Adoptive and Foster Families Need Support

By Sarah Gerstenzang, MSW          Photograph by Lars Plougmann

When a little boy was sent back to Russia by his American adoptive mother recently, many people were incredulous and outraged.  My own 10-year old daughter commented, "She doesn't seem like a very good mother."  Although the vast majority of adoptions (whether private infant adoptions or through the United States or international child welfare systems) work out well - with parents who enjoy their children and children who grow up into happy, functioning adults - some adoptive parents run into overwhelming problems parenting their children. 

The research tells us that children who were exposed to alcohol in utero, abuse and neglect, lived in orphanages, and were adopted at older ages are more likely to need help.  Parents tell us that they need help with their children's emotional challenges, which usually manifest themselves as behavioral problems.  Sometimes parents get so overwhelmed by children who have trouble in school, lie, steal, abuse drugs and/or alcohol, act in sexually inappropriate ways, or are violent that they reach their breaking point and place their children into foster care.  Adoptive parents adopt because they want to parent a child - when their family falls apart, it is a tragic loss for an already traumatized child and a painful (and humiliating) loss for the parents and remaining siblings.

No one understands what we face as adoptive parents.We are often ridiculed and treated as the "bad guy" rather than our child receiving the much needed help.*

Placing a child into foster care isn't always a willing choice.  In New York State, when a child needs temporary institutional care (generally at a cost of $80,000/year or more) because they are likely to hurt themselves or others and a parent can't afford the services privately, the Office of Children and Family Services requires that the child be placed in foster care as a condition to receiving help.  This further damages the relationship between the parent and child, and costs the State even more money as they pay for administrative and court costs associated with foster care.

In the last few decades, we have learned a lot about how to help families - specialized therapists can help the parents and child develop a bond and teach the parents to deal with challenging behaviors in a constructive, healing way.  Support groups can give parents perspective and advice from parents who have been there.  Many states have implemented services for families.  Ohio, for example, provides $10,000 annually so that the parents of a child who has been adopted can pay for therapy.  Connecticut maintains a statewide hotline number that adoptive parents can call for support, an evaluation of their needs and referrals for services.  Other states, such as New York, have yet to provide statewide services -- even though we know that hundreds of children enter foster care in New York each year after adoption, torn once again from a family, and facing even more dismal prospects for a happy and functional future.  It is estimated that not providing post adoption services costs the State millions of dollars and discourages prospective adoptive parents from making the commitment to adopt children who are waiting in foster care because they don't want to do it alone.

* A quote from an adoptive parent in a recent survey by the NYS Citizens' Coalition of Children of post adoption services needs of parents and professionals in New York State.

Sarah Gerstenzang, MSW is the Executive Director, NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children

Photograph by Lars Plougmann