Partitioning the adoption process to better predict permanency.
Under federal outcome standards established by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, discharges to adoption are expected to occur within 24 months of the most recent removal from home for at least 32% of cases. In the research recounted here, adoption is treated as a process composed of two discrete steps: adoptive placement and adoption finalization. It was hypothesized that the predictors of completion may differ for each step, offering direction for practice and policy. Predictors included child characteristics, maltreatment history, placement history, system variables, and service delivery variables. Children's adoption event history was viewed through five annual entry cohorts, including all children with adoption case plans, rather than the exit cohorts of the federal measure, which includes only adopted children. Over this five-year period, the length of time from removal to adoption finalization decreased significantly, primarily as a result of decreased time from adoption placement to finalization. Child and family characteristics and abuse/neglect history were found to be much more predictive in the analysis of timely adoption placement than of time from placement to finalization. These and other significant predictors suggest strategies for improving timely adoption outcomes.
McDonald
Tom
T
University of Kansas, School of Social Welfare, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA. t-mcdonald@ku.edu
Press
Alan
A
Billings
Peggy
P
Moore
Terry
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000300:Adoption / Q000208:ethnology / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology*; D000367:Age Factors; D019090:Case Management; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002652:Child Behavior; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019988:Children with Disabilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting / Q000379:methods; D005581:Foster Home Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D009825:Oklahoma; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012947:Social Work / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013995:Time