Why Are Post Adoption Services Needed in NYS?

Many New York State families discover that their child's adoptive placement or finalization is treated as the end point in the adoption process rather than the beginning of a lifetime of challenges--in addition to the rewards. The well-meaning agencies that placed the children all too often were not prepared to provide the on-going services we now know are essential to the successful adoption of children with special needs.

Fortunately adoption professionals have learned from adoptive families' experiences and have affirmed what adoptive families living with a child with special needs come to understand relatively quickly: Adoption is a life-long process, each stage having its particular demands and difficulties and all needing an array of responses. This realization is captured in the words of Kenneth Watson, M.S.S.S., and Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, Ph.D., in After Adoption:

"Adoption is neither just a legal act nor a time-limited social process; rather it is a condition that impacts those involved over their entire lives. The issues raised by adoption are never fully put to rest."1

This reality leads to a recognition that adoptive families are different, assuredly not less than or second-best, but indeed different from families created by birth. A report of the National Consortium for Post Legal Adoption Services speaks to eight core issues that constitute the difference.

The differences affect every adoptive family, and the issues the differences raise emerge and reemerge as all family members go through life’s developmental ages and stages. The issues brought to an adoptive family by children who have experienced traumatic abuse, neglect, multiple placements and caregivers compound the challenges.

Common sense leads to the conclusion that adoptive families cannot be expected to “go it alone” and can not only benefit from but also must have available over time a variety of services specific to their individual needs and circumstances.

The recognition of the need for post adoption services for adoptive families at any time in the life cycle of the family is finally widely accepted. A statement in a 1985 Child Welfare League of America publication is representative: "We believe that agencies are obligated to make available services to the parties to an adoption throughout their lives.”2

The need for post adoption services has never been greater in New York State. From 1993 to 1997, adoptions increased from 3,031 to 5,008 -- a 64% increase.3 The total for 1998 is comparably high; approximately 4,790 adoptions were finalized last year. The average length of time the children were in foster care before adoption is an average of about 6.2 years.

The good news is that from 1993-1998, 25,586 foster children finally achieved the permanency of adoption. The bad news is that at that moment of finalization, those children and their families were effectively cut off from any formalized agency support and services, services they had been accustomed to receiving for the many years their children were in foster care.

If the children had remained in foster care, the agencies would have been obliged to provide an array of services. But at the moment of adoption, the door to agency services was shut behind them as they left the court room. The grim reality is that foster children who had any special service needs may have been disadvantaged by their adoptions.

Even though most of the adopted foster children receive an adoption subsidy, the financial assistance doesn’t solve the problems. “The money doesn’t help us find the help we need or make sure we get it,” one frustrated adoptive mom complained.

A recent Cornell University study,4 sponsored by New York’s Adoption Action Network, looks at the history and experiences of the legally freed foster children who have been waiting the longest for an adoptive family. In a significant number of cases, the foster family chose not to adopt the child because of the absence of post adoption services and support, such as intensive therapeutic and respite services.

A large number of foster parents do adopt their foster children, however. Estimates as high as 95% of New York State foster children who are adopted are adopted by their foster parents.

Without access to services and the supports they need, adoptive families are indeed at risk of falling apart and the children returning to foster care. While it is not possible to specify the exact number, specific to New York State, of adoption disruptions (adoptive placements that fail before finalization) or dissolutions, also referred to as displacements, (adoptive placements that fail after finalization, resulting in reentry to the child welfare system), findings from other states and published reports are instructive.

According to a summary of research findings reported by The Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago,5 the rates documented to date have ranged from 10% to 27%. Chapin Hall’s own study of disruptions and displacements, involving 173,313 cases of all children admitted to the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services between January 1976 and August 1994, found 12.1% disruption rate and a displacement rate of 4.2%. Results of their study suggested that “disruption is a problem that is relatively responsive to thoughtful service intervention and policy.” Other researchers also concluded that the introduction of post adoption services is an important factor in containing the number of adoption disruptions.6

Studies to date have examined numerous factors which may increase the risk of disruptions or dissolutions, including age, gender, race/ethnicity, time in foster care, sibling placement, prior incidence of abuse or neglect, and adoption by foster family or non-foster family. The most consistent predictor of adoption disruption or dissolution is the age of the child at the time of adoption or adoptive placement; frequency increases with the child’s age.

These findings convey a sense of urgency to the need to achieve adoption for the 15,473 NYS foster children with the goal of adoption. This number is 31% of the 49,490 total number of children in foster care in the state and includes 7,034 children who have not yet been legally freed for adoption.7 The average age of NY’s foster children is nearly 10 years. The average length of time in foster care for those children whose goal is adoption is about six years.

Almost all of the New York’s foster children are school-aged, minorities, sibling groups who need to be placed together, physically or mentally challenged, or at risk due to prenatal drug exposure or HIV positivity. Most came into foster care as a result of abuse or neglect, and many have a history of multiple moves and emotional traumas. Statewide, the children are overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic; only 14% are identified as white. In New York City, only 2% are identified as white.

The stakes are very high in terms of the need to preserve adoptive families, to prevent adoption disruptions and dissolutions, and to increase adoptions of children with an adoption goal. Financial costs of foster care to taxpayers are tremendous--a conservatively estimated $15,000 per child annually for foster family care, and institutional care can easily soar to over $50,000 per year. For the 15,473 children with the goal of adoption, this represents a minimum of $232 million for every year these children drift in the impermanence of foster care.

