Special Needs Adoption: Lessons from Experience

Document Author: Ann Sullivan, Director, CWLA Adoption Services
Reprinted From: Winter 1996 issue of "Children's Voice," the quarterly magazine of the Child Welfare League of America
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Date Posted: 6/96
Children can't wait. The urgency of clearing hurdles and forging connections for children who need families now keeps adoption professionals firmly focused on the present. Still, as we do what must be done to help children waiting for adoption today, we can learn from the history of adoption over the last several decades.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are currently some 442,000 children in out-of-home care. But in 1976, before the advent of crack cocaine, there were about 500,000 U.S. children in out-of-home care. The number had doubled in the 10 years before that. Many remained in care longer than five years, and some children changed foster homes 18 or 20 times. A disproportionate number were children of color, sibling groups, and children with a variety of disabilities, such as spina bifida, cerebral palsy, and Down's syndrome.
Just five years later, in 1982, there were only about 275,000 children in out-of-home care. The number had been reduced by almost half. Why did this number fall so dramatically? And why did it rise again, beginning in the 1980s?

The Birth of Special Needs Adoption

Until the 1960s, adoption professionals and the general public both thought of adoption almost exclusively in terms of healthy infants. For older children and children with disabilities, there was family foster care or group residential care. But a handful of determined Michigan foster parents changed all that.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the early 1960s, Peter and Joyce Forsythe, biological parents of two, applied to their public adoption agency for a child who was, in Joyce's words, "past the supply and demand curve." Then they waited--for four years. Meanwhile, they met other "room-for-one-more" families stalled in the same holding pattern. One day in 1967 they saw documentary evidence that the agency keeping them waiting had 889 waiting children. The Council on Adoptable Children (COAC), named to reflect their determination to change the definition of adoptable, was formed shortly after in their living room.

As one of COAC's first projects, the Forsythes and other parent advocates organized the historic Frontiers in Adoption conference, which took place early in 1968 under the auspices of the Michigan Department of Social Services, the University of Michigan, and several private agencies. Interest generated by the conference led to the establishment of Spaulding for Children in Michigan, led by Kathryn S. Donley, to other Spaulding agencies around the country, and then to the national Family Builders' Network. In 1969 Homes for Black Children was established in Detroit. Meanwhile, local Councils for Adoptable Children were springing up around the country, and by 1974 the group became the North American Council on Adoptable Children.

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Children's Program, established by Peter Forsythe in 1974, provided a national focal point, in conjunction with the CWLA North American Center on Adoption, directed by Elizabeth Cole, and the legislative advocacy of the Children's Defense Fund.

It took time for this new way of thinking to percolate through the many systems involved in adoption, but by the mid-1970s, dramatic changes were underway. Spaulding, CWLA's North American Center, the 10 federally-funded regional adoption resources centers, and Project CRAFT, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, worked together to develop a network of adoption professionals across the country who shared the same philosophy, knowledge, and skills.

What Went Wrong

When the number of children in care began falling significantly, many of us thought the problem was well on its way to being solved. If we just kept doing what was working, the numbers would keep going down.

But in 1980, just after the passage of PL 96-272--even before it could be fully funded and implemented the political climate changed dramatically. There was a fundamental shift in national priorities away from children and families.

Program budgets were slashed, and staff turnover rates soared. In subsequent years the recession, the increase in homelessness, the substance abuse crisis, and the dramatic increase in child abuse and neglect resulting from all three diverted attention and resources away from adoption.

We thought we were getting back on track, in 1992, with the passage of the Family Preservation and Family Support Services Act because one of the best things we can do is support families and help them remain together safely, whenever that's possible, so children don't need to enter care or be adopted.

Now these services, as well as many others, are at great risk of being lost.

What has been learned and periodically, forgotten since the beginnings of special needs adoption in the 1960s?

What We've Learned

Adoptive parents play a leading role in the field of special needs adoption.

Any solution that doesn't include them is doomed to failure.

National organizations--including CWLA--must assume high-profile leadership in this area. Adoption advocacy needs a focal point.

If we make the kids visible--no matter how serious their problems--families will almost always come forward. Photo listing books; state, regional, and national exchanges; and "A Child is Waiting" television and newspaper features are all highly effective recruitment tools developed in the early days of special needs adoption.

It takes a skilled workforce to educate families about the challenges and rewards of adopting children with special needs.

Adoption is a lifelong experience. An adoption isn't completed when the legal papers are signed; it's really just beginning. Families need access to ongoing post adoption services.

Adoption subsidy is an essential support to the adoption of children with special needs. Many of the families who can provide loving, nurturing homes have modest or moderate incomes. Losing the federal adoption assistance program would derail our best efforts to increase adoptions.

Adoption, even with full subsidy, is a very cost effective service. A 1993 study by Westat Research Corporation estimated that the families who adopted 40,700 children with IV-E subsidies between 1983 and 1987 saved the federal government $1.6 billion in long-range costs.
Successful adoption practice requires a multidisciplinary approach. Legal and legislative barriers must be overcome; funding problems must be solved creatively; and the various parts of the child welfare system must work in harmony.

Systems have to move forward at all levels: national, state, and local.

National advocacy is a waste of time unless state and local systems have the capacity to respond.

Eliminating the barriers to adoption was a complex process; it requires a real commitment over time. Some actions had immediate results, but most did not.

That point is especially relevant to shaping a strategy for the future.

Where We're Headed

As the '90s move to an end, will we see an increase in the number of children adopted, as we did in the 1970s--and as we're already seeing in some states, thanks to projects like the Kellogg Foundation's Families for Kids? Or will we see a dramatic decline, as we did in the 1980s?

Everyone wins when a child is adopted by a loving family: the child, the family, the agency, the taxpayers--but most of all, the child. Thousands of children are waiting for families today.

We know a great deal about the technical aspects of adoption and what works for children and families. We know how to recruit, prepare, and support adoptive families. But we need to keep the lessons of history before our eyes. We also need strong national leadership, a national commitment to do what it takes to give youngsters the chance to grow up in loving families, and a national consensus that adoption is the best alternative for the great majority of those children who can't remain with biological or extended families.