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NUMBERS 

AND TRENDS

June 2012

Adoption 

Disruption 

and Dissolution

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these numbers and trends online.

Definitions

What is disruption?

The term disruption is used to describe an adoption process that 

ends after the child is placed in an adoptive home and before

the adoption is legally finalized, resulting in the child’s return 

to (or entry into) foster care or placement with new adoptive 

parents.

What is dissolution?

The term dissolution is generally used to describe an adoption 

in which the legal relationship between the adoptive parents and 

adoptive child is severed, either voluntarily or involuntarily, after 

the adoption is legally finalized. This results in the child’s return 

to (or entry into) foster care or placement with new adoptive 

parents. 
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Disruptions

How many adoptions disrupt?

Individual studies of different populations throughout the United 

States consistently report disruption rates that range from about 

10 to 25 percent—depending on the population studied, the 

duration of the study, and geographic or other factors (Goerge, 

Howard, Yu, & Radomsky, 1997; Festinger, 2002; Festinger, in 

press). A few examples are listed below:

• Festinger (in press) notes that the rates reported since the 

mid-1980s and mid-1990s, despite some variations, show a 

slight downward trend. Excluding studies that singled out 

small groups of older children, disruption rates have mostly 

varied from about 9 to 15 percent, although a summary of the 

research by Coakley and Berrick (2008) mentions a range of 

about 6 to 11 percent. Among older children, the reported 

rate has reached roughly 25 percent.

• Using administrative data from more than 15,000 children in 

Illinois who began adoptive placements between 1995 and 

2000, Smith, Howard, Garnier, and Ryan (2006) found that 

approximately 9.5 percent of adoptions disrupted before 

being finalized.

• The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) surveyed public 

child welfare agencies and reported that about 5 percent 

of planned adoptions from foster care disrupted in 1999 

and 2000 (U.S. GAO, 2003). Researchers have questioned 

the validity of this finding because a minority of States 

responded, and States had differing capacities to respond as 

well as potentially differing interpretations of the requested 

information. 

• Barth, Gibbs, and Siebenaler (2001) reported in a literature 

review that studies show that between 10 and 16 percent 

of adoptions of children over age 3 disrupt; no comparable 

figures are available for children under age 3.

• Goerge et al. (1997) conducted a longitudinal study of 

disruptions and dissolutions in thousands of public agency 

adoptions in Illinois from 1976 through 1994 and found that 

slightly over 12 percent disrupted. 

• Berry and Barth (1990) found a disruption and dissolution rate 

of 24 percent for children ages 12 to 17 for a sample of 99 
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adolescents. Barth and Berry (1988) also reported a disruption 

and dissolution rate of 10 percent for children older than 3 

years in a group of more than 1,000 children adopted from 

the child welfare system in California. 

Additionally, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) collect data 

on the number of disruptions and dissolutions in cases where 

children are adopted from other countries. 

• For Federal fiscal year (FY) 2011, the Bureau of Consular 

Affairs of the U.S. Department of State (2011) reported that 

six adoptive placements made in the United States from 

another country through the Hague Adoption Convention

were disrupted. There were 9,320 completed intercountry 

adoptions that occurred through the Convention. 

• For FY 2010, States reported to HHS that there were 33 cases 

of disruptions and dissolutions involving 41 children who 

were adopted from other countries and subsequently entered 

state custody (U.S. Department of State, 2011). These cases 

may be of children placed or adopted through the Hague 

Adoption Convention, through non-Hague countries, or 

before the Convention was ratified by the United States in 

2008. (For more information about the Hague Convention, 

see the Information Gateway website at https://www.

childwelfare.gov/adoption/types/intercountry/hague.cfm.)

Why do adoptions disrupt?

