The Impact of Openness on Adoption Agency Practices

ABSTRACT

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of the changing openness-related practices of private U.S. adoption agencies. Staff from private adoption agencies were interviewed at three points in time, in 1987–89, 1993, and 1999, about their current practices and attitudes regarding openness in adoption and any changes that may have taken place since the previous interview. From 1993 to 1999 agencies continued a trend toward offering and encouraging more open adoptions. During this period fully disclosed arrangements became more common and had the greatest growth since 1987, while confidential adoptions continued to decrease in frequency. Mediated adoptions remain the predominant arrangements. Changes in the adoption options offered by the agencies at all three time periods have been driven primarily by the demands of the birthmother for greater openness. However, by final data collection in 1999, most agencies in this sample changed from viewing the birthmother as their primary client to viewing the adopted child as their primary client. Implications for agency practices are discussed.     

Training for Transracial Adoptive Parents by Public and Private Adoption Agencies

ABSTRACT

Social work literature strongly suggests that parents who adopt across race need specialized training to develop cultural competence in order to help their children develop positive racial identity and survival skills for life in a multicultural society. None-the-less, there is little documentation of agency training for transracial adoptive parents. The purpose of this study is to describe aspects of training provided to transracial adoptive parents by public and private adoption agencies in the United States. Utilizing a survey with a random sample of public and private agencies, results (n = 195) indicate that about half of the agencies that facilitate transracial adoption provide relevant training. Implications for social work practice and research are discussed.     

Privatization and subsidization of adoption services from foster care: Empirical evidence

This paper analyzes empirical differences in adoption services of public and private agencies. The empirical investigation includes cross-sectional time series aggregated data for the 50 states within the United States from 1996 to 2010 with detailed statistical analysis of the period from 2000 through 2010 for which consistent and comprehensive data exists. Under private agencies, only 11.6 months elapse from the time the courts terminate the natural parents' custody until the child is adopted, while with public agencies the same process lasts for 16 months. Furthermore, during the decade from 1996 to 2006 private agencies completed more adoptions than public agencies. However, the performance gap in favor of private agencies was eliminated in 2006 and in the following years. The results suggest that privatization of adoption of young and healthy children did not show an advantage for private services. However, transitioning adoption services to private agencies for older children or children with complex special needs, improves the adoption services compared with those of public agencies. Subsidization especially improves the adoption of older children and of all children with special needs while it appears to be statistically insignificant or implied as unnecessary for healthy babies.     

Sharing the Baton,Not Passing It: Collaboration between Public and Private Child Welfare Agencies to Reunify Families

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, public sector child welfare agencies are contracting with private agencies for the provision of specialized services to clients while maintaining oversight and case management responsibilities. At the same time, funders, both private and public, are demanding that service providers partner and collaborate with one another. In this article, we present results from a study of a unique partnership between two state child welfare agencies and a private child welfare agency aimed at reunifying families whose children have been removed and placed in foster care. Data was obtained from 41 key informants using a questionnaire and a structured interview. Findings support earlier studies of collaboration, and indicate the strengths of this partnership and factors that facilitated and hindered it. The results have implications for agencies that both contract for and provide a range of child welfare services as well as other interagency relationships.     

Advocacy by Nonprofit Human Service Agencies

Abstract

This article reports and analyzes findings of a mixed-methods study which examined correlations between select organizational factorsbudget size, staff size, age, local government funding, and leadership-and the advocacy behavior of human service agencies in Washington, DC. Surveys were sent to 100 agency executive directors, and 43 were returned. Follow-up interviews with staff from the five highest scoring and five lowest scoring agencies are reported. Findings show that budget size, staff size, leadership, and local government funding are positively correlated to agency advocacy behavior. Barriers and enhancements to agency advocacy behavior are also discussed.     

SOFTWARE REVIEWS

ABSTRACT

This report outlines the components of wiki technology and its possible applications in the human services. Wikis have the potential to manage the detailed internal and external information and knowledge that is ubiquitous in the human services. For example, a wiki would be an ideal tool to store the knowledge of how things actually work in agencies with high staff turnover or many retiring of baby boomers. Wikis offer the opportunity for veteran staff to disseminate their expertise by hyperlinking knowledge about a certain operation to other operations or procedures. Furthermore, since wikis can be updated by all users, the knowledge can be easily and instantly updated as the human services environment changes. Wikis also offer the capacity to track and manage user changes. The report describes a specific external wiki application for capturing and disseminating community referral information.     

Caring vs. Cashflow

Summary

The administration and delivery of human services often involve apparently conflicting goals, such as the desire to offer quality services to those most in need while maintaining a sound financial status for an agency. Using the example of needs for caring vs. cashflow in a hospice, this article describes how computer simulation was used to explore possible solutions for this common dilemma in human service organizations. A system dynamics model was developed to represent student and staff beliefs about the causal relationships between processes of caring and cashflow. A generic system dynamics computer application, STELLA, was used to simulate and explore varying assumptions and beliefs about agency functioning. The simulation period proved very useful as an educational tool, and as a motivator for staff to pursue a solution to the caring vs. cashflow dilemma.     

Adoptions, 2000–2001

ABSTRACT

The number of domestic adoptions has remained relatively constant over the past 15 years, varying between 121,000 and 127,000, but placements have increasingly been completed by public agencies. Adoption of foreign-born children in the United States has nearly tripled in the past 20 years. Despite the increased national interest in adoption in the past decade and the efforts of many dedicated individuals and agencies, it is still difficult to determine the total number of adoptions in the United States. No one agency is charged with compiling adoption information on all adoptions in the United States, and the agencies that do have access to some types of adoption information have no mandate or incentive to compile that information so that it could be integrated with other sources of adoption information.     

