Month: February 2013

How the Adoption Incentives Program can Incentivize Adoptions

Today, the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means held a hearing to review the success of several privately run programs to increase the number of children adopted out of foster care. This marks the beginning of the committee’s efforts to review—and hopefully reauthorize—a federal program entitled the Adoption Incentives Program.  Originally created in 1997 as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, the Adoption Incentives Program has delivered a total of $375 million in bonuses to states that were successful in increasing the number of children adopted out of foster care.

Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means Adoption Incentives Hearing.
Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means Adoption Incentives Hearing.

Since the inception of the Adoption Incentives Program, more than half a million children found their forever homes. Despite this success, however, over 100,000 foster children are still waiting to be adopted.  If trends continue, approximately 50% of these children will succeed in finding homes through adoption and 50% will continue to wait.  Statistics reveal that those who remain waiting are most often older children, members of larger sibling groups or those children who have special physical or mental health needs.  In fact, according to a the most recent AFCARS report, the average age of a child adopted out of foster care is 6, while the average age of a child waiting to be adopted out of care is 8.

So the question before Congress is this: how can the federal government incentivize states to find a home for every child? The programs highlighted in today’s committee hearing prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no such thing as an unadoptable child, just an unfound family.   There are at least three lessons to learn from these programs’ experiences.

  • States cannot employ “a one-size-fit-all” strategy for finding a permanent home for a child.  Efforts to recruit an adoptive family for a child must be as diverse as the children themselves.
  • States that have succeeded in finding homes for older and special needs children have done so in close partnership with community and faith-based partners.  Such partnerships allow state child welfare agencies to be more innovative in their approach; address critical workforce gaps; increase their reach into communities where perspective adoptive parents are likely to be found; and provide post- adoption support.
  • Finally, success in finding an adoptive family for every child who needs one is premised on the belief that all children need and deserve a family

If Congress hopes to replicate the successes of the types of programs highlighted today it must learn from these lessons and better incorporate them into the current Adoption Incentives Program.  Congress might also want to consider whether the current model of providing an individual bonus per adoption is the best way to incentivize adoption for older and special needs children. Perhaps this group would be better served by a model similar to the Department of Education’s “Race to the Top,” a federally-funded contest which provides funds to states that successfully put forward groundbreaking, thoughtful plans to address four key educational reform areas.  While the full effects of “Race to the Top” remain to be seen, preliminary findings indicate that it has been successful in spurring innovation and improving in educational outcomes. A similar approach might better incentivize states to be more innovative by providing more concentrated support for their efforts to find homes for harder to place children.

Another idea might be to use the adoption bonuses as a way to incentivize certain policies and practices that have been proven effective in finding homes for children. For instance, provide rewards to states that use adoption recruiters as opposed to making finding an adoptive family one of the many tasks assigned to an overloaded caseworker.  Or grant bonuses to states that severely limit the use of an alternative planned permanent living arrangement (APPLA) for older youth.  Under this approach, the federal government might use the “carrot approach” to reward states that provide robust post adoption services, reduce the amount of time between termination of parental rights and the completion of adoption and engage in interstate adoptions.

We would like to thank Chairman Reichert for his leadership in dedicating the first subcommittee hearing of the 113 congress to such an important and impactful topic. We look forward to working with Members of Congress to explore these and other ways this important program might better serve its stated goal: to find families for waiting children.

CCAI Featured in Award-winning Documentary Film about International Adoption

STUCK_PosterArt_small

We are proud to announce that STUCK—an award winning documentary about international adoption—features CCAI’s Executive Director, Kathleen Strottman. As Kathleen explains in the documentary, which uncovers the personal, real life stories of adopted children and their parents, “the right to a family is a basic human right and our policies have to start recognizing that.”   The film also features CCA Co-Chair Senator Mary Landrieu, Senator Richard Lugar and Charles Nelson, Co-Principal Investigator of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project.

