What do you get when you mix together one foster-adoptive mom with a background in advocacy and a whole bunch of important, yet dry and very lengthy data on post-adoptive services from all over the country? One critically important new tool for foster-adoptive parents in the United States that they can easily share with their elected officials and use for a side-by-side comparison to their own state’s post-adoptive services and supports.
Yipee! Sounds pretty exciting, huh? Well, if you are a parent of a child who was maltreated at a young age and who now suffers from any of a number of diagnoses stemming from developmental, or early childhood trauma like reactive attachment disorder or PTSD—it is exciting! Parents like us, myself included, have found ourselves at the end of our rope time and time again while living with our traumatized children.
You see, very often, children who were subjected to abuse and severe neglect, abandonment, violence in the home and other types of maltreatment early in life, and repeatedly, have lived through experiences that actually damaged their brains. Every day more research seems to come out reinforcing this fact.
Even though we have as a country largely evolved past the use of orphanages, we still have some pretty serious problems to work out when it comes to taking in and caring for these very special children. One of those problems is that many states still have a bad case of washing their hands of children adopted from foster care once the adoption is final. According to the Child Welfare Information Gateway, which is a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families:
“Once children have been placed with a permanent family, they and their families often require support to stabilize the family. This is true in the case of reunification, placement with kin, guardianship, or if the child is adopted. Supporting families and caregivers can involve an array of services that should be tailored to each family’s circumstances. Post- permanency services may include financial support, case management, connections with community services, and other supports.”
Some states are ahead of the pack in some areas, but, believe it or not, no single state stands out from the rest when it comes to a complete package of services and supports for families that adopt former foster children. Not one. Other states’ “array of services” are pretty abysmal.
Thousands upon thousands of adoptive parents— not just of former foster children, but internationally adoptive, private adoptive, and kinship care too, are up in arms and at a loss over what to do—how do they raise and care for these disadvantaged children? So many of them don’t respond to traditional parenting techniques and so many of us have tried everything we can think of, and even at times some things we wish we had not though of! Of those many thousands of adoptive parents in the U.S. alone, a handful of them have managed to find the strength, and to carve out a little time write a book, start a website, serve on the board of directors of an organization, or have in some other way become an advocate for these children and their families. Parents like myself sometimes write letters to the editor of their local paper or meet with their state elected officials to try to bring about change.
Me? Well, I stumbled upon a 225-page report from the Donaldson Adoption Institute of New York City, written by Susan Livingston Smith, and funded by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and it rocked my world. Yes, I read the whole thing. And, boy is there a lot of information in there! I thought to myself, “I wish every single adoptive parent in the whole United States would read this!” But, alas I know that won’t happen. One other thing I know? I have known for a number of years now about another organization called the North American Council on Adoptable Children or NACAC, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. They have a website that is similarly packed with terrific information on resources for adoptive families. And so, I decided to carefully review this data from these two sources (and some from a few other sources as well), evaluate them and pick out the best of the best. And so that’s just what I did. It’s kind of like my “dream team” of post-adoptive supports and services from all over the country— one from here, two from there and sadly, none at all from about half of our states. But, they’re all together in one place! Listed by type of service or support, it’s a document that is easy to refer to and a snap to compare to your own state’s postadoption services—or lack thereof.
Here are a few examples of what my evaluation/ report consists of:
The most inclusive language for providing the greatest number of adopted children with Medicaid coverage, includes the following:
From Delaware: “Medicaid is offered to 100% of the children adopted through the state child welfare system who reside in Delaware.”
From Hawaii: “Adoption assistance support has increased in scope and all children on adoption assistance receive Medicaid coverage.”
Concerning family preservation services, most inclusive, and/or most comprehensive services:
From Georgia: “The Crisis Intervention Team provides services to adoptive families in need of professional help to improve the overall family functioning, preserve the family unit and provide links to community resources. This team makes themselves available on evenings and weekends to serve families, and the service has been shown to increase family stability and decrease disruption and dissolution.”
From Massachusetts: “Adoption Journeys Regional Response Teams have no time limit for services and families can receive help for as long as they need. They can be accessed on a one-time basis or episodically over time, and can address a wide variety of family and individual needs.”
Concerning respite care services, most inclusive, and/or most comprehensive services:
From Pennsylvania: “This is one of the 3 post-permanency services offered through SWAN (Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network). Respite services are open and flexible to meet the child and family needs and are committed to doing careful assessment and matching for respite care. Respite can be either inside or outside the family home.”
Other miscellaneous items of interest noted:
From Vermont: “The average cost per child of adoption assistance is under $8,000 per year. The average cost per child of postadoption services is under $2,000. The average cost of a child in custody is $33,000 per year, and when adopted children come back into care they are usually placed in residential facilities, which cost upwards of $60,000 per year.
No, I’m not selling my list. I affectionately refer to it as my “Shoot for the Moon” list, because that’s what it does. Getting a state, any state, to agree to implement everything contained in this report would be like shooting for the moon—but even if I miss, I’ll still land among the stars! No, this report is free to anyone who wants it. There’s not room to publish it here in Foster Focus Magazine, but I’m happy to email it to you if you ask for it. Just contact me, Shelley Calissendorff at email2shelley@yahoo.com and I’ll send it right off to you in .pdf format. Then, what you do with it is up to you. My dream come true would be for a copy of it to end up in the hands of every governor in the nation and most every state senator and representative, too. Frankly, I can’t afford to send it to them all myself! But, I will make sure that policymakers in my home state of Washington see it—I guarantee you that. The official title of the report is, “Post-Adoptive Services and Supports Throughout the United States—An Evaluation of the Best Currently Available,” but just ask for the Shoot for the Moon list and I’ll know what you mean.
For all the details about what your state does and does not do, read the following: and learn:
“Supporting and Preserving Adoptive Families: Profiles of Publicly Funded Post- Adoption Services”, available in .pdf format and downloadable at: adoptioninstitute.org
www.nacac.org, click on “State Profiles” under the Adoption Subsidy tab
Also, if you have any questions, would like some help, or if I can be of assistance to you in advocating for post-adoptive service and support reform in your state, let me know! I’ll be happy to help you if I can.
Now go out and get that elusive moon and pick up a few stars while you’re at it, too.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski