Agency Culture Impedes Negotiation of Adoption Assistance

Adoptive Parents as Applicants Rather Than Partners

I think that the culture of Ohio’s public children services agencies presents a formidable obstacle to the effective negotiation of adoption assistance with adoptive parents. The following observations are not based on scientific rigor, but on my interaction with adoptive families. So, see if they resonate and consider the source.

The Culture of Protective Services and Foster Care

On behalf of their protective services roles, county agencies set the terms for parent and child separation and reunification. The parent’s relationship with the agency is a dependent one. With respect to foster care, the agency holds legal custody, which relegates foster parents to a subordinate status when it comes to major decisions affecting the child.

The agency’s protective services and foster care responsibilities do little to prepare its representatives to engage adoptive parents as peers in a conscientious dialogue regarding the child’s need for future support. Adopting parents are not routinely treated as partners in a common effort to establish a healthy, permanent adoptive family for a child in need of one.

The Culture of Defined Benefits

Negotiation of adoption assistance is an unfamiliar and uncomfortable process for agency representatives, as well as for adopting parents. Except for adoption assistance, eligibility for a defined amount of financial assistance or service, such as SNAP, Medicaid or TANF is based on the applicant’s income and/or household size. Facts may be disputed, but negotiation of the amount of the benefit is no part of the process.

Ohio Agencies tend to fall back onto something resembling a “defined benefit,” by reducing adopting parents to “applicants.” Parents are asked to complete a form and an agency committee proposes an amount based on the information they receive. The form often does not address the parents’ primary reasons for seeking adoption assistance. Parents may disagree with the proposed payment amount, but there is often no established procedure for a detailed discussion with agency decision makers.

The treatment of adopting parents as “applicants” for a defined benefit is exacerbated by the fact that Ohio does not have statewide foster care and adoption assistance level of care categories or corresponding payment rates. From a policy standpoint, the negotiation of adoption assistance in Ohio involves the needs of a particular child and the circumstances of a specific adoptive family. The lack of guidance from the state contributes to Ohio County agencies tendency to employ an “applicant,” rather than a negotiation model.

Agency “Negotiators” Are Not Usually Decision Makers

Adoptive parents typically interact with agency staff persons who are not authorized to reach agreement for adoption assistance on their own initiative. This summer, I witnessed a very impressive counter example. A negotiation for an increases in adoption assistance payments for multiple children was deadlocked. The single parent felt obliged to quit a job because of the need to supervise the children had increased dramatically.

At the parent’s request, the Director of Franklin County Children Services