A New Series on the Negotiation of Adoption Assistance in Ohio, Part 4
Common Practices of Ohio's County Agencies
The following are some common county agency practices I have encountered through my contact with adoptive families engaged in negotiating adoption assistance agreements for their children.
The Agency Sends a Form to the Parents
Ohio agencies often begin the negotiation process by asking the parents to fill out a form and return it with the requested information.
What is wrong with that?
Collecting information seems like a promising way to begin negotiations. The question is, does the form begin negotiations or substitute for them? It should be mentioned that agencies should already have substantial information about a child who has been in foster care for two years or more. Here are some problems I have observed.
Special Needs - A number of forms focus primarily on identifying the child’s special needs condition(s). Special needs are obviously an important consideration, but not the only one. Ultimately, it is not sufficient merely to define the child’s special needs conditions, but to consider the programs and therapies needed to address them. Recall, that federal law on negotiating adoption assistance agreements uses the broader term “needs” instead of special needs.
Family Circumstances - In focusing on special needs, agency forms have often neglected identification of family circumstances. As we noted previously, family circumstances includes any situation that affects the parent’s capacity to meet their adopted child’s ordinary and special needs.
Here are a few examples.
• Leaving a job to meet a child’s extensive care needs.
• A single adoptive parent’s need for child care.
• Living on a fixed income.
• The number, ages and needs of other children in the home.
The overall goal of negotiating adoption assistance is to support the successful integration of a child into an adopted family. For that reason, federal law specifies that in negotiating adoption assistance, a child’s care needs be considered in light of the parent(s)’ circumstances..
Ohio’s county agencies are beginning to recognize the significance of “family circumstances” in the negotiation of adoption assistance. The state, however, has not provided direct training on what constitutes family circumstances. Adoptive families are well aware of particular situations in their lives that affect their ability to incorporate a child into a permanent family. With no statewide procedure in place, however, parents should take the initiative in insisting that their family circumstances should be an essential part of the negotiation.
When parents contact me about adoption assistance, they express concerns related to providing a permanent family for their child, which makes them consistent with the goals of federal law. Their reasons for seeking adoption assistance inevitably fall into the categories of their child’s needs or their family circumstances. Most parents have an intuitive grasp of the way the negotiation is supposed to proceed, but are often unaware of it. Approaching adoption assistance negotiation with the confidence that you are on the right track, does not guarantee success, as we will see, but it is an important step forward.
Neglecting to engage the adopting parents in an actual negotiation and discussion.
Completing a comprehensive form that identifies family circumstances as well as the child’s needs can be a solid first step to a discussion between agency representatives and the adopting parents. Unfortunately, completed forms have often been submitted to an internal agency committee that reviews the information and proposes an amount of adoption assistance without inviting the parents into a direct discussion.
Instead of using the form as an instrument to engage the parents in a substantial dialogue about how the child’s needs and parents’ circumstances warrant a particular amount of adoption assistance, committee deliberations often substitute for the direct discussion that is anticipated by federal law.
Interaction with an intermediary instead of a decision maker
Instead of communicating directly with an agency committee or other decision maker, adopting parents have often found themselves interacting with an agency representative who functions as an intermediary. As an intermediary, the agency staff person has little authority to actually negotiate an adoption assistance agreement with the adoptive parents. The practice of conveying adoption assistance proposals through an intermediary, instead of engaging in direct discussions with agency decision makers falls short of the negotiation anticipated in federal policy.
An Example
One member of an adoptive couple decides to quit her job in order to provide more extensive care for a child with behavioral and developmental problems. The parents complete an agency form and it is passed on to an agency committee. The committee responds with a proposal for an adoption assistance payment of $500, which is $700 below the child’s foster care payment rate. Through an intermediary, the committee states that the treatment for the child’s special needs is covered by Medicaid and the agency does not consider the personal choice to leave outside employment a valid factor in negotiating adoption assistance.
Comment: The agency has provided no opportunity for an actual negotiation. In addition, the committee has ignored the essential factor of the parents’ circumstances and its impact on the effective integration of the child into a permanent adoptive family.
And you are limited to the amount that the foster agency- local government paid you! My agency paid for childcare separate from the adoption subsidy, so I received only half when I adopted my foster child!
Thank you for the information.