Strengthening Pre- and Post-Adoption Experiences through Peer Support Services

Background and Purpose

Historically, there has been a lack of supports for families who decided to adopt or have adopted a child. Often, families struggle when they must begin to handle the dynamics of their new family largely on their own once the adoption is complete. Adoption disruptions or “broken adoptions” have been making the news with increasing frequency. Peers can provide real-time assistance and supports, while engaging adoptive parents, identifying resources, and facilitating the linkage between the caregivers, children and services.  However, there is a lack of knowledge on peer support models in pre- and post- adoption processes.

This paper helps to fill this gap by examining the role of peer supporters. Drawing on their experiences, adoptive caregivers discussed their perceived impact of peer supporter services on families.  They identified unique qualities of peer supporters that made their experience successful.

Methods

Two in-depth, semi-structured focus groups were conducted with a total of 12 adoptive and pre-adoptive caregivers. The sample consisted of females only, predominantly Black/African American and Hispanic.  Participants were recruited purposively from a large foster care and adoption service agency in New York City. Focus group recordings were transcribed and analyzed manually. The author assigned codes to the data to represent meaningful categories. Then, the author identified the major transcript segments relating to the primary research question, engaged in focused coding around the core study concepts, developed data matrices to organize findings according to core concepts, and determined patterns, similarities and differences.

Findings

Caregivers identified a myriad of services provided by peer supporters, to meet diverse needs, in both individual and group settings, which included assistance through tangible referrals as well as direct advocacy in attending meetings, court proceedings and other consultations.  Caregivers described the peer supporters, evidencing certain characteristics crucial to their ability to engage and connect with parents, and ultimately to parental success. The peer supporters were reported to be “trustworthy, honest, open, kind, and caring,” who were “very resourceful” and “got the job done.”  The peer supporters became a source of security for caregivers, to reassure that they were not alone, and fostered an increased sense of poise in the often arduous adoption process. Coupled with the peer supporter’s availability and accessibility, caregivers found a reliable resource to lean on.  In addition to information sharing, emotional support was often obtained by providing a forum for parents to have a sounding board, and feel heard in addition to advice.

Conclusions and Implications

Findings highlight the benefits of peer support services for adoptive parents.  Peer supporters helped recognize that there is a confluence of factors involved in adopting a child from foster care, and that many parents would benefit from ongoing support.  By providing emotional, informational, and concrete supports, advocacy, and education to adoptive parents, peer supporters can help parents identify and address challenges, connect to appropriate resources, and create a network of peers with similar experiences.  It is hoped that by having access and utilizing such supports will have positive impact on family outcomes.