Building Effective Post‐Adoption Services: What is the Empirical Foundation?*

Building Effective Post-Adoption Services: What is the Empirical Foundation?* While adoptions in general are highly successful, families do experience disappointment and disruption, outcomes that may be reduced by provision of post-adoption services. Studies show that adoptive parents request a variety of services, yet few demonstration projects have been done to evaluate their effectiveness. In this paper, we recognize the predominance of attachment theory in post-adoptive services and identify alternative approaches that may have a better fit with the needs and preferences identified by families. We also identify service adaptations for adoptive families that may amplify the power of existing service programs. Key Words: adoption, disruption, dissolution, post-adoption services. In general adoptions are highly successful, at least as judged by their low disruption rates. Yet, even among adoptions that do not disrupt, some continue under difficult circumstances. Adopted children in these families may be experiencing significant functional impairments at home, in school, or in the community (Howard & Smith, 1995). Their families may draw on a variety of services, including special education, outpatient mental health services, hospitalization, and temporary residential placement (Barth & Berry, 1988; Groze, Young, & Corcran-- Rumppe, 1991). Although they may benefit from services designed with a specific sensitivity to adoption-related aspects of these problems, many families will not have access to post-adoption services, which are relatively new and rare. Whereas postadoption service users might also include persons who are searching for their biological parents or who are looking to provide anticipatory guidance to help their child with the adjustment to adoption (Brodzinsky, Smith, & Brodzinsky, 1998; Casey Family Services, 1998), this paper focuses on post-adoption services that are designed to help families with adopted children who are maladjusted or in high levels of conflict with their parents. Many children and their families undergo periods of difficulty-often associated with the ages of the children. Many of these difficulties are resolved without services. Adoptive families are not very different from families in general. Most have positive experiences, which vary somewhat with age, and do not use substantial amounts of services to achieve those good relationships (Brooks, Allen, & Barth, 2000). Barth and Brooks (1997) found that the proportion of parents who felt "somewhat to very" warm and close to their child hit a low of 59% during the years from 13-18, then rebounded to 80% for "children" older than 19. In a study comparing adoptions of children with prenatal drug exposure to those without, at eight years postadoption, about 95% of parents reported being somewhat to very satisfied with how affectionate or tender their child is and 97% reported feeling somewhat to very close to their child. Although only 66% indicated that they were very satisfied with the adoption, more than 90% indicated that if they had it to do over again, they would adopt again (Berry & Barth, 1989). The researchers found that, even among parents who experienced an adoption disruption, 86% stated that they would definitely or most likely adopt again and 50% indicated that they would adopt the same child (but with more awareness of what adoption required of them at different stages in the adoption). Thus, we make no assumptions that all difficulties in adoptive families will require post-adoption services, but only that some may and that the emerging field of post-adoption services requires better theoretical and empirical guidance if these families are to obtain the assistance they seek. Generally, adoptions have been quite stable and successful despite the lack of work done to develop post-adoption services. Relatively low adoption disruption rates reflect this success. …