption the birthparent’s parental rights are legally terminated and another person becomes the child’s legal parent.
Types of Adoption
Birthparents who may be planning an adoption and prospective adoptive parents need to know the range of adoption options and decide which route to adoption best fits their needs. Adoption agencies and professionals have very different philosophies and practices.
Adoptees may be newborns or older, born in the U.S. or abroad, or vary in race, culture, and ethnicity. Adoptive parents may be married, single, gay, or lesbian. Adoptions may be facilitated by public agencies, private agencies, attorneys, or adoption facilitators. Adoption laws vary by state.
Every state has a public child welfare agency whose mission is to protect children from abuse and neglect. Sometimes children who have been removed from the home of their biological parent(s) cannot be safely returned and the state terminates parental rights without the birthparent's consent. In other instances, a birthparent whose children are in state custody voluntarily terminates parental rights. In either case, the child is freed for adoption.
As a result of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, whenever a child enters foster care the state must simultaneously (1) provide services to the birthparents so that they and the child can be safely reunited if at all possible, and P(2) begin the process of freeing the child for adoption. These simultaneous activities are called concurrent planning.
Foster Parenting Option
Prospective parents who want to adopt a child through the public child welfare system may first become the child’s foster parent. A foster parent is not the same as an adoptive parent because a child who is in foster care is in the state’s custody, while an adoptive parent has all the legal rights and responsibilities of any other parent. When a prospective adoptive parent first becomes a foster parent, it may be in the hope that the child will ultimately be freed for adoption.
Public Agency Adoptions
Many children available for adoption via public agencies have special needs. Newborns may have been placed in foster care at birth due to prenatal exposure to alcohol, illegal drugs, and other substances. Virtually all children in the public child welfare system have been abused and/or neglected and have experienced out-of-home placement. Some need to be adopted as sibling groups. Others have physical challenges, mental health issues, and learning differences. Many are children of color and many are teenagers.
Generally, adoptions via public child welfare agencies are publicly funded. Adoption subsidies may be available to help families who adopt children with special needs that require special education, counseling, extensive medical care, respite, and other services. An adoption subsidy is available only to families that have a written agreement, before finalization of the adoption, specifying the exact nature of the subsidy.
Private Adoptions
There are many ways to adopt a child via private agencies. Private agencies may specialize in the adoption of healthy infants; children of color; children with special medical, emotional, and educational needs; and children born abroad. Agency fees vary considerably; fees to adopt children who are older, of color, have special needs, and are in sibling groups tend to be lower.
Some private agencies do what is called "identified adoption." This means the prospective adoptive parent and birthparent find one another (sometimes through advertising or word of mouth) and then locate an adoption agency to obtain counseling and legal services.
Adoption attorneys and "facilitators" also locate children for prospective adoptive parents, help birthparents find adoptive families, and assist with identified adoptions. These are called independent adoptions. Some state laws prohibit independent adoptions and require that all adoptions be handled by licensed agencies.
Some private agencies, attorneys, and facilitators specialize in international adoption, that is, adoptions of children born outside the United States. International adoption agencies specialize in specific countries or regions. The social, medical, financial, political, and legal issues vary by country.
Lesbian, gay, single, and older prospective adoptive parents can be served by public or private agencies, attorneys, and facilitators. These groups may encounter discriminatory policies and practices.
Legal Risk Adoptions
"Legal risk" adoptions are available through private agencies, facilitators, and attorneys, just as they are through public child welfare agencies. In "legal risk" placements, a child is placed in the pre-adoptive home before the birthparent's parental rights have been legally terminated. Hence, some legal risk placements fall through before the adoption is finalized, because birthparents or pre-adoptive parents have a change of heart. This is likely to be traumatic for everyone involved.
There is a federal adoption tax credit to help qualified families offset adoption expenses. Adoption insurance may be available through the private sector to help reimburse prospective parents for adoption-related expenses if an adoption falls through before it is finalized.
Deciding Whether to Pursue Adoption
Most people think of adoption as a happy event – a child who needs a family and a parent who wants a child are joined. While this is true, it is also true, and often unrecognized, that there is no adoption without loss – the child loses a birth family, the birthparent loses a child, and the adoptive parent loses the dream of a child by birth. These losses must be recognized and coped with throughout life. Pre-adoption counseling, education, and support are useful in helping birthparents and adoptive parents prepare themselves for the journey ahead.
Every state requires prospective adoptive parents to go through a home study conducted by a licensed agency. The home study is designed to help parents examine their feelings, beliefs, motivations, and readiness for adoptive parenting. Agencies differ in the pre-adoption counseling and education they offer, how much support they provide in the home study process, and how much they encourage or permit the birth family and adoptive family to know about and have on-going contact with each other. The cost of the home study varies by agency.
Prospective adoptive parents must ask themselves many important questions:
- Am I ready to love a child to whom I have not given birth?
