Foster and Adoptive Parent Lived Experiences of Paths to Permanency

Background and Purpose: Adoption is the permanency plan for more than one-quarter of children in the US child welfare system. More than 113,500 children live in out-of-home care and are awaiting adoption. Pre-adoptive placement disruption, or the disruption of a placement prior to a finalized adoption, is one reason children continue to wait. Numbers of children in foster care and children awaiting adoption have decreased in recent years, but decreases are not due to increased adoptions. Existing adoption disruption literature, overwhelmingly quantitative in nature, identifies child, family, and system factors associated with the likelihood of disruption. Studies largely answer questions related to “who” and “what”, but fail to acknowledge “how” and “why.” This presentation helps to fill gaps by purposefully attending to pre-adoptive foster parents’ experiences of placement disruption and adoptive parents’ experiences of finalized adoptions from foster care. This study compares experiences of disruption and adoption from the lived perspectives of pre-adoptive and adoptive parents.

Methods: This study utilizes phenomenological and case study methodologies. Eleven in-depth, semi-structured interviews were completed with participants who experienced pre-adoptive placement disruption. Thirteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews were then completed with participants who adopted from foster care. Interviews were completed in one Southeastern state and explored pathways to becoming pre-adoptive parents, placement experiences, factors that contributed to placement and permanency outcomes, and post-placement/adoption experiences. Data were recorded and transcribed. Disruption and adoption data were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis and post-intentional and pedagogical approaches to phenomenology. The collective data set, including all twenty-four interviews, was then analyzed using case study analysis. Collective and cross-case analysis were used to identify similarities and differences between disruption and adoption cases.

Results: Phenomenological analysis reveals the essential elements of pre-adoptive placement disruption include significant, compound loss, a broken social contract, isolating lived-through placement experiences, and disruption attributions. Essential elements of adopting from foster care include resolute commitment, Good Samaritan principles, and moral worth and intrinsic value. Case study analysis demonstrates disruption and adoption case differences related to participant recruitment, expressions of commitment, and outcome attribution. Case similarities include roles of informal and formal support and motivations and child best interest.

Implications & Conclusion: This study presents important findings regarding an under-studied phenomenon that affects the permanency of waiting children—pre-adoptive placement disruption. This study is unique because it also utilizes qualitative data from interviews with participants who experienced a finalized adoption from foster care and compares revelations about these two lived-through permanency-related experiences. Findings have implications for child welfare permanency and policy practice and pre-adoptive and adoptive parent recruitment, retention, and support. Researchers must continue to question and investigate issues of permanency, collaborate with key players, and disseminate meaningful findings on behalf of children and families with permanency needs. Waiting children and the parents who care for them are worthy of directed attention and deliberate research and practice efforts. The future of social work science requires more fully-informed policy and practice to aid us in addressing social justice issues and enacting solutions on behalf of vulnerable children and families.