RD185 - Annual Report on the Human Research Projects


Executive Summary:
The purpose of adoption is to place children who have been permanently and legally separated from their birth parents with adoptive families and to prevent adoption dissolution by providing services to strengthen and support families after the adoption is finalized.

This report is in response to the legislative mandate to study policies and procedures related to expediting adoptions for children in the foster care system as well as those children who are adopted but not placed in foster care. The Virginia Department of Social Services (VDSS) in collaboration with a vested group of stakeholders made recommendations for expediting adoptions after much discussion, a review of state and national data and research, and a survey of practice and policy issues of the 120 local departments of social services (LDSS).

The findings of the workgroup include:

• Virginia lacks adequate numbers of trained, adoption-dedicated social workers, with sufficient knowledge of the policies and practices needed to expedite adoptions.

• To support LDSS in their work to expedite adoptions, VDSS needs regional adoption specialists to focus on the training and technical needs of localities.

• The lack of mandated training for foster care and adoption workers negatively affects the recruitment and retention of trained workers and results in higher staff costs for the Commonwealth.

• The lack of mandated training for foster care and adoptive parents makes it difficult to recruit and retain adequate numbers of individuals to adopt.

• Annual statewide training events are needed that include all partners involved in the adoption process, in order to share knowledge about adoption best practices and create collaborative relationships that will support the adoption process.

• The deficiencies in the state’s child welfare data system prevent localities from being able to monitor their own progress in achieving adoptions in a timely manner.

• The absence of regional child welfare data system trainers/technical support personnel denies localities the support needed to understand how to enter data correctly and use system reports to monitor their own progress towards adoption outcomes.

• The process for appealing termination of parental rights reduces the timely adoption of children and results in higher costs to the Commonwealth.

• Evidence-based and best practices known to expedite the adoption process are not practiced statewide due to the lack of resources necessary for implementation in all localities.

• Recent legislative changes in the 2006 General Assembly removed barriers to and increased options for, expediting adoptions of children not placed in the foster care system.

In order to address these findings, the workgroup makes the following recommendations to improve both public and private agencies’ ability to expedite adoptions:

1. Make the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court a court of record with direct appeal to the Court of Appeals in cases in which the goal of adoption has been approved for a child in foster care and termination of parental rights has been ordered over the objection of a parent. For these limited cases, the de novo appeal to the circuit court should be eliminated

2. Increase staff positions dedicated to adoption at the state and local levels.

3. Virginia should mandate adoption competency training for all foster care and adoption workers through statutory language similar to that which exists for mandated training for Child Protective Services workers.

4. Virginia should provide the fiscal resources necessary to fund at least a minimum number of required pre-service and in-service training hours for foster care and adoptive parents.

5. Virginia should fund an annual statewide adoption training conference that includes all partners involved in the adoption process.

6. Provide state funds through the Appropriations Act to supplement federal money used to fund post-adoption services.

7. Ensure the means to provide on-going monitoring and modifications of the State child welfare data system that will continue once the current system upgrades are complete.

8. Create five dedicated positions within the VDSS to provide statewide training and technical assistance to LDSS on the state child welfare data system.

Since the 1980’s, federal and state laws have been enacted to ensure that children placed in foster care do not live out their young lives in temporary homes or institutional living arrangements. The notions of safety, permanency and well-being for all children in foster care are the driving philosophy behind all child welfare practices today. Child welfare agencies and the courts are being asked to establish permanent homes for children in a more efficient and timelier fashion than ever before. The findings of this study highlight many of the challenges Virginia faces in increasing the timeliness of adoption for children for whom this goal is appropriate. The recommendations in this study are major steps towards meeting those challenges and increasing permanency for those children awaiting adoption in the Virginia child welfare system.