O.C. Trying to Increase Foster Child Adoptions

Orange County has embraced a controversial policy that seeks to nearly double the number of adoptions over the next year while spending less time trying to reunite foster children with troubled parents.

The policy reflects the growing view of many social workers that children suffer from repeated and long-term institutionalization and are better off being placed immediately in permanent adoptive homes.

But it has also opened an emotional debate over how far officials should go in attempting to reunify families, leading some critics to suggest that the new rules make it too hard for even parents who are capable of caring for their children.

The adoption push is being driven in part by changes in state law as well as increases in federal funding, which the county will use to recruit adoptive parents and speed up the delay-filled adoption process.

The Social Services Agency has set an ambitious goal: increasing the number of adoptions from 241 last fiscal year to 468 this year.

At the same time, the agency has cut in half--from one year to six months--the time it spends trying to reunite parents with foster children younger than 3 years old.

In some cases involving parents with long histories of abuse or neglect, social workers and family law judges aren’t even bothering with reunification and are moving swiftly toward finding permanent homes for the children.

“There is certainly a belief there we’ve placed an overemphasis on reuniting families in the past and lost sight of the fact that children were growing older while all this was going on,” said Mary Harris, deputy director of children’s services. “The longer we wait, the harder it is to find them permanent homes.”

The stricter rules regarding reunification were developed by state lawmakers in response to several highly publicized cases involving children who were killed after being reunited with abusive parents.

They mark a significant departure for many social workers, who only a decade ago championed policies designed to keep families together and limit the amount of time that parents and children are separated. The so-called “family reunification” movement stressed programs like parent education aimed at helping adults better care for their children on their own.

Harris and other county officials said the adoption push should eventually provide some relief to the severely overcrowded Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s only emergency shelter for abused and neglected children. It should also help the county’s overburdened foster care system, they added.

To meet the ambitious goal of 468 adoptions, the county will focus special attention on older children, siblings, black and Latino youths and others considered more difficult to place.

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The effort has won praise from some children’s services organizations as well as some couples considering adoption who hope the changes will result in a fast, friendlier adoption process.

“From what I know of the system now, there is a lot of waiting that turns people off,” said Cindy Castro, an Anaheim computer operator who, with her husband, Luis, is considering adoption. “It would be great if they had more people around to answer questions and get through the red tape quicker.”

But others said the new policies place too much emphasis on adoption.

“I don’t think six months is enough time to make such an important determination,” said Tony Testa, president of Fathers United For Equal Justice, a group that helps fathers with custody and adoption cases. “When you are deciding whether a child is permanently taken from the natural parents, you want to have an intensive investigation, not a cursory one. They need to devote more time, not less.”

State laws that went into effect in January placed a variety of limits on family reunification, including shifting the burden of proof to parents to demonstrate that their children will not suffer if returned to them. The laws make it more difficult for parents with drug addictions or violent criminal records to regain custody of their children.

Juvenile Court judges are also given new powers to forgo family reunification efforts in cases involving parents who have abused or abandoned their children.

John Dodd, an adoption attorney based in Tustin, said he supports tougher rules for abusive parents but that the new laws place impossible barriers against those who are genuinely trying to be good parents. He said six months doesn’t provide enough time for parents to complete the drug classes and other requirements social workers place on them.

“Part of the problem is that some parents don’t seem to understand the seriousness of their own situation. It takes them a while to understand they could lose their child,” Dodd said. “You can’t give them forever, but I think it’s ridiculous to give them six months when drug programs take longer than that.”

The issue has divided officials in Los Angeles County, where social workers have expressed fears that the push for more adoptions leaves them with less time to carefully scrutinize each person who wants to adopt.

Despite the concerns, Orange County officials said the new policy will benefit children by moving them more quickly from foster care or emergency shelters to permanent adoptive homes.

“There has been a lot of feeling that the laws favor parents too strongly over protecting kids and providing them with permanent homes,” said Larry Leaman, head of the Social Services Agency. “Kids can be bounced through the system for years while parents are given chance after chance to show they are responsible.”

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Leaman said his office has received complaints for years from foster parents and relatives complaining that children were being reunited with unfit parents. Others have criticized the extreme measures taken to keep parents in contact with their children, including trips to prison for kids whose parents are incarcerated.

Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner, a former director of Orangewood, also endorsed the changes. “This is important because it will provide permanency to children whose lives are filled with uncertainty,” he said.

Adoption experts said the biggest challenge presented by the new initiative is finding enough adoptive parents to meet the demands in Orange County. Right now, for example, the Social Services Agency has 43 children legally free for adoption but only 23 prospective families.

The county will rely heavily on outside adoption agencies that specialize in placing black, Latino and emotionally troubled children.

One of the agencies, the Institute for Black Parenting, has found success by meeting potential parents at their homes, working evenings and weekends and waiving adoption fees.

“We try to work with families on their own turf rather than having them come into the office. We don’t even get busy until after 5 p.m.” said Zena Oglesby Jr., executive director of the Los Angeles-based group.

“Money alone won’t bring more adoptions,” he added. “We have to change the way we operate as a profession and become more user-friendly.”

County officials acknowledge that the prospective parents sometimes face long delays before interviewing with social workers but said the situation should improve as they hire 15 new workers.

“We’ve not always been able to work with people quick, and that has been a frustration to some people” interested in adopting, Harris said.

Castro said she was so confused about the process for public adoptions that she recently looked into gaining custody of an orphan from a foreign country. But she said she was encouraged by the impending changes.

“It would be nice to adopt locally where there is the real need,” she said.

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Homesbound

Orange County and other California counties are trying to increase the number of adoptions. Last year, the more than 8,000 California children in foster care waiting for homes were heavily minority and mostly younger than nine:

Ethnicity

Black: 37%

White: 35

Latino: 25

Asian: 3

Age

0-3 years: 25%

4-8: 43

9-11: 16

12-14: 9

15 and older: 7

Orange County adoptions in 1996: 241

Proposed for next year: 468

Legal Complications

New state laws have prompted the county’s Social Services Agency to spend less time trying to reunite children in foster care or emergency shelters with troubled parents. Here are some highlights of the new laws:

* Limits family unification services to no more than six months for children younger than 3; the limit was formerly one year.

* Allows juvenile courts and social workers to begin immediately searching for permanent adoptive homes for children who were removed from parents because of abuse, neglect or abandonment.

* Makes it harder for parents with drug addictions or violent criminal records to regain custody of children.

* Shifts burden of proof to parents in certain circumstances to demonstrate family reunification would be in best interests of children.

Sources: Orange County Social Services Agency, Times reports; Researched by SHELBY GRAD / Los Angeles Times