- How comfortable am I accepting the fact that the birthparents exist and will always be important to the child, whether I know the birthparents or not?
- Am I prepared to meet the birthparents, exchange identifying information with them, and have some form of ongoing communication with them for the child's sake?
- Will I support my child if she or he decides to search for and reunite with the birthparents?
- Is my primary motivation for international adoption my wish to keep the birthparents far away from my family?
- How ready am I to become a transracial/transcultural family that assertively pursues activities linking my child to her or his ethnic/racial/cultural group of origin?
- What ages, ethnicities, and special needs can I accept and cope with?
- What risks am I able to take (for example, adopting a child who received no prenatal care, was exposed in utero to substance abuse, has learning disabilities, was conceived by rape, or comes from a birth family that has a history of mental illness)?
- What financial risks am I able and willing to take in pursuing adoption? How much money can I spend on the adoption process?
- How able am I to enter into a "legal risk" adoption?
- Am I open to adopting a sibling group?
- What kind of wait can I handle?
Honest self-exploration as one grapples with these challenging issues is crucial. It is ill advised simply to choose the fastest, most affordable route to adoption.
Post-Adoption Challenges
Adoptive parenthood involves issues that parents by birth do not face. Adoption is a lifelong process, not an event; predictable adoption issues emerge at each stage of life, for adoptive parent, birthparent, and child. Post-adoption support services need to be available throughout the adoptive family's life, including family, individual and parent/child counseling; support groups; post-adoption education; respite care; and special education. Many adoptive families and birthparents struggle to locate the specialized services they need.
How Social Workers Help
Social workers can provide birthparents, adoptive parents, and children with:
- Information about adoption options
- Information about financial and legal issues and resources
- Names of reputable adoption agencies and professionals
- Home study services that help participants decide whether to pursue adoption, when, and which type feels right for their family
- Pre- and post-adoption support and counseling for all participants, helping them develop cooperative relationships focusing on shared goals
- Services for families who have children with special emotional, behavioral, medical, and educational needs
- Search and reunion counseling, support, and technical assistance
- Guidance in forming and living with open adoption in a way that honors and respects all participants' needs
###
Frederic G. Reamer, PhD, is the author of The Pocket Guide to Essential Human Services which contains diverse resources compiled into a user-friendly guidebook appropriate for use by professionals, volunteers, and consumers.
_________________
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Association of Social Workers or its members.
Related Articles:
About Adoption and Foster Care
|
Introduction |
|
Adoption |
|
Finding Assistance |
|
Foster Care |
|
Foster Parenting |
Transferring children from birth parents to foster families and adoptive individuals or families is a complex process, involving social services, the legal system, and state mandates. Foster and adoptive parents will need to rely on professionals for advice and guidance. Social workers are invaluable in helping them navigate this process, thereby giving children a second chance at a happy life.
Adoption
Couples and individuals who decide to adopt an infant or child have several options to choose from. Although private agency and relative adoptions were once the most common means to adopt a child, today public agency and inter-country adoptions account for more than half of the 127,000 children adopted in the United States each year. More than 40 percent of adoptions were arranged through publicly funded child welfare agencies in 2001, according to the U.S. Administration for Children and Families, National Adoption Information Clearinghouse (NAIC).
When deciding where to adopt a child, prospective parents must consider their ideal age of the child, the amount of contact they want with the birth parents, the nationality, race, and other characteristics of the child, adoption fees, and the waiting period prior to adoption. NAIC offers useful guidelines for prospective adoptive parents.
Finding Assistance
- Adoption subsidies are available to help offset the high costs of adoption and child rearing. Depending on state mandates, they may include:
- Federal and state adoption tax credits
- Federal and state adoption subsidies for children with special needs
- Reimbursement for adoption expenses for foster children adopted from the public child welfare system
- Employer benefits for adoption expenses
- Adoption loans and grants from various agencies. The National Adoption Foundation offers information on adoption grants and loans.
Foster Care
When parents are no longer capable of caring for their own children, the child welfare system steps in. The children may be removed from their home and temporarily placed in foster care. Foster care is designed to provide a stable, safe, and nurturing environment for children of families in crisis.
Children are placed in foster care when it is proven that they have been abandoned, abused, or neglected, due to parental problems such as alcohol or drug abuse, incarceration, or physical or mental illness. Youth in foster care often have special emotional, developmental, and health needs as a result of their abuse or neglect.
Foster Parenting
Foster parents open their home to children and commit to providing protection, guidance, and nurturing for children who have entered the foster care system but who are not in their custody. The process of becoming foster parents typically occurs after foster parents complete a home assessment process and attend training. They must demonstrate that they are responsible and financially and emotionally stable.
Foster parents receive a monthly reimbursement that varies in amount by state to help offset the costs of food, clothing, and other necessities. Medical care and counseling services are provided for children at no charge to foster parents.
There are many highly trained social workers are available to help prospective adoptive and foster care parents through the complicated process of adoption.
