Employee Adoption Policy
Preliminary Findings

Turning to people a waiting child already knows as potential adoptive parents is now considered “best practice.” Oftentimes the potential adoptive parent is an employee of a NYS child welfare agency. Because the state has no policy or directive on this issue, an agency has the authority to set its own and can prevent employee adoptions, as illustrated by the following example:

A 17 year old boy in the custody and guardianship of an Upstate district has spent most of his life in foster care. His case supervisor of five years knows him better, has stuck by him longer, and cares about him more than anyone else in his life; she wants to make a lifetime commitment to the youth through adoption. However, she is prohibited from doing so because she works for an agency that prohibits employee adoption.

We wanted to know if this one agency’s policy is the exception or the rule. A Cornell University intern conducted telephone interviews with public and private agencies throughout the state (excluding New York City*) to help us determine agency policy and practice. Preliminary findings regarding the question, “Are agency employees allowed to adopt and/or foster?,” are as follows:

• Only 2 public agencies and 2 private agencies have written policies. (None of them was able to provide a copy of their policy.
  
  
• In the absence of a written policy, most agencies follow certain conventions. Others determine protocol when the situation arises, and practice may vary depending on individual circumstances.
  
  
• Some agencies follow the same homestudy procedure for employee as for any other community member. Others require employees to have the homestudy with a different agency (either through referral or contract). A few agencies leave it up to the employee, based on the employee’s comfort level in having the homestudy within the agency. Employees of at least one agency do the MAPP training within the agency, and the homestudy is completed by another agency.
  
  
• Several agencies will refer employees to another agency if they are child welfare workers, but they will do the homestudy within the agency if the employees are, for example, clerical or other support staff.
  
  
• Agencies that refer employees to another agency cite protection of confidentiality and/or avoidance of conflict of interest or the appearance of conflict of interest.
  
• Some agencies allow employees to adopt only, and some allow foster care only; most allow both.           
• As described above, there is tremendous variation among agencies, In order to expand the options and eliminate barriers for children needing adoption, a statewide policy to allow employees to adopt/foster is needed. The Coalition’s findings provide the basis for development of a policy that will serve the best interests of children and youth throughout the state.

* New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services has a written policy that requires employees of ACS and authorized agencies to be referred to a “non-associated” authorized agency.

A Success Story • Employee Adoption at Northeast Parent & Child Society

"Long  wait finally comes to end as adoption process is formalized"
Albany Times Union • April 24, 2005 • by Bruce A. Scruton

“He looked at me with tears in his eyes,” said Wales Brown of Schenectady. “’We’re finally going to be a family,’ he said.”

While the formal adoption was Tuesday, the change in Alden Rivenburgh-Brown, and his teary reaction, came about five weeks ago, when there was a date set for Brown, 38, to formally adopt Laden, 10.

“We both had been waiting and waiting,” said Brown, “but Alden was an anxious mess.”

Brown is a senior staff clinician at Northeast Parent and Child Society and was himself a foster child who was once a client of Northeast...

”I guess adults have made promises they haven’t kept,” Brown explained. “We were told by DSS, ‘Any day now. Any day.’ But Alden got worse. He started to regress with problems at school, problems here at home.”

But when their caseworker gave them April 19 as the certain date, everything changed. “He became a different child. He started to believe,” Brown said.

And there have been changes for Brown, too. “I knew I was going to adopt Alden. I just didn’t realize the planning I had to do. There’s college, there’s vacation plans. I need to get him a passport and get his registration changed at school. I’m a dad.”

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NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
410 East Upland Road • Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 272-0034 • fax (607) 272-0035
office@nysccc.org
11/09/2006