ABSTRACT

With the new federal mandate to double, by the year 2002, the number of children in foster care who are to be adopted or placed in permanent legal guardianships, it is essential for adoption agency staff and prospective families to learn which factors contribute to successful and unsuccessful placements. Dr. Ruth McRoy's informative guide, Special Needs Adoptions: Practice Issues outlines what formulates a successful match between adoptable children with special needs and their prospective parents, and how the current placements can be improved. Dr. McRoy recognizes the challenges of building families through adoptions and offers specific training suggestions for special needs adoptive families and agency workers in order to improve adoption outcomes for children. The book is based on a research project designed to identify special needs adoptions practice issues that contributed to intact, disruptive and dissolved adoptions by collecting data from adoption supervisors, post-adoption service providers, and actual case records of adoption placements. Based on the findings, the characteristics of children needing adoptive placement are described, practice issues such as matching children and parents are addressed, and transition planning is discussed. Further, controversial placement issues including foster parent adoptions, single parent adoptions, sibling placement and transracial adoptions are dealt with. Special Needs Adoptions is a rich, resourceful guide for all of the parties involved in a special need adoption: state and private adoption agency staff, post-adoption service providers, child welfare policy makers and researchers. Special Needs Adoptions is also a wonderful resource for adoptive parents or prospective parents considering special needs adoptions.