While an estimated 896,000 children were victims of abuse and/or neglect in 2002, African-American children accounted for 38% of children in foster care, and 45% of children waiting to be adopted (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). Members and friends of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in rural East Texas, having adopted 70 special needs African American children, attribute their adoption success to worker support, support from other church members, and their religious beliefs (Belanger, 2004; Hollandsworth, 2001). While worker support has been identified as positively influencing adoption outcomes (Barth & Miller, 2000; Howard & Smith, 2001; Kramer & Houston, 1998; McRoy, 1999), the impact of religiosity and religious support has not been studied.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which religiosity, religious support and worker support impact special needs adoption outcomes. The independent variables included religiosity (centrality of religious beliefs as measured by the Hoge Intrinsic Religiosity Index) (Hoge, 1972), religious support (amount of social support provided by co-religionists as measured by the Religious Support Scale) (Krause, 1999) and Worker Support (as measured by a single question with a Likert-type scale). Dependent variables included perceived impact of the adoption on the family (as measured by a single question) (Groze, 1996; Rosenthal & Groze, 1992), degree of change in the child's behavior (single question), and parent stress (McGlone et al., 2002) (as measured by the Parenting Stress Index Short Form, Parental Distress Subscale) (Abidin, 1992, 1995). Child behavioral difficulties (as measured by the PSI-SF Difficult Child Subscale) was included as an intervening variable (Barth & Berry, 1988; Partridge et al., 1986; Rosenthal & Groze, 1992).

The study used a cross-sectional survey to collect data from adoptive parents in training programs and conferences during 5 months from April through September 2004. A 91-item survey was completed by 113 families with 226 adopted children in East Texas and Louisiana. In addition, families of Bennett Chapel were interviewed about their successes in adopting special needs children.

Univariate analyses described demographics, while bivariate analyses explored relationships and differences between groups, including rural vs. urban families. Multiple regression was used to determine the impact of the dependent variables upon the independent variables. The regression was ordered to first account for the variance related to the difficult child score, and then a stepwise regression determined the variance resulting from the independent variables.

The study found that, after controlling for difficult child behavior, religiosity significantly impacted the parent's stress (reduced stress), while worker support positively influenced the parent perception of the impact of the adoption on the family. Behavior change for the adopted child was not significantly impacted in this study by religiosity, religious support or worker support.

The findings suggest that religious beliefs play a role in both recruitment and post-adoption support with implications both for methods of recruitment and provision of post-adoption support services.