A Request to Readers and Information on the Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS)
Please Send Me Your Policy and Practical Negotiation Questions
NOTE: I would like to post some of your phone and e-mail inquiries so others with similar questions can see them. In posting my responses, I will maintain the confidentiality of the person making the inquiry. I will also omit identifying information pertaining to the adoptive parents, attorney, advocate, agency representative, public or private agency.
There are weeks when I don’t have much to say, believe it or not. Adding policy and how to proceed practical inquiries about eligibility for adoption assistance or negotiation of adoption assistance would helpfully promote a wider dialogue among Ohio families.
A Few Follow-up Remarks About Adoption Related Information in the Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS)
In our March 28 post, “Adoptions Interrupted by the Child's Return to Foster Care,” I summarized the results of a USA Today investigation on adopted children returning to foster care. The portion of the USA Today study we discussed compiled data from 16 states that tracked interruptions in adoptive families. The story’s primary authors Aleszu Bajak and Marissa Kwiatkowski, found that the remaining 36 states did not adequately track adopted children’s returns to foster care. such information did not appear on the semi-annual reports issued by the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS), which relies on information submitted by the individual states.
In an April 18, 2023 follow-up article, “Broken adoptions, buried records: How states are failing adoptees,” Bajak and Kwiatkowski noted that states often changed a child’s ID when he or she is adopted. As a consequence, they could not track the child’s journey from foster care to adoption and back.
On May 12, 2020, the federal Administration for Children and Families finalized Federal Rule (FR) 28410 that greatly expanded the foster care and adoption data elements states would be required to collect and submit to AFCARS. The information to be reported included the following items pertaining to the child’s out of home care history.
Specific types of special needs conditions
Prior Adoption
Prior Adoption Date
Type of Adoption Assistance Agreement (IV-E, Non-Recurring Expenses, State adoption Subsidy, IV-E Guardianship Agreement, state/tribal guardianship agreement, no agreement)
Adoption Agreement or Guardianship agreement amount (per diem during the last month before the reporting period).
This information, along with a host of other data elements, would enable parents, professionals and advocates to track adoptee children’s returns to foster care, and to examine crucial facts about adoption and adoption assistance in Ohio compared with other states and the country as a whole.
In accordance with the federal rule, the first submission of the expanded information to AFCARS by the individual states was due by May 15, 2023. But, the most recently published AFCARS Report, Number 30, which contains data for Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2022, notes that a number of states are still behind in developing the capacity to submit the vastly more comprehensive report required by the 2020 federal rule changes. As a consequence, AFCARS Report Number 30 and the individual state reports do not contain any of the data elements cited above. Hopefully, the vastly more comprehensive reporting on Foster Care and Adoptions will become available sooner rather than later.
For readers interested in existing data on AFCARS reports, click on TAR for AFCARS National Reports and State TARS, for individual states, including Ohio.