When children cannot return home: adoption and guardianship.

SUMMARY Since the 1970s, finding alternative permanent families for children in foster care who could not return to their birth parents has been a primary goal of the child welfare system. Since that time, significant gains have been made in helping such children find permanent homes through adoption and guardianship. This article analyzes these trends and finds: * A majority of states have doubled the number of adoptions from foster care over the 1995-97 baselines established by the federal government. * Legal guardianship initiatives at the state level have been instrumental in helping thousands of children achieve permanence. * Children who exit foster care to adoption tend to be younger than those who exit to guardianship. * Postpermanency services and supports are important to the long-term success of these placements. Innovative efforts to find adoptive parents and legal guardians for children in foster care could transform the nature of foster care if the number of children permanently living with families who receive state subsidies begins to exceed the number of children living in foster care. Looking forward, these changes would require child welfare agencies to think creatively and thoughtfully about how best to serve families and the children in their care. ********** Achieving permanence for foster children has been a primary focus of child welfare professionals since the problem of children languishing in foster care ("foster care drift") was first documented in 1959. (1) Most children in foster care will be reunified with their birth families, but for those children who cannot return home, finding an alternative permanent family can provide them with the stability they need to flourish. A home with either birth- or adoptive parents ("natural guardianship") has historically been viewed as the preferred permanency option for children in foster care. (2) However, when such permanency options are not feasible or desirable, legal guardianship by either kin or foster parents willing to raise the child to adulthood is emerging as a promising alternative. This article examines the evolution of U.S. child welfare policy and practice with respect to permanence when family reunification is not possible. The article begins by briefly discussing factors that have contributed to the current policy framework, and it discusses current strategies and trends for the primary alternative permanency options of adoption and legal guardianship, including a summary detailing the demographic characteristics of children most likely to experience each of these options. Next, the article discusses the stability of these permanency arrangements. The article concludes with a discussion of possible changes that may be in store for public child welfare systems as the numerical balance shifts between children in foster care and children placed in permanent homes. Strategies and Trends in Achieving Permanence Policies and practices to achieve permanence for children in foster care have evolved rapidly in the last two decades. The current consensus supporting permanence for children in foster care began to emerge in the 1970s, as evidence of the negative effects of long-term foster care placement on child well-being began to mount. Several studies documented the detrimental impact of children languishing indeterminately in foster care without a plan for permanence. (3) The research findings reinforced the importance of permanent attachments and relationships for healthy child development and provided a strong evidence base in support of increased efforts to achieve permanence for foster children. (4) Additionally, research funded by the U.S. Children's Bureau demonstrated the feasibility of initiatives to improve an agency's ability to find permanent homes for children who would otherwise have grown up in care. (5) As a result, despite various tensions in determining the optimal permanency arrangement for individual children (see Box 1), the consensus around the importance of a stable family for children continued to grow. …