Increased attention is being paid to open adoption arrangements between birth parents and adopted children and families. This study examines openness and contact among 469 adoptions at 14 years postadoption from the fourth wave of the California Long-Range Adoption Study (CLAS) and 378 adoptions matched across all waves. The proportion of families…

Every state requires a home study before the placement of foster children for adoption. This article examines the history of home studies, presents results from expert interviews on the changing processes and purposes of home studies, and explores current challenges for the field. The article also introduces the Structured Analysis Family…

Discusses research areas most critical to the enhancement of adoption practice and policy. These include adoption indicators, recruitment and retention, selection of placements, procedural barriers to the adoption of foster children, foster-adoptive homes, kinship adoption, independent adoption, postplacement services, subsidies, group care…

In spite of the need for pre- and post-adoption support, studies indicate low levels of services utilization among adoptive families, particularly those involving children with special needs. This study examines the relationship between utilization of adoptions services and adoptive child and family characteristics, pre-adoptive risk history, and…

Prenatally drug-exposed and not drug-exposed children adopted as infants and older children were compared four years after adoption on a range of outcome indicators. Drug-exposed and not drug-exposed children were alike on most outcome indicators, and parental satisfaction with the adoption was high and equivalent for parents of both groups. (TJQ)

Examination of older child adoption in northern California from 1980 to 1984 showed a decreased disruption rate of 10.2 percent, largely attributable to the greater use of foster parent adoptions. Placement in which siblings were together were not exceptionally likely to disrupt. A classification of cases using five variables available at…

Examined the effects of prenatal drug exposure on adopted children's behavior, temperament, health, and school adjustment by comparing the experiences of 3 cohorts of children: (1) 320 drug-exposed children; (2) 456 children who were not drug exposed; and (3) 620 children whose drug exposure was unknown. Two years after placement no significant…

This follow-up study of international and domestic adoptions, involving participants first studied in 1981, investigated the role of family size and structure, particularly the presence of both biological and adopted children in a family, on adoption outcomes. Data suggested that families who adopt children and have birth children may have less…

Followed 3,873 children under 6 years of age when they entered out-of-home care to determine whether, over the next 6 years, they were reunified with their biological families, adopted, remained in out-of-home care, or experienced another outcome. Found that age at time of placement and race/ethnicity had substantial direct effects on outcomes.…

Used data on 496 children who had been in foster care before adoption to examine effects of child characteristics on odds that child would remain in long-term foster care and length of time for adoption agreement to be legalized. Age, history of abuse/neglect, ethnicity, and planned foster parent adoption program were major determinants of…

Efforts to improve the public welfare and child welfare system sparked an unprecedented amount of federal legislation in the 1990s, including the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996 (MEPA-IEP), and welfare reform. Such reforms allow an unprecedented degree…

While adoption is a goal for welfare services when children cannot remain at home, adoption should not become a goal unless family reunification cannot occur. Recent initiatives take an oversimplified approach to agency standards, creating misunderstanding of programs. Adoption rates of agencies should be rewarded only after estimating pool of…

Examines characteristics of children adopted in adolescence and characteristics associated with disruptions of adolescent adoptions. (BB)

Although the United States has seen a record influx of infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children into the foster care system in the past decade, there has not been an accompanying shift in policy or practice to attend to the developmental issues these younger children bring to child welfare. This textbook addresses the spectrum of child…