Facilitating Successful Kinship Adoptions

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Facilitating Successful Kinship Adoptions

• Minority Adoption Leadership Development
  Institute
• Mattie L. Satterfield, MSW, LCSW-C

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Alex Haley

• In every conceivable manner the family is the
  link to the past, and a bridge to our future.

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Kinship Care as a Child Welfare Service

• Kinship care in recent years has become a
  necessary part of the array of child welfare
  services. Despite the rate of increased need for
  relatives as a resource for their kins children,
  child welfare agencies continue to struggle with
  developing appropriate kinship programs and
  services.

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The Numbers

• Estimated of children in foster care 518,000
• Entries304,000
• Exits283,000
• Waiting118,000
• Source Preliminary FY 2004 Estimates as of June
  2006 AFCARS Data

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The Numbers

• Where were the waiting children living on
  9/30/04?
• Foster Family Home (relative) 20,510
• Foster Family Home (non-relative) 65, 324
• What is the racial/ethnic distribution of the
  waiting children?
• Black-Non Hispanic 45,025
• White-Non Hispanic 44, 991

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The Numbers

• How many children in foster care had their
  parental rights terminated for all living
  parents? 65,000
• How many children were adopted from the public
  foster care system in FY 2004? 52,000
• What of the children adopted received an
  adoption subsidy? 46,531

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The Numbers

• What is the racial/ethnic distribution of the
  children adopted from the public foster care
  system?
• Black-non Hispanic 16, 726
• White non Hispanic 21, 971
• What was the relationship of the adoptive parents
  to the child prior to the adoption?
• Non-Relative 8, 435
• Foster Parent 30, 884
• Other Relative 12, 624

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Kinship Defined

• Kinship Care is the full-time nurturing and
  protection of children by relatives, members of
  their tribes or clans, godparents, stepparents,
  or other adults who have a kinship bond with the
  child.
• CWLA 1994

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National Kinship Numbers

• More than 6 million children are being raised in
  households headed by grandparents other
  relatives
• 2.5 million children are in these households
  without any parents present
• 2.4 million grandparents report they are
  responsible for their grandchildren living with
  them
• 29 of these grandparents are African American
• Data from the US Census Bureau Table DP-2 Profile
  Selected Social Characteristics2000

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National Kinship Numbers

• 17 are Hispanic/Latino
• 2 are American Indian or Alaskan Native
• 3 are Asian and
• 47 are White
• 34 of these grandparents live in households
  without the children's parents present.
• 71 are under the age of 60 and
• 19 live in poverty

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Why Children live with Relatives?

• Divorce
• Economic hardship
• Chronic physical mental health issues
• Incarceration
• Domestic violence
• Struggle with substance abuse, and
• Abuse and neglect

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• A childs primary connection is the lifeline
  to his or her biological family, no matter how
  insufficient or limiting it is.
• Attachment, Trauma, and Healing, Understanding
  and Treating Attachment Disorder in Children and
  Families, Terry M. Levy and Michael Orlans, 1998
  CWLA publications

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Adoption Defined

• Adoptionis the social, emotional, and legal
  process through which children who will not be
  raised by their birth parents become full and
  permanent legal members of another family while
  maintaining genetic and psychological connections
  to their birth family.

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Adoption Rush

• The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of
  1980..P.L 272
• Preventive reunification programs
• Reasonable efforts
• Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) 1997
• Philosophy of preventive/reunification changed
• Shifted toward support for the adoption of
  children into new families

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Is Adoption The Answer?

• Children are on a fast track
• Swifter timetables for severing a childs ties to
  their parents
• Use adoption to cure the ills of foster care
• Adoption strategy will not accomplish its main
  objective to reduce significantly the enormous
  foster are population

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Is Adoption the Answer? (cont)

• The strategy includes terminating more biological
  parents rights, and not all of the legal
  orphans produced will be adopted.
• These numbers will be added to the long term
  foster care caseloads.

