Bureaucracy keeps kids in foster care, report says

Bureaucracy keeps kids in foster care, report says

March 13, 2005

BY DAVID CRARY

NEW YORK -- The backlog of children languishing in foster care could
be sharply reduced if state agencies were more friendly and
helpful to prospective parents asking about adoptions, according to a
new report that says fewer than one of 16 adults who make
initial inquiries actually end up adopting.

The majority give up ''not because they don't want to, but apparently
because they decide not to deal with a system they perceive as
too frustrating, bureaucratic and just plain unfriendly,'' the Evan B.
Donaldson Adoption Institute says.

The report urges state agencies to set up hotlines staffed by
well-trained employees to provide callers with immediate, encouraging
responses. State employees should strive to avoid alienating
applicants, be cordial in broaching the issue of background checks,
and provide clear information, it said.

Adoption professionals saw a preliminary version of the report last
year, and it already has had an effect. Barb Holtan of
AdoptUSKids, a new federal initiative, said the findings prompted her
program to form state recruitment response teams with the goal
of providing ''basic good customer services'' to prospective parents.
''We recruit and recruit, and then when people call they're
treated less than enthusiastically,'' she said Friday.

Many wait years to be adopted

The report's lead researcher, Jeff Katz, is the former head of Rhode
Island's state adoption agency. He and his colleagues
surveyed more than 40 states, analyzed federal data and conducted
interviews in Boston, Miami and San Jose, Calif. ''To me, it's
shocking,'' Katz said in a telephone interview. ''There are kids in
foster care saying, 'No one wants me' and there are parents who
want to adopt saying, 'Why doesn't anyone return my calls?' ''

According to the latest federal statistics, from 2002, about 126,000
children were in foster care awaiting adoption, often for many
years. About 53,000 children were adopted from foster care, in most
cases by their foster parents or by relatives; Katz said less than 6
percent of the 240,000 other adults who inquired ended up adopting.

Katz said state agencies should focus on making the process more
welcoming, even during the necessary screening to weed out
unsuitable parents. For foster children, ''an alienating experience
for a prospective parent can mean the difference between a life
spent in the uncertainty of temporary homes and the loving embrace of
a permanent family,'' the report said.

The Donaldson Institute's director, Adam Pertman, suggested these
problems may be fueling the rise in adoptions of foreign
children.

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