On March 1st, Both Ends Burning Founder Craig Juntenen will be launching a 60 city bus tour to promote the film and issue a call to action for the United States Government to promote international adoption as a worthy and effective way to find homes for children without families.

To view the trailer for STUCK, follow this link: http://vimeo.com/bebcampaign/stuckthemovie

To learn about how you can help spread the word about STUCK, click here: http://bothendsburning.org/involved/

Family Protects Against Negative Stress

Image Source: The New York Times

Jacob and Noah Muthler are two brothers from Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania who personify a phenomenon that this weekend’s New York Times Magazine addressed– why can some children take stress in stride while others crumble?

The article highlights the increasing stress that children face, especially because of standardized testing. “The pressure to do well on achievement tests for college is filtering its way down to lower grades, so that even third graders feel as if they are on trial.”

As a test approaches, Noah panics. According to his mother, “he was crying in my arms the night before the test, saying: ‘I’m not ready, Mom. They didn’t teach us everything that will be on the test.’ ” The night before the examination, Noah couldn’t sleep; the only way he would go back to bed is if his mother lay with him.

His brother, Jacob, however seems un-phased by the stress; in fact, he is so unnerved by taking the standardized test that his mother started to worry that he didn’t care about his performance.

It turns out, reactions to stress are partially genetic.  An enzyme responsible for removing dopamine from the brain can affect a person’s ability to cope with stress. Stress floods your brain with dopamine and how quickly the enzyme is able to rid your brain of the excess dopamine determines a child’s natural ability to handle stress. Jacob and Noah prove that even in a family of brothers, the speed of this enzyme can be drastically different.

Still, for those with a slow moving enzyme, all is not lost. Researchers have shown that stress does not always have to be a bad thing.  Jeremy Jamieson, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Rochester, believes that people’s negative labeling of stress is the detriment – not the stress itself.

Jamieson believes that if stress is harnessed and viewed as a motivating factor, it can actually improve performance. Jamieson cites the performance of athletes and that the stress they feel before a game fuels their competitive edge.

Maybe Jamieson is on to something; however, for many children this positive outlook on stress is not natural and will need to be coached. For kids like Noah that coach is his mom. She is the one who tells him that the test is no big deal; she reframes it as an opportunity to display his intelligence and acumen, both of which he has proven at school as a student in the gifted and talented program.  And for those times when that perspective isn’t enough to calm him, it’s Noah’s mom who rubs his back and lays with him so he’ll fall back asleep.

What the Times article did not address the issue of children who may not have the appropriate support structures, including those in foster and congregate care and individuals who spend their entire childhood in institutions. Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child has concluded that in regards to stress, when “buffering relationships are unavailable to the child, the result can be damaged, weakened systems and brain architecture, with lifelong repercussions.”

Some of our most vulnerable children – those living outside of family care who do not have a parent to coach them through stress – are the same children who likely have so much more to worry about: Will I ever be adopted? If I change foster care placements, will I have to change schools as well? Who will help me with my homework? Where are my siblings living and when can I see them again?

Fortunately for Noah, his mom found a solution to rid him of his stress. He will opt out of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment “using a broad religious and ethical exemption.” Since finding out that he won’t be taking the test, Noah has performed better in school and now looks forward to class.

But for those kids who don’t have a parent to depend on, most of them will be forced to internalize their stress without the benefit of having mom or dad to rub their back and tell them that everything will be okay.

The stress that Noah experiences from standardized testing is legitimate and powerful; no one can dispute that.  But this article neglects to address how those stress-prone children like Noah fare when don’t have an established support system like his.

And  having a safe, loving, permanent family should not be something that any child should ever have to stress about.

CSPAN’s Washington Journal Features CCAI

Kathleen_CSPANOn Saturday, CSPAN’s Washington Journal interviewed CCAI Executive Director, Kathleen Strottman, about the Russian adoption ban, international adoption, and how Members of Congress can affect adoption and foster care issues. Click on the picture to watch the full interview or follow this link: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310768-5