Adoption Surge, but Snags Too

The number of adoptions in Orange County has jumped 44% in the last year, and Mark Regel is one of the reasons why.

Regel and his wife, of Anaheim Hills, are in the process of adopting two young brothers with troubled pasts. The boys have been shuttled around to seven homes in the last few years. The emotional scars of all that moving sometimes lead them to lash out at the adoptive parents.

But the couple remain patient--and sympathetic.

“If you’ve been dragged through seven different homes, you’d be mad at the whole world,” Regel said during a Saturday morning group counseling session for adoptive parents. “The only people they have to direct their anger toward are the people taking care of them.”

Regel is one of the growing number of adults who are stepping up to the plate and adopting children--including “special needs” youngsters with histories of abuse and neglect.

Over the last fiscal year, the number of county-sponsored adoptions rose from 260 to 374.

But the news is not all good. The county lags behind a state target of 440 adoptions each year, a figure based on the number of social workers and a goal intended to put troubled children in loving homes more quickly.

And a recent Orange County Grand Jury criticized the county Social Services Agency’s pace in finding permanent homes for adoptees.

County officials expressed pride in the improvements, though some acknowledge that there is room for more.

The adoption surge has its roots in a wave of recent national and local laws that have provided more funding. The county Social Services Agency received an additional $2.64 million to facilitate more adoptions, and changes have followed:

* The county was able to expand the staff that handles adoptions by a third.

* Officials have reduced the time children spend in judicial limbo, waiting for the court to sever legal ties with abusive birth families.

* Caseworkers are making a concerted effort to keep children in homes instead of in emergency shelters and other institutions.

* The county has been aggressively recruiting adoptive parents. In three years, it has boosted the number of families approved to adopt by almost 92%, from 148 to 284, according to county statistics. Officials are now giving more consideration to adoptions by older families, single parents and gay couples.

In an effort to make adoption of troubled children as smooth as possible, the county is now offering more mental health services and counseling for those children.

Orange County actually contracts out many services to private adoption agencies, which can do the work faster because they have smaller caseloads and less red tape. Barbara Matthews, who manages adoption services for Orange County, said that system has made a big difference.

In the past, private agencies said they wanted to help the county place children but did not know how many families were needed or what the county’s acceptance criteria were. Some parents also complained that it took too long find a child, said Sharon Roszia, director of the private Kinship Center adoption agency in Santa Ana.

“There were families that were discouraged enough to drop out. Some went overseas because they didn’t want to deal with [the bureaucracy] of Orange County adoptions. But I think we’ve changed a lot of that,” Roszia said.

Despite the improvements, many officials say more should be done. Families often refuse to take children with troubled pasts, and the county still cannot find enough adoptive parents.

A recent grand jury report said that while the number of adoptions is on the rise, Orange County takes too long to place children in permanent homes and needs to improve its operations.

The report said an agency culture puts too much emphasis on reuniting families rather than finding a child a permanent home. The grand jury said the agency has dragged its feet in instituting state policies that place more emphasis on finding adoptive parents should the reunification efforts not work.

In response, officials in the county Social Services Agency agree that more adoptive parents are needed but said the report overestimates the problem. The officials added that it’s sometimes better to keep children with their biological parents.