Most studies assessing the characteristics associated with 

disruption occurred during the 1980s and 1990s, with a few 

additional studies being conducted in the 2000s. The following 

are some of the primary factors that have been shown to be 

associated with higher risk of disruption: 

Child Factors

• Older age (Festinger, 1986; Barth & Berry, 1988; Rosenthal, 

Schmidt, & Conner, 1988; Coakley, 2005)

• Presence of emotional and behavioral issues (Barth, Berry, 

Yoshikami, Goodfield, & Carson, 1988; Rosenthal et al., 1988, 

Berry & Barth, 1990, Smith & Howard, 1991)
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• Strong attachment to the birth mother (Smith & Howard, 

1991)

• Being a victim of preadoptive child sexual abuse (Nalavany, 

Ryan, Howard, & Smith, 2008)

Adoptive Family Factors

• Being a new or matched parent rather than the child’s foster 

parent (Festinger, 1986; Barth & Berry, 1988; Berry & Barth, 

1990; Smith & Howard, 1991; Coakley, 2005)

• Lack of social support, particularly from relatives (Feigelman & 

Silverman, 1984; Barth & Berry, 1988)

• Unrealistic expectations (Barth & Berry, 1988; McRoy, 1999)

• Adoptive mothers with more education (Festinger, 1986; 

Rosenthal et al., 1988; Berry & Barth, 1990)

Agency Factors

• Inadequate or insufficient information on the child and his or 

her history (Nelson, 1985; Barth & Berry, 1988) 

• Inadequate parental preparation, training, and support 

(Nelson, 1985; McRoy, 1999; Smith et al., 2006)

• Staff discontinuities (i.e., different workers responsible for 

preparing the child and family) (Festinger, 1990)

• Having more caseworkers involved with the case (Festinger, 

1986; McRoy, 1999)

• Not having sufficient services provided (Goerge et al., 1997) 

Additionally, a study by Smith et al. (2006) provides indepth, 

recent data about risk and protective factors for disruptions 

among children adopted from the Illinois public child welfare 

system, including:

Child Factors

• White children had lower disruption rates than AfricanAmerican children.

• When two or three siblings were placed together, they had 

a higher risk of disruption; when four or more siblings were 

placed together, they had a lower risk of disruption.
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• Children who had experienced sexual or emotional abuse had 

the highest rates of disruption.

• Children with physical disabilities and emotional or behavioral 

problems had a higher risk for disruption.

• Each additional year of age increased the likelihood of 

disruption by 6 percent. 

• Children who entered the child welfare system due to lack 

of supervision or environmental neglect were more likely to 

experience adoption disruption.

• The longer time children spent in out-of-home care, the less 

likely were their chances for disruption.

• If children spent time in a residential or group home while in 

out-of-home care, they were less likely to experience a later 

disruption. 

Family Factors

• Children placed with relatives had a lower risk of disruption.

Agency Factors

• Children placed through private agencies were less likely to 

experience a disruption. 

• Children who had been placed in residential or group care 

were at lower risk for disruption. 

• The chance of disruption decreased for every year of 

experience held by the case manager for the first adoption.

Dissolutions

How many adoptions dissolve?

Accurate data on dissolutions are more difficult to obtain 

because, at the time of legal adoption, a child’s records may 

be closed, first and last names and Social Security numbers 

may be changed, and other identifying information may be 

modified. As highlighted in Festinger and Maza (2009), the 

Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting 

System (AFCARS) can be utilized to determine the number of 

children in foster care whose previous adoptions were dissolved 

by reviewing three data elements: whether the child was ever 
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previously adopted, the age of the child when the previous 

adoption was legalized, and the dates of the termination of 

parental rights (if the child had previously been adopted). Those 

data, however, are reported only for children in public foster 

care and do not capture adoption dissolution if the children do 

not come to the attention of the public child welfare system. 

Also, some researchers have observed that these data are 

inconsistently reported by the States. It is important to recognize 

that only a subset of adopted children who reenter foster care 

experience legal dissolution of their adoptions—many of them 

eventually return to their adoptive families. (Some of the studies 

below report on re-entry into care and not legal dissolution 

of the adoption.) Studies consistently report that only a small 

percentage of completed adoptions dissolve—probably 

between 1 and 5 percent. 

• In Festinger and Maza’s (2009) analysis of data from AFCARS, 

they determined that, of all the children who entered foster 

care for the first time and who then exited the foster care 

system in FY 2005, 0.5 percent had previously dissolved 

adoptions.

• Festinger (2002) found that 4 years after adoption, about 

3.3 percent of children adopted from public and voluntary 

agencies in New York City in 1996 were or had been in foster 

care since adoption. In most of these situations the adoptive 

parents reported an expectation that the child would return to 

their home again.

