Studying Stability and Disruption in Foster Care
With funding from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Adoption Institute is seeking to understand factors that influence stability of adoptions from foster care. The Adoption Institute is gathering data on foster-care adoptions that are disrupted before finalization or dissolve after finalization. We also are identifying strategies that have improved adoption stability by interviewing families, practitioners and policymakers. The goal is to better understand the reasons for disruptions and dissolutions, as well as the interventions that stabilize troubled adoptions. In collaboration with an expert advisory panel, the Adoption Institute will use this research to propose policy and practices leading to more expeditious and stable adoptions of children in state care.
In 2000, an estimated 134,000 children in foster care were in need of adoptive homes. The 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) created incentives and mandates for states to substantially increase adoptions of waiting children. For this legislation to work effectively, it is critical that adoption practitioners and government policymakers have a better understanding of the factors influencing adoption stability and services preventing adoption disruptions.
Return to Examples of Service