BOOK AND CD REVIEWS

SUMMARY

This paper presents the results of an exploratory study of one hundred sixty-six domestic violence organizations that use the World Wide Web. Domestic violence agencies primarily used the Web to promote agency visibility and provide community education, and to a lesser extent for advocacy, direct services, and securing resources. Agency satisfaction with their Website is generally high, although more than one-third of agencies reported problems. Related issues discussed include Web-based sources of client victimization, agency legal liability, agency vulnerability to online disruption, the need to create access for low-income clients, and evaluation of Web services.     

Untapped Sources for Recruiting Minority BSW Students

Abstract

Social agencies and social services units currently are experiencing a personnel crisis. Many agency employees who provide direct services to clients lack professional education. Decreasing commitment to traditional social work practice with the most vulnerable populations and increasing interest in psychotherapeutic services may account for the shortage of professionally trained social workers.     

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.     

Key Issues in Adoption Legislation

SUMMARY

This paper examines the underlying assumptions associated with two key areas of adoption legislation where there is variation across jurisdictions and calls for change. These legislative issues are consent and openness. In each area, there is very little social research which might otherwise offer insight into how to best formulate legislation in a way that would serve the needs of various members of the adoption experience. The primary goal of this paper is to consider key legal issues associated with consent and openness and make recommendations for how research might provide important information that could serve as guides for a legislative reevaluation of these areas.     

Minding the (Information) Gap: What Do Emerging Adult Adoptees Want to Know About Their Birth Parents?

Abstract

The formation of an adoption information gap was examined for a group of 169 emerging adults (M?=?25.0?years) who were adopted as infants. Participants completed interviews and questionnaires at adolescence and emerging adulthood (late teens to 20s). The Adoption Curiosity Pathway model guided research questions about formation of an adoption information gap, which exists when there is a difference between what an adopted person knows and what he or she desires to know regarding his or her adoption. In addition, specific issues were identified about which emerging adults were curious. Differences in these specific issues were examined across gender and openness arrangement with birth parents at emerging adulthood. The most frequently sought information was medical and health history. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the formation of an adoption information gap, which contains the specific items of curiosity, was more likely for those who were less satisfied with the amount of openness with birth parents during both adolescence and emerging adulthood. Implications for practice are presented.     

Use of data to assess performance and promote outcome achievement by public and private child welfare agency staff

Despite the emphasis on evidence-based practice in the literature, little is known about the extent to which child welfare workers routinely use data to assess the effectiveness of their practice, or consider an array of evidence informed practices such as peer record review, supervisory sessions or program evaluation as useful in improving their performance. This study, conducted as a part of the planning phase for a larger research and demonstration project measured frontline staff perceptions in both the public and private sectors in one state regarding these and other outcome-focused activities. Statistically significant differences were noted between public and private agency staff. In addition, the relationship between staff's use of data and their assessment of their own skill and the support provided by their agency for an array of out-of-home care practice activities are described. Implications for building the use of evidence-informed practice in child welfare are discussed.     

Factors Influencing African American Adoptive Parents' Attitudes Toward Open Adoption

Abstract

This study explores the attitudes toward open adoption among 83 African American families adopting children through two private California agencies. Independent t-tests compared families who would and would not consider some level of open adoption. Findings reveal that the majority of families were quite hesitant about open adoptions, based primarily on the fear that birth parents would want the child back. Those with attitudes that are more positive were more likely to be in two-parent families and to have had personal experience with informal adoption.     

Serving immigrant families and children in New York City's child welfare system

This article describes the efforts and special initiatives of New York City's Administration for Children's Services to improve services to immigrant and English language learner populations. Children's Services convened an immigration issues advisory subcommittee, created special tools for child welfare staff, collaborated with legal agencies to assist foster children with immigration status adjustments, improved agency data collection, and launched an agency-wide training initiative on immigration issues. The challenges encountered by Children's Services offer important insight for child welfare agencies in other jurisdictions designing strategies to strengthen their services for immigrant communities.     

Availability of Mental Health Services for Individuals Who Are Deaf or Deaf-Blind

A survey of state mental health agencies found that a majority have no specific policy or procedure regarding how to provide mental health services to persons who are deaf or who are deaf-blind. Agency representatives report that staff lack knowledge of how to provide mental health services to persons who are deaf-blind and the agencies lack qualified interpreters. They recommend training for social workers and counselors to address best practices in working with people who are deaf-blind concerning communication methods and strategies, physical interaction, cultural issues, everyday life, sensory deprivation, ethics, use of an interpreter, and other general issues.     

Methodology out of context: Getting Zimbabwean entrepreneurs to participate in research

This paper reports on a project carried out in Zimbabwe in 1998. The aim of the work was to develop a methodology, based upon participative techniques, which could be adapted for use by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) in assessing entrepreneurs' perception of government and non-government business support services. The overriding purpose of the project was to improve DFID's policies towards facilitating an enabling environment for the private sector. The project was commissioned in order to alter the conventional donor agency approach to businesses in Africa of using questionnaires. Instead, the project team developed a system of semi-structured interviews with individual entrepreneurs and managers, supplemented by a variety of visual techniques and collective workshops incorporating the participants themselves, government representatives and agency staff. Whilst the techniques used are not in themselves unique, the approach certainly is, within an African context.