Absence of support service weakens adoption stability
By Indira AR. Lakshmanan ~ GLOBE STAFF
The breakup of an adoption tears a family apart in ways similar to divorce, but can be even more traumatic. For parents unable to have children or who wanted to help a troubled child, the sense of failure is immense. And for children who already have been abused or rejected, the trauma of a second failed family can be insurmountable, child psychologists say.
But in Massachusetts, once a child is adopted from the state, the case is closed. Post-adoption support services are hard to get, making adoptions of difficult children more likely to fail, ~adoption specialists say. One-in-four adoptions of children average 12 fails, according to Richard Barth of the University of California at Berkeley, with parents returning children to the state, often to be placed in costly group care facilities.
In contrast, in several states where post adoption services are widely offered, child protection and adoption agencies have witnessed a significant drop in the number of adoptive parents who return severely troubled children to the state.
In Texas, for example, where a lawsuit filed by adoptive families prompted the Legislature to mandate an array of post-adoptive services, one Houston adoption agency that places difficult children from state care saw its adoption disruption rate fall from 20 percent to 10 percent in two years.
National and Massachusetts adoption specialists say that if the Department of Social Services' two-year-old policy of "fast-tracking" adoptions of children in state care is to succeed, post-adoption support services must be offered.
Boston clinical psychologist Hugh Leichtman, a former member of the Governor's Special Commission on Foster Care, criticized fast-track adoptions without post-adoptive services as "a prescription for catastrophe.... We cross our fingers, close our eyes and close the case."
Costs of keeping families together
DSS Commissioner Linda Carlisle said she believes "there is a real need for post-adoptive services." But she says the obstacle is getting enough funding to finalize adoptions for the 4,400 children now waiting in state care and to provide support services to those already adopted. Carlisle said Gov. Weld requested an extra $7 million for adoption services for next year, but got only $3 million from the Legislature. She could not say how much, if any, of the money requested would have gone to post adoption services.
In Texas, state-mandated post adoption services include respite care - allowing parents to take a weekend or evening off from difficult children, therapeutic summer camps, adoption-specific therapy and residential treatment for severe problems.
"We have had families stick in there who you wouldn't believe," said James Whitehead, executive director of Spaulding for Children, a special needs adoption agency in Houston. "In the past, they had to give the kid back to the state because it was the only way they could get help after exhausting all their resources."
The statewide program costs $4 million a year and served more than 4,000 adoptive children and family members last year, said Susan Klickman of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. The average cost of $1,000 per person "is very little in terms of its payoff," Whitehead said.
"The cost of placing a child returned to the state in residential care is $55,000 a year, while specialized group care costs $34,000 per child," said Lorraine Carli, DSS spokeswoman.
In Illinois, post-adoption services are available to families of any adopted child in the state, said Gary Morgan of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The program served more than 400 families last year with counseling, crisis intervention, respite care and extra cash assistance, at a cost of $1.3 million.
"An Illinois State University study of 401 adoptive families in crisis - half of whom were talking about dissolving their adoptions - found that after receiving post-adoptive services, 83 percent of the children were still in their homes," said Jeanne Howard, an associate professor of social work.
Yolanda Fields of Children Unlimited, Inc. in Columbia, S.C., said her agency stepped in to offer free, privately funded post adoption services because the state was not doing so. The agency runs retreats and camps for adoptive children "to see that there are other kids like them." Following the success of the private program, the state started offering post-adoptive services," Fields said.
But in Massachusetts, aside from referring a parent to the few private agencies or therapists that provide post-adoptive support services, there is little DSS currently can do for parents once an adoption is finalized.
DSS runs parent support groups in some offices and provides subsidies and Medicaid coverage to families adopting "special needs" children to defray extra costs, such as therapy. Last year, 78 percent of new. adoptions were subsidized. But subsidies cannot cover intensive, costly interventions, and parents who adopt a young child or one not immediately diagnosed with difficulties don't receive any subsidies.
DSS has a $120,000 contract with the Cambridge-based Center for Family Connections to provide consulting on difficult adoptions, but executive director Joyce Maguire Pavao said most of her time for DSS has been spent educating caseworkers about the new mandate to speed adoptions. Pavao said DSS also referred about 90 adoptions for her to evaluate last year, about half of them on the verge of disruption.
Getting help in a crisis
Roz Cushera, a 50-year-old South Shore woman who adopted two DSS children when they were 5 and 7 years old, looked everywhere for help when her now-teen-age son started threatening her. Told by district court that officials were too backed up to grant a petition for services, she went to DSS and begged for help.
"They came out and evaluated us, and after the evaluation, they said, 'If you need us again, call' What did they do for us? Not much. . . . The man kept asking me if I was trying to give the kids back. I said no. I made it very clear I was looking for someone to help me keep the kids in the home." :
Cushera finally got crisis intervention through a small program offered by a private Boston agency, Special Adoption Family Services, and her children are still with her. But many families are not so lucky.
In the last two years, the Post Adoption Crisis Intervention Project was able to serve only 56 of the 153 families in crisis who asked for help. Three months after an intervention, 83 percent of children served were still at home, vs. only 39 percent of those who asked for help but couldn't be served. The federally funded program costs $3,600 per intervention, said coordinator Susan Landers, and is free to families.
"It makes a lot of sense to find these services, because it's going to prevent out-of-home placements, which are much more expensive," Landers said.
Through a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, a new initiative called Massachusetts Families for Kids has set up pilot programs in four DSS area offices to find parents for children awaiting adoption. Those new families will be given vouchers for post-adoption services, including camp or medical expenses, but the services will not extend to families who previously adopted, or who adopted in other DSS offices.
Gael Mahony, an attorney and former chairman of a special commission to study DSS, said funding for post-adoptive services must be provided by the state, not just piecemeal by private or federal grants.
Mahony called DSS' $120,000 contract for both adoption worker training and post-adoptive services "just a drop in the bucket.... The governor and Legislature need to bite the bullet and properly fund the department."