Cross-System Views on the Supports and Challenges of Adoption from Foster Care

Purpose: Collectively, child welfare workers, mental health practitioners and court personnel are tasked with making difficult permanency and adoption decisions for children in foster care.  While existing studies have examined parent and child welfare perspectives on adoption, few studies have included stakeholders from the court and mental health systems. This study sought to explore the various stakeholder perspectives on what supports and what hinders successful adoption at a systems level. 

Method:  Using a purposive sample to document varying perspectives of child welfare, mental health and court professionals, researchers conducted individual phone interviews with 41 participants from these three service sectors.  Participants were asked open-ended questions to elicit their opinions on the system-level factors that affect successful adoption.  Interviews were audio recorded, professionally transcribed, checked for accuracy, and imported into NVivo software for coding and theoretical thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Member checking was used to confirm major study findings.

Results:  Participant responses revolved around four main themes: (1) cross-systems communication, cooperation, and collaboration is problematic; (2) legal processes are too slow; (3) service needs are great, especially access to mental health providers and financial assistance; and, (4) all systems generally need an improved understanding and response to trauma and adoption.  Despite stakeholders having the desire to work collaboratively, obstacles included deficiencies in mental health providers’ input and court personnel lacking pertinent case information.  Stakeholders voiced frustration with an inability to achieve timely permanency, crediting discrepancies between various court jurisdictions and a slow paperwork process as hindrances.  Mental health services were viewed as paramount to helping youth with trauma.  While mental health practitioner and child welfare worker collaborations were noted as great facilitators, concerns were raised about difficulties with accessing and receiving quality services.  Overall, stakeholders suggested that professionals working with children toward adoption must possess, at minimum, a basic knowledge of trauma, indicating that professionals’ knowledge of trauma directly impacts the success of adoption from foster care. Many participants recommended additional trauma training to improve current services.        

Implications: This study contributes to the existing child welfare and adoption literature by gaining the perspectives of multiple key players who have varied roles within the complex child welfare system. Their views provide insight into the cumbersome reality of the service system, while also exposing implications for improvements.  The findings suggest several implications: (1) providing stakeholders with opportunities to increase their trauma knowledge, (2) advocating for avenues to expand the network of qualified mental health professionals, (3) evaluating the current adoption paperwork process and attempting to streamline it, and (4) improving the child welfare system culture with greater and clear communication.