IDENTIFYING OBSTACLES TO ADOPTION IN NEW YORK STATE'S OUT-OF-HOME CARE SYSTEM

An in-depth case study of the out-of-home care histo ries of 77 children who have been waiting the longest in the New York State child welfare system for adop tive placement (as of August 1998) sought to identify obstacles to the adoptive placement of this vulnerable population. The results provide valuable insights into delays in the system of service for the state's out-of home care population and have important implications for waiting children nationwide. In 1996, approximately 100,000 children were waiting for adoptive families; by March 1998, estimates suggested that an additional 10,000 children were waiting in out-of-home care for adoption [North American Council on Adoptable Children 1998]. President Clinton focused attention on adoption as a central policy issue in 1996 by declaring his goal to provide incentives to states to double adoptions of children in out-of-home care by the year 2002. As impetus, he directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to make specific strategy recommendations to move children more quickly from out-of-home care to permanent families and to meet the goal of doubling adoptions and other permanent placements over the following five years. The result was Adoption 2002, a multifaceted effort to address existing obstacles in the system, to expedite the placement of children from out-of-home care to permanent families, and to focus on delays in timely permanency planning. Some of the specific obstacles identified were delays in child welfare agency practices, court/judicial practices, staff beliefs and attitudes about the adoptability of children, the limited pool of permanent families for children with special needs, and varied interpretation of the "reasonable efforts" requirement to reunify children in out-of-home care with their birth families. The report highlighted delays in child welfare agency practices, such as agencies not offering or providing services in a timely fashion, well-intended but misguided attempts to preserve families through prolonged and extensive reunification services without adequate consideration of the permanency needs of children, and delays in implementing adoption plans. With regard to delays in court/judicial practices, the report identified the extensive time commitments and resources required for preparation of cases for court hearings, the backlog of cases on the court's calendar, and the failure to implement family reunification efforts in a timely manner, thus precluding an appropriately early termination of parental rights. Delays were also attributed to staff beliefs and attitudes, particularly caseworker reluctance to terminate birth parents' rights based on beliefs that a child is not adoptable or that long-term out-ofhome care is not detrimental to the child or on resistance to place across racial/ethnic boundaries or in certain family types. Finally, the report focused on delays related to the limited pool of permanent families for children with special needs resulting from insufficient or inadequate recruitment efforts in behalf of children. Further impetus was given to the goals of Adoption 2002 when President Clinton signed into law the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997, which strongly encourages states to increase adoptions by providing both policy and fiscal incentives. The Act requires state child welfare agencies to initiate or join in court proceedings to terminate parental rights for children who have been in out-of-home care for 15 of the last 22 months and in those cases in which parents have killed or seriously injured another child in the family. In addition, ASFA permits concurrent planning, allowing agencies to place children with foster families who would be willing to adopt them should reunification with the birth family not be possible, even as the agency makes diligent efforts to reunite the same children with their families of origin [American Human Society 1998]. …