NACAC has scheduled the following webinars on a variety of topics, taught by experienced individuals who are all adoption professionals and adoptive parents.

• Parenting Children Who Have Been Prenatally Exposed — by Kari Fletcher — Tuesday, May 21 at 7 pm central time (5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 8 pm eastern)

• Understanding The Acting-Out Behavior Of Your Adopted Children — by Maris Blechner — Tuesday, June 18 at 7 pm central time (5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 8 pm eastern)
  
• Helping Children Heal from Trauma: What Parents and Caregivers Need to Know — by Sue Badeau — Thursday, July 18 at 7 pm central time (5 pm pacific, 6 pm mountain, 8 pm eastern)

Fees for each webinar are $15 for NACAC members and $20 for non-members.

Learn more and register

On May 18, 2013, NACAC is hosting its annual AdoptWalk fundraiser in Minneapolis. The event features a family friendly 2.8-mile walk around Lake Nokomis, followed by a picnic for participants at the Lake Nokomis Community Center. If you can't make it in person, we hope you can make a donation to show your support.

Download a fact sheet

Make a donation to
support AdoptWalk

Learn more and register to
walk with us!

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, signed into law on January 2, included a provision that made the adoption tax credit permanent. Unfortunately it did not make the adoption credit refundable for 2012 or future years, so the credit will only benefit those adoptive families who have federal income tax liability. The maximum amount of the credit for 2013 will be $12,970.

NACAC will continue to advocate for refundability in the future.

Learn more about the credit
for 2012 adoptions

Read FAQs about the
new law and the credit

Learn more about the
credit in general

Registration is now open for the NACAC conference in Toronto, Ontario, August 7-10, 2013! Visit the Conference section of our site to view:

• conference schedule
• descriptions of the keynote and pre-conference sessions
• full list of workshops offered
• details on the conference for youth and children's program
• registration forms, and more.

You can also download a PDF of the full conference registration booklet. (Please note that the file is 11MB so may take a while to download).

Hope to see you in Toronto!

NACAC and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute have partnered on a nationwide campaign to counter efforts by states to cut adoption assistance benefits. Our goal is to raise public awareness, educate policy makers, and provide advocacy materials for parents, professionals, and other activists to use at the state level. On September 19, we released The Vital Role of Adoption Subsidies: Increasing Permanency and Improving Children’s Lives (While Saving States Money) to help individuals understand the value of adoption assistance and advocate to maintain these crucial benefits.

Download the issue brief

Download list of related resources

At its February 10, 2013 meeting, the NACAC board of directors approved a position statement on Educational Needs of Children and Youth in Foster Care and Adoption.

The statement highlights the many education challenges facing children who have been adopted or who have been in foster care, and outlines policies and pratices that would better support these children and youth. We encourage advocates to pursue system reform that would accomplish the recommended policies and pratices.

Read the statement

NACAC recently held two webinars on adoption assistance, and you can download an mp4 file to view the sessions. (Please note the file is 52MB. In some browsers, you need to right click or control click on the link and choose Save Link As to download the file.)

• Adoption Assistance Benefits and Eligibility — download
• Advocating for Adoption Assistance Programs on — download

At its December 11, 2012 meeting, the NACAC board of directors approved a position statement on Access to Trauma-Informed Care.

The statement acknowledges that all children and youth involved in adoption and foster care have experenced trauma, that this trauma affects them and their entire family, and that services provided must take into account the effects of trauma and how best to serve those who have experienced trauma.

Read the statement

In July 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released data on foster care from fiscal year 2011. The data show that more than 104,000 children were waiting to adopted, while more than 50,000 exited care to adoption.

View the data