Resources

Encouraging Adoption and Helping Families: The Case for Refocusing Federal Funds on Post-Adoption Services National (US) recommendations and arguments for federally funded post adoption services.

Post-Adoption Services: Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Children Adopted from Foster Care
Post-Adoption Services: Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Children Adopted from Foster Care Guide for parents and professionals that outlines the array of services typically needed and used, advocacy messages, and funding sources.

Developing a Parent-to-Parent Support Network
This manual is intended to help parents and family advocates learn how to set up parent-to-parent networks to provide post-adoption support in their own communities. The document provides information on six model peer support programs and explores in detail NACAC's MN ASAP parent support network. April 2009 by Janet Jerve

Starting and Nurturing Adoptive Parent Groups: A Guide for Leaders
This guide for new and experienced parent group leaders covers topics such as becoming a leader, developing group identity, managing meetings, filing for tax-exempt status, and rejuvenating a struggling group. Along with sample forms and letters, the publication offers helpful tips and stories of how other groups creatively solved problems. October 2002 by Janet Jerve

National Policy Recommendations for Post Adoption Services
A coalition of national adoption experts has come together to advocate for creating effective and accessible post adoption services in the belief that this fulfills one part of the promise made by the child welfare system in intervening in children’s lives.  The coalition strongly encourages federal policymakers to help in shifting the paradigm away from simply placing children in families for adoption to providing the supports that families need to raise children to healthy adulthood. These policy recommendations are offered to help advocates everywhere in working towards this goal.

The following materials are designed to help those who are creating or enhancing post-adoption services in their communities:

Surveys — When creating post-adoption services and programs, it is essential to have families and youth inform our efforts. North American Adoptive Parent Survey.

North American Adoptive Parent Survey

Release — It is a common experience for post-adoption resource centers and providers to report difficulty in contacting adoptive families for the purposes of publicizing their services. In this age of HIPPA and heightened concerns about confidentiality, agencies are reluctant to share contact information or send out announcements on behalf of providers and programs. The state of Wisconsin has created a release form for adoptive parents to sign upon legalization so that they can be informed of programs and services that may be of help in parenting their growing family in future days. This template can be adapted for your region to use. Our thanks to the Wisconsin CCN site.

The Need for Post-Adoption Services

Keeping the Promise: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services to Enable Children and Families to Succeed
An extensive examination of adoptive families in the United States concludes that too many are not receiving the essential services they need, and calls for a reshaping of national priorities and resources to develop and provide such services. In an effort to demonstrate the breadth of professional support for a "paradigm shift," major child welfare and adoption organizations across the country joined in endorsing this 116-page report, which was researched and published by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. The report stresses that the vast majority of adopted children function normally — and their parents are highly satisfied with their families. But it also points out that just over the past 15 years, nearly a million boys and girls were adopted by Americans from foster care in our country and from orphanages abroad, and the majority of U.S. adoptions continue to be of those types (by far, mostly from state child welfare systems). The Adoption Institute report, which is the most comprehensive compilation of knowledge about post-adoption services to date, recommends that "the paradigm has to shift" from simply forming families to providing the supports needed to raise children to healthy adulthood, and provides recommendations for achieving this shift. To view the press release, Executive Summary, and full report, click on the link below. (October 2010)