• A study of children adopted in Kansas City showed that 

3 percent of adopted children were not living with their 

adoptive parents 18 to 24 months after adoption (McDonald, 

Propp, & Murphy, 2001).

• In a longitudinal study of families in Iowa who were receiving 

adoption subsidies, Groze (1996) found that 8 percent of the 

children were placed out of the home after 4 years. However, 

in all cases the families did not dissolve the adoption and 

were considered to be connected to and invested in the 

adopted child.

• An Illinois study of child welfare adoptions found that 6.6 

percent of children adopted between 1976 and 1987 had 

reentered foster care at some point (Goerge et al., 1997).
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• The GAO reported that about 1 percent of the public agency 

adoptions finalized in fiscal years 1999 and 2000 later were 

legally dissolved. The report cautioned that the 1 percent 

figure represents only adoptions that failed relatively soon 

after being finalized, so the number of dissolutions could 

have increased with time (U.S. GAO, 2003). 

Why do adoptions dissolve?

The factors associated with dissolution or the temporary 

placement of children back into the child welfare system have 

not been well examined. One study found that the rate of 

adopted children’s return to the custody of the State increased 

with the age of the child at adoption and was more common 

for male or non-Hispanic children (Goerge et al., 1997). 

Festinger (2002) reported that although dissolution is rare, 

families who adopt children with special needs from foster 

care undergo enormous struggles and face serious barriers 

to obtaining needed services. The two barriers to successful 

adoption most often mentioned by adoptive families were lack 

of information about where to go for services and the cost of 

services (Festinger, 2002; Soderlund, Epstein, Quinn, Cumblad, 

& Petersen, 1995). 

Trends

Are disruptions and dissolutions increasing?

Professionals have expressed concern that recent public and 

private initiatives to increase adoptions and decrease time to 

adoption might lead to inadequate selection and preparation 

of adoptive homes. Those concerns have often focused on the 

shortened legal timeframes to file for termination of parental 

rights unless there was some exception required by the 1997 

Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). In reviewing data in 

Illinois, however, Smith et al. (2006) noted that there was a 12 

percent higher risk of disruption before the Adoptions and Safe 

Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 than after ASFA. Festinger (in press) 

concludes that reported disruption rates have decreased slightly 

since the 1980s and 1990s. 
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Future Research

What research still needs to be done?

No national studies on adoption disruptions or dissolutions have 

been conducted. Most of the research to date has focused on 

narrowly defined populations or adoptions from public agencies. 

A number of researchers have called for the establishment of 

uniform terminology and more complete and accurate outcome 

data (e.g., see Evan B. Donaldson Institute, 2004; Groze, 1996; 

Goerge et al., 1997). Additional research on the cause of 

adoption disruptions or dissolutions could promote the design 

and delivery of more evidence-based pre- and postplacement 

preventive services to prevent disruption and dissolution. 

Additional research is needed in several areas: 

• Total numbers of disruption and dissolution for adoptions, 

regardless of type

• Risk and protective factors related to dissolution or disruption, 

including links between pre- and postadoption services and 

disruption and dissolution rates

• Incidence of voluntary disruptions or dissolutions as a means 

of obtaining needed services for a child

Resources

For additional information about adoption topics, visit the 

Child Welfare Information Gateway at https://www.childwelfare.

gov/adoption. Information Gateway also has a compilation 

of adoption statistics, which can be found at https://www.

childwelfare.gov/systemwide/statistics/adoption.cfm. Other 

sources of adoption information include the National Resource 

Center for Adoption (http://www.nrcadoption.org) and 

the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family 

Connections (http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/info_

services/adoption.html). 
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References

Barth, R. P., & Berry, M. (1988). Adoption and disruption: Rates, 

risks, and responses. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

Barth, R. P., Berry, M., Yoshikami, R., Goodfield, R. K., & Carson, 

M. L. (1988). Predicting adoption disruption. Social Work, 33,

227–233.

Barth, R. P., Gibbs, D. A., & Siebenaler, K. (2001). Assessing 

the field of post-adoption service: Family needs, program 

models, and evaluation issues (Contract No. 100-99-0006).

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services. 

