Agency-Related Barriers Experienced by Families Seeking to Adopt From Foster Care

ABSTRACT

Although about 100,000 children in foster care await adoption, families approved to adopt encounter obstacles in the adoption process. This nationwide longitudinal study identified agency-related barriers faced by prospective adoptive parents. A pur-posively recruited sample of 300 families seeking to adopt from foster care completed an in-depth, semi-structured telephone interview and quarterly follow-up surveys until they either finalized a foster care adoption (n = 98) or discontinued (n = 102) the process, followed by an exit interview by telephone. Findings revealed the top barriers encountered were adoption process logistics (n = 185, 92.5%), agency communication and responsiveness (n = 159, 79.5%), agency emotional support (n = 130, 65%), availability of services (n = 65, 32.5%), and juris-dictional and interjurisdictional issues (n = 52, 26%). Policy and practice implications are provided with recommendations for improving procedures, services, support, and communication to better retain prospective adoptive parents and improve adop-tion outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Adoption
• foster care
• barriers
• agencies
• prospective adoptive parents
• family perspectives

Acknowledgements

The authors thank study participants for sharing their experiences and adoption agencies for assisting with participant recruitment.

Funding

This study was funded as part of The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids (2002–2007), a project of the U.S. Children's Bureau, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (grant number 90CQ0001).