The social costs are even greater. Studies document the damage sustained by children who are the products of the foster care system and who grow up without the stability of permanent, nurturing families.8 Impermanence takes its toll in psychological and emotional damage, anti-social behavior, wasted human potential, as well as squandered tax dollars.

Several surveys in New York State document adoptive parents’ need for services after adoption. In the fall of 1992 the NYS Department of Social Services (now renamed the NYS Office of Children and Families Services) conducted a mail-in survey for adoptive parents throughout the state who received their newsletter for foster and adoptive parents called “Special Delivery.” The survey asked adoptive parents to list the services or supports they considered essential to ensure the success of an adoption. The majority of those responding emphasized the need for both family and child counseling, therapy, and support groups. Numerous other services and supports were identified, including help to find and access quality medical care, special education, specialized day care and camps for children with special needs; education and training on specific concerns, such as, attachment issues, birth family issues, parenting skills.

Similar needs assessments, using mail-in surveys, were conducted by The Family and Children’s Society in Binghamton, NY, (1997) The Salvation Army of Syracuse, NY, (Winter 1999) and the Monroe County Department of Social Services in Rochester, NY (11/97-4/98). All resulted in comparable findings. Service needs identified by the families included parent, child, and teen support groups; adoption-competent counseling (individual, marriage, group, and family); respite care; advocacy and case management; education and training; reliable, centralized information sources; contact with other adoptive parents, and information about the realities of adoption from experienced parents.

The New York State Citizens’ Coalition for Children conducted a series of five regional forums in December 1998 and January 1999. Entitled, “Defining a Direction: ASAP (Adoption Support and Preservation Services) in New York State,” the forums provided an opportunity for adoption professionals, parents, and others to come together to address the need for services and to share their knowledge and experiences. Forum participants in each region defined and documented the need for the services. Once again, the list closely matched earlier findings described above.

Throughout the state there is common agreement that post adoption services are the greatest unmet need in the adoption system today. There is no longer any question but that adoption support and preservation services are needed and desired, that the services can strengthen families, ward off disruption and dissolution, and encourage foster parents and others to adopt children in the foster care system.

In the face of this overwhelming need, what is available to meet it? Very, very little. There are a few programs in individual agencies,9 supported by relatively short term grants, and others that are part of a voluntary agency’s program that is either limited to their own families and/or to the families that can afford it.

While acknowledging the importance of post adoption services, the State of New York’s tangible commitment thus far is limited to a regulation which states, “Post adoption services may extend for three years from the date of the adoption decree.”10 In fact, post adoption services are not systematically available anywhere in New York State. The Child Welfare League of America’s judgement is, “Some states are beginning to recognize the necessity of post adoption services (especially for children adopted from the child welfare system and their families) while other states ignore their responsibility.”11

It is time for change. The lives of our children and the stability of our families are too important to risk. Therefore, our goal is to achieve a statewide delivery system of Adoption Support and Preservation Services that are an integral part of the statewide adoption services continuum and infrastructure, services that are accessible to all New York State adoptive families at no cost and at any time the services are needed.

Footnotes
1. Jean-Pierre Bourguignon and Kenneth W. Watson, After Adoption-A Manual for Professionals Working With Adoptive Families (Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, 1987). Return to text.
2. Mary Jane Fales, Post-Legal Adoption Services Today, (New York: Child Welfare League of America, 1985). Return to text.
3. New York State Office of Children and Family Services, "1997 Monitoring and Analysis Profiles with Selected Trend Data: 1993-1997". The total for all adoptions in New York State increased from 7,587 in 1993 to 9,436 in 1997, according to the National Center for State Courts, Court Statistics Project Report. Return to text.
4. "New York State’s Longest Waiting Children, 1998: A Study of New York State Children in Need of Adoptive Families," Rosemary Avery, PhD, Principal Investigator, September 1999. Return to text.
5. "Adoption, Disruption, and Displacement in the Child Welfare System, 1976-94," Robert M. Goerge, et al, Discussion Paper Series, May 1997. Studies examined included those by the well-known researchers in this area, such as, R.P. Barth, M. Berry, V. Groze, K. Rosenberg, J. Boyne, S.L. Smith, J.A. Howard, T. Festinger, and others. Return to text.
6. R.P. Barth and M. Berry (1988), Adoption and Disruption: Rates, Risks, and Responses, Hawthorne, NY:Adline de Gruyter. Return to text.
7. New York State Office of Children and Family Services, "Quarterly Summary of Characteristics of Children in Foster Care, District Report," 1/01/99-3/31/99. Return to text.
8. See, for example, J. Bowlby, Loss, Sadness, and Depression, Volume III of Attachment and Loss (New York: Basic Books, 1980). Return to text.
9. Two good examples in New York City are New Alternatives for Children’s PLAN (Post-Legal Adoption Network) and NY Council on Adoptable Children’s Forever Families/Familias Para Siempre. The Hearts and Homes: Post-Legal Adoption Services program of the Salvation Army of Syracuse is an example upstate. Return to text.
10. NYS Department of Social Services regulations 18 NYCRR 421.8, Section 481.8(h)(2)(ii). Effective September 23, 1992, the present regulation is a step up from the previous one which limited the availability of services to 50 hours or up to three years. Return to text.
11. CWLAdoptioNews, Fall 1996. Return to text.

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NYS Citizens' Coalition for Chilren, Inc.
410 East Upland Road • Ithaca, NY 14850
607-272-0034 • fax 607-272-0035
office@nysccc.org
3/31/00