Berry, M., & Barth, R. P. (1990). A study of disrupted adoptive 

placements of adolescents. Child Welfare, 69(3), 209–225.

Coakley, J. (2005). Finalized adoption disruption: A family 

perspective. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, 

Berkeley.

Coakley, J. F., & Berrick, J. D. (2008). Research review: In a rush 

to permanency: Preventing adoption disruption. Child and 

Family Social Work, 13, 101–112.

Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. (2004). What’s working 

for children: A policy study of adoption stability and 

termination. Retrieved from http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/

publications/Disruption_Report.pdf

Feigelman, W., & Silverman, A. R. (1984). The long-term effects 

of transracial adoption. Social Service Review, 58, 588–602.

Festinger, T. (1986). Necessary risk: Study of adoptions and 

disrupted adoptive placements. Washington, DC: Child 

Welfare League of America.

Festinger, T. (1990). Adoption disruption: Rates and correlates. 

In D. M. Brodzinsky & M. D. Schechter (Eds.), The psychology 

of adoption (pp. 201–218). New York: Oxford University Press.

Festinger, T. (2002). After adoption: Dissolution or permanence? 

Child Welfare, 81(3), 515–533.
Adoption Disruption and Dissolution https://www.childwelfare.gov

10 This material may be freely reproduced and distributed. However, when doing so, please credit 

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Available online at https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/s_disrup.cfm

Festinger, T. (in press). Adoption disruption: Rates, correlates, 

and service needs. In G. P. Mallon & P. M. Hess (Eds.), Child 

welfare for the 21st century: A handbook of practices, 

policies, and programs (2nd ed.). New York: Columbia 

University Press. 

Festinger, T., & Maza, P. (2009). Displacement or post-adoption 

placement? A research note. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 

3, 275–286.

Goerge, R. M., Howard, E. C., Yu, D., & Radomsky, S. (1997). 

Adoption, disruption, and displacement in the child welfare 

system, 1976-94. Chicago: University of Chicago, Chapin Hall 

Center for Children.

Groze, V. (1996). Successful adoptive families: A longitudinal 

study of special needs adoption. Westport, CT: Praeger 

Publishers.

McDonald, T. P., Propp, J. R., & Murphy, K. C. (2001). The 

postadoption experience: Child, parent, and family predictors 

of family adjustment to adoption. Child Welfare, 80(1), 71-94.

McRoy, R. G. (1999). Special needs adoptions: Practice Issues.

New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.

Nalavany, B. A., Ryan, S. D., Howard, J. A., & Smith, S. L. (2008). 

Preadoptive child sexual abuse as a predictor of moves in 

care, adoption disruptions, and inconsistent adoptive parent 

commitment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 1084–1088.

Nelson, K. A. (1985). On adoption’s frontier: A study of special 

needs adoptive families. New York: Child Welfare League of 

America.

Rosenthal, J. A., Schmidt, D., & Conner, J. (1988). Predictors 

of special needs adoption disruption: An exploratory study. 

Children and Youth Services Review, 10, 101–117.

Smith, S. L., & Howard, J. A. (1991). A comparative study of 

successful and disrupted adoptions. Social Service Review, 65, 

248–261.
Adoption Disruption and Dissolution https://www.childwelfare.gov

Smith, S. L., Howard, J. A., Garnier, P. C., & Ryan, S. D. (2006). 

Where are we now? A post-ASFA examination of disruption. 

Adoption Quarterly, 9(4), 19–44.

Soderlund, J., Epstein, M. H., Quinn, K. P., Cumblad, C., & 

Petersen, S. (1995). Parental perspectives on comprehensive 

services for children and youth with emotional and behavioral 

disorders. Behavioral Disorders 20(3), 157–170.

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. (2011). 

FY 2011 Annual Report on Intercountry Adoption. Retrieved 

January 6, 2012, from http://adoption.state.gov/content/pdf/

fy2011_annual_report.pdf

U.S. General Accounting Office. (2003). Foster care: States 

focusing on finding permanent homes for children, but longstanding barriers remain (GAO-03-626T). Retrieved from 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03626t.pdf

Suggested Citation:

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2012). Adoption disruption 

and dissolution. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services, Children’s Bureau.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Administration for Children and Families

Administration on Children, Youth and Families

Children’s Bureau