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Informal Adoption Defined

• When children are cared for by extended family
  members usually grandparents with out the
  benefit of legal adoption. African American's
  have excelled in this area of family care.
• Robert B. Hill, author, speaks of the value of
  this care giving and the phenomenon of the
  persistence of informal adoption that continues
  to exist in the African American community.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Kinship provides the biological and legal ties
  with extended family, that are of critical
  importance to a childs growth and development.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Guiding Principles
• Every childs family, however family is defined,
  is unique has value, worth, integrity, and
  dignity.
• The most desirable place for children to grow up
  is in their own caring families, when those
  families are able to provide safe nurturing
  relationships intended to last a life time.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Guiding Principles Continued
• All families have strengths. Positive change is
  promoted when family strengths are supported
  while needs are addressed.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Value of Kinship Connections
• Enables children to live with persons whom they
  know trust
• Reinforces childrens sense of identity
  self-esteem
• Facilitates childrens connections to their
  siblings
• Reduces the trauma children may experience when
  they are separated from their birth parents

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Kinship and Adoption

• Encourages families to consider rely on their
  own family members as resources
• Enhances childrens opportunity to have a safe,
  nurturing permanent home
• Strengthens the ability of families to give
  children the support they need and
• Enhances childrens opportunities to stay
  connected to their own communities promotes
  community responsibility for children families.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Cultural Clinical Issues in Relative Adoption
• Explore the cultural norms regarding adoption
• Is adoption the method used to provide ongoing
  care for children in this culture?
• How will adoption impact the cultural norms?
• How will the adoption be viewed by other members
  of the culture?

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Issues
• Attachment
• Betrayal
• Loyalty
• Anger
• Frustration
• Shame

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Issues
• Secrets
• Trauma
• Anguish
• Restore
• Communication

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Concerns
• Role loss
• Role definition
• Denial
• Dealing with fantasies
• Redefining relationships
• Healing

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Concerns
• Name change
• Blood is thicker than water
• Death of adoptive relative...Now who
• Diagram of Family Tree
• Continued contact with birth parents
• Paternal and Maternal family members

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Concerns
• What happens to the other adult children,
  grandchildren, etc?
• What about the emotional and legal issues
  affecting all family members?
• What questions are being asked by family members,
  if any?
• What has the professional discussed with the
  family? how, when, where, with whom.

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Kinship and Adoption

• Clinical and Cultural Concerns
• What happens to the sibling relationships?
• What are the adoption laws in your state?
• Has the adoption laws been explained to the
  family?
• Who are heir's to what?
• Has the natural family line been changed forever?
• What are the family legacies?

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Kinship and Adoption

• What is Needed?
• Pre and Post Adoption Services
• Beginning with the permanency discussion with the
  family
• Community supports to provide services after
  family leave the child welfare system.

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Kinship and Adoption

• What is Needed?
• Enhance the definition of adoption that would
  appropriately address legal issues for related
  individuals
• Have universal definition of legal
  guardianship/subsidized guardianship
• Broader federal policies regarding legal options
  for related families

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Kinship and Adoption

• What is Needed?
• Develop specific financial and service assistance
  for kin families
• Help families develop/add to their family
  traditions that recognize the contributions of
  all family members.
• Develop principles and practices that child
  welfare agency staff are asked to accept and
  reflect in their practice.

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Kinship and Adoption

• What is Needed?
• Provide strength based family services
• Continue to engage birth parents when ever
  possible
• Develop specific kinship training for child
  welfare workers
• Develop comprehensive kinship family assessment
  tool

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Conclusion

• Kinship care should be fully supported and
  recognized as an effective natural resource for
  children, youth and their families.

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Alex Haley, 1986

• Home is a place where a person feels deep
  within himself that this is a place where he can
  return to and be comforted and comfortable, a
  place where a person can feel psychically secure
  because he is surrounded by positive uplifting
  things. There is also a spiritualness about home
  because home addresses almost every need we have,
  even the ones we may not consciously be aware
  of.