Purpose: This study examines foster care reentry after adoption, in Illinois and New Jersey. The provision of services and supports to adoptive families have garnered recent attention due to concern about the long-term stability of adoptive homes. Method: This study used administrative data to examine the pre-adoption characteristics associated…

Objectives: This study evaluated the effects of the Adoption Preservation, Assessment, and Linkage (APAL) postpermanency program. Method: A quasi-experimental, posttest-only design was used to estimate the program's effects on youth discharged from foster care to adoption or legal guardianship. A random sample was surveyed (female = 44.7%; African…

Analysis of interview data illustrates how White adoptive parents rationalize choices regarding adoptee race. Parents who were willing to adopt children of color stressed unwillingness to adopt Black children. The preference for adopting multiracial children goes against the prevalent method of racial classification, hypodescent, by defining…

Objective: To date, little empirical attention has been given to the impact of preadoptive child sexual abuse (CSA) on adoption adjustment. The main objective of the present study was to investigate whether preadoptive CSA was associated with more placement moves, adoption disruption, and inconsistent parental commitment compared to adopted…

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) addresses issues pertaining to prevention of placement in the child welfare system, as well as family reunification, the specific provisions of ASFA that relate to the termination of parental rights and adoption are perhaps most central to the law's overarching purpose. This paper analyzes adoptions from…

This paper presents findings from a longitudinal qualitative study of Illinois foster parents that revealed a connection between how they view their financial situation and the ways in which they understand and carry out their roles as foster parents. The study illuminates the child welfare and family system dynamics that underlie the experiences…

Notes that adoptive families have formal (agency-related) and informal (indigenous) resources to draw on for assistance with a variety of issues. Describes Hope for the Children (HFTC) program located in Rantoul, Illinois, a created community designed to foster permanence of special-needs adoptions, in which adoptive families live alongside agency…

This case study details a problematic adoption. The study briefly describes the requirements of constitutional and Illinois law that set the framework for the ChildLaw Center's internal debate on the case, presents the competing considerations confronted in the case, and the decision made and the implications of the appellate court ruling in the…

Interviewed caregivers of related children who were in the custody of the state child welfare system, as the state implemented new federal and state policies encouraging caregivers to adopt or assume guardianship of the children in their care. Noted issues of concern and caregiver recommendations for the child welfare system. (Author)

The State of the Science conference was held in May, 2007 as part of the ongoing series of national conferences, "Building on Family Strengths," conducted by the Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health at Portland State University. The theme of this State-of-the Science conference was "Effective…

This paper examines the role that public policy and practice play in supporting the efforts of natural, adoptive, and foster families who have children and youth with disabilities in keeping their families intact. Obstacles and barriers to implementing the philosophy of permanence planning, especially for children and youth with disabilities, are…

This booklet describes a state subsidy program designed to facilitate the adoption of black children in need of permanent homes. Program participants were children, ages 3 months to 17 years of age living in foster homes in Chicago and East St. Louis, Illinois. Some of the children had serious emotional and/or physical problems, but all were free…

Describes efforts in Illinois to improve permanency outcomes for children in formal kinship care: the state developed Delegated Relative Authority (DRA) status for children in stable family foster care with relatives while maintaining state support in situations where adoption was unlikely. Presents findings from 1,116 feasibility assessments. (SD)

Reporting the second in a series of regional fact-finding committee hearings held across the United States, this document includes testimony from social service organizations and state offices in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Testimony from clients and representatives of these agencies documents efforts to ameliorate problems…