November 29, 1999 (27)
Contact: Bernie DeGroat
(734) 647-1847
[email protected]
Web: http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/1999/Nov99/r112999a.html
Federal laws help spur adoptions of older children through private agencies, U-M researcher says.
ANN ARBOR---Despite a decrease in adoptions in which parents relinquish infants to adoption agencies or already known prospective parents, overall private-agency adoptions in Michigan were up 2 percent in 1998---thanks to recent national efforts to increase permanent placements of older children, says a University of Michigan researcher.
Federal laws passed in 1996 and 1997 helped spur increases last year in cross-racial/cross-cultural adoptions and in placements of permanent wards with special needs, according to Leslie D. Hollingsworth, U-M assistant professor of social work, in an annual study for the Michigan Federation of Private Child and Family Agencies.
Of the 2,781 children placed for adoption in 1998 by 66 private agencies in the state, more than half (1,494) were children with special needs (mostly older children with emotional, behavioral or physical problems often associated with abuse or neglect)---a 4 percent increase over the previous year, Hollingsworth says.
"The increase in such placements may be related to the emphasis on decreasing the number of children with special needs who are in foster care through increasing adoptions," she says. "This emphasis was created by President Clinton's Adoption 2002 initiative to increase the number of adoptions by a certain percentage by the year 2002 and supported by the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997---which allows children to be released for adoption at a younger age and which provides funding incentives to states that increase adoptive placements."
Besides the increase in placements of children with special needs, cross-racial/cross-cultural adoptions---which represent nearly 12 percent of all children placed by Michigan's private adoption agencies---rose 15 percent, from 278 in 1997 to 320 in 1998, the study shows.
The increase in such adoptions, Hollingsworth says, may be related to the funding incentives of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act and to the interethnic adoption section of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1997, which prohibits states and agencies receiving federal funds from delaying or denying a foster or adoptive placement on the basis of a child's or foster/adoptive parent's race or ethnicity.
In addition to adoptions of children with special needs and cross-racial/cross-cultural placements, children from foreign countries permanently placed into Michigan families increased nearly 9 percent and accounted for about one-fourth of adoptions through the state's private agencies last year.
"This may reflect a continued increase in preferences for seeking international adoptions rather than domestic adoptions for some adoptive parents who perceive the waiting period for international adoptions to be much shorter and the possibility of birth parent decision-reversals as lower," Hollingsworth says.
More than 60 percent of the international placements were of children more than a year old. Overall, of the 704 children adopted from other countries, 354 were from Asia (including 228 from Korea and 95 from China), 278 were from Europe (including 188 from Russia, 48 from Romania and 22 from Poland) and 72 were from Latin America (including 59 from Guatemala).
While private-agency adoptions of children with special needs and those involved in cross-racial/cross-cultural and international placements all increased in Michigan in 1998, adoptions of infants were down, according to the report.
Direct-consent placements, in which birth parents give custody of their infants to previously identified adoptive parents, decreased 13 percent (from 176 to 153), while voluntary-release adoptions, in which parents place their children with private adoption agencies, fell nearly 7 percent (from 460 to 430).
The U-M study also found that:
--56 percent of adoptive families were white and 40 percent were African American.
--38 percent of adoptive families were foster families.
--82 percent of families who adopted through voluntary-release or direct-consent placements had incomes of at least $40,000.
--60 percent of families who adopted children with special needs had incomes below $40,000.
--356 sibling groups of two to five children were adopted together.
--54 percent of children with special needs were part of an adopted sibling group.
--49 children were removed from their adoptive families prior to finalization of the adoption due primarily to the birth parents' changing their minds about adoption or to the severity of the child's problems.
--Although adoptions by relatives decreased overall by 7 percent, 232 adoptive families (14 percent of all adoptive families) were related to the child.
Of the 74 private agencies licensed to provide adoption services in Michigan in 1998, 70 (95 percent) took part in the study. Thirty-eight of the agencies are members of the Michigan Federation of Private Child and Family Agencies, a statewide association of 61 private, non-profit child and family services organizations.
The Michigan Federation was formed in 1969 to better coordinate service delivery, present a united voice in advocating for Michigan's children and families, and promote wider use of innovative programs established in private agencies.
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