Adoption Rises to Record Levels

A record 105 children were adopted last year in Ventura County, nearly double the 55 adopted in 2000 and 56 the previous year.

The increase was attributed to efforts by county social workers to encourage more foster parenting and subsequent adoption, combined with a change in federal adoption laws that has contributed to a rise nationwide, said Linda Henderson, deputy director of the county’s Children and Family Services Department.

A total of 18,000 more children were adopted across the country in 2001 than the previous year, said officials, who credit the federal Adoption and Safe Family Act of 1997 with making it easier for agencies to move children from foster care to permanent adoption.

In Ventura County, the department is reaching out to parents, especially Latinos, to encourage them to become licensed foster parents, the first step in adoption, said Robin Heins, lead social worker with the county agency. Nearly 52% of the 885 children in foster care in Ventura County are of Latino descent, but only 8% of foster families are Latino, officials said.

“We’re going in to small neighborhood communities and asking people to take care of the children in their communities, to literally take care of the kids on their own blocks,” Henderson said.

On top of that, Ventura County residents seem to be more willing than in years past to adopt children with special needs, which covers a majority of adoptable kids, Heins said. Any child over the age of 3 falls into this category, as well as ethnic minorities, those with physical disabilities or children whose biological parents are drug addicts.

“A lot of the credit has to go to the public and people adopting,” Heins said. “Seven years ago, people came in wanting to adopt infant Anglo kids with no health problems. But now they’re more aware about the kinds of children we have. They’re savvy. They know a 4-year-old needs a loving family just as much as a newborn does.”

The county has also been more aggressive in informing foster parents about state financial assistance available to those who adopt special needs children, including siblings and older children, Heins said. The payments are available until the child reaches age 18 and can cover such necessities as transportation to medical appointments. “Once they go into adoption-land, parents need financial assistance,” Heins said.

Another change making it easier for families to adopt is the portion of the 1997 federal law that limits the amount of time biological parents can take to regain custody of their children in foster care.

When a child younger than 3 enters foster care, parents have six months to overcome the problem that led them to lose custody, such as drug or alcohol abuse. Children older than 3 have to wait one year before a judge may legally sever the bond with their birth parents. Previously, the waiting period was up to 18 months for all children. In an effort to get children into permanent homes more quickly, the county uses a process that allows social workers to develop an adoption plan for each child in case reunification with the birth family does not work out, Henderson said.

“When we pick up a child out of a home, the emergency response worker who makes the initial pickup begins to plan not only what’s going to happen next but what’s going to happen two years from now for this child,” Henderson said.