EVAN B. DONALDSON ADOPTION INSTITUTE KEEPING THE PROMISE: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services to Enable Children and Families to Succeed Policy & Practice Perspective October 2010 Funded by: Harmony Adoption Services and The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute POLICY PERSPECTIVE: KEEPING THE PROMISES OCTOBER 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................ 4 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 8 Challenges in Adoptive Families ....................................................................................... 11 Normative Developmental Challenges ................................................................................................... 11 Examining Adoption Outcome Research to Understand Challenges .................................................... 12 Factors that Shape Adoption Adjustment ........................................................................ 15 Risk Factors among Adopted Children ................................................................................................... 15 Protective Factors among Adopted Children ......................................................................................... 19 Family-related Protective Factors ........................................................................................................... 20 Environmental Protective Factors .......................................................................................................... 22 What We Know about the Needs of Families after Adoption .......................................... 24 Outcomes Linked with Post-Adoption Services ..................................................................................... 25 Family Needs and Usage of Post-Adoption Services ............................................................................ 25 Recognition of Need for Post-Adoption Services ............................................................ 32 Increases in Special Needs Adoptions & Concerns about Adoption Instability ..................................... 32 The Continuum of Post-Adoption Services ............................................................................................ 33 Guiding Priciples & Goals of Post-Adoption Services ............................................................................ 34 The Development of Post-Adoption Programs ................................................................ 37 The First Decade of Post-Adoption Services ......................................................................................... 37 Post-Adoption Pilot Projects around the Nation ..................................................................................... 39 Recent Research on Post-Adoption Services ........................................................................................ 39 Evidence-Based & Promising Practices Applicable to Post-Adoption Services .......... 40 Evidence-Based Practices ..................................................................................................................... 40 Promising Practices ................................................................................................................................ 41 Current Models of Post-Adoption Services ...................................................................... 43 Statewide Adoption Resource Centers and Adoption Preservation Programs ...................................... 43 County-BasedAdoption Support and Preservation Programs ................................................................ 45 Private Adoption Agency Post-Adoption Programs ................................................................................ 46 Private Post-Adoption Agencies ............................................................................................................. 47 Education and Training .......................................................................................................................... 47 Parent and Adoptee Support Models ..................................................................................................... 48 Respite Program Models ........................................................................................................................ 50 Advocacy ................................................................................................................................................ 51 Looking to the Future ............................................................................................................................. 51 Barriers to Receiving Needed Services ............................................................................ 51 Limited Adoption Competence among Mental Health and Other Professionals .................................... 51 Inadequacies in Knowledge about a Range of Problems and Interventions .......................................... 53 Failure to Access Interventions that Are Most Likely to be Efective ...................................................... 54 Inadequate Funding and Accessibility of Services ................................................................................. 55 Some Problems Cannot Be Remediated and Require Ongoing Support .............................................. 56 Other Issues Related to the Development of Post-Adoption Services ................................................... 57 Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute 2 POLICY PERSPECTIVE: KEEPING THE PROMISES OCTOBER 2010 RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................................................................ 59 Convene a National Task Force to Develop a Strategic Plan ................................................................ 60 Minimize Damage to Children in the Child Welfare System or Other Settings ...................................... 60 Prepare Parents to Expect Challenges and Understand the Benefits of Services ................................ 60 Increase Research to Develop Knowledge and Disseminate to Practitioners ....................................... 61 Educate Professionals to Understand Adoption and How to Support Families ..................................... 61 Identify High-Risk Children, then Provide Services and Resources ...................................................... 61 Stop Cutbacks in Subsidies and Post-Adoption Services ...................................................................... 62 End Forced Custody Relinquishments to Obtain Services .................................................................... 62 Develop Finding Partnerships, Including from the Federal Level .......................................................... 62 Develop a Continuum of Services and Educate Mental Health Professionals ...................................... 63 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 65 APPENDIX I: NATIONAL CONSORTIUM FOR POST LEGAL ADOPTION SERVICES, ADOPTION SUPPORT & PRESERVATION ........................................................................ 88 APPENDIX II: CASEY CHART: FINANCING ADOPTION AND POST-ADOPTION SERVICES ............................................................................................................................ 89 APPENDIX III: RISK FACTORS INFLUENCING ADJUSTMENT IN ADOPTION ............... 91 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Policy Perspectives are research-based publications that focus on important and timely issues in the field. This report was researched and written by Susan Livingston Smith, Program and Project Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. It was edited by Adam Pertman, Executive Director of the Institute. We are deeply grateful to Harmony Adoption Services for providing the funding to launch this study. We appreciate the assistance of several adoption scholars and professionals who reviewed this paper and provided research and editorial assistance. They included Dr. Victor Groza, Case Western Reserve University; Sarah Greenblatt, Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative; Kim Stevens, the North American Council on Adoptable Children; Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Center for Family Connections; and Dr. Richard P. Barth, University of Maryland. Send questions and comments to [email protected]. All contents (c) 2010 by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute 3 POLICY PERSPECTIVE: KEEPING THE PROMISES OCTOBER 2010 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY everal months ago, when the media focused the nation’s attention on yet another sensational adoption story – this time about a Tennessee mother who put her 7-year-old son on a plane back to Russia – all sorts of disquieting questions flowed through people’s minds. They ranged S from the rhetorical (“What kind of mother would do such a thing?”) to the important (“Are children in orphanages being adequately cared for before adoption?”) to the inadvertently stigmatizing (“If a child can be so easily `returned,’ is adoption really permanent?”). Most child welfare and adoption professionals watched the drama with better-trained, more- experienced eyes, however, and so they raised very different questions. For example: “Did the mother get accurate information about the boy before adopting, as well as training and education, so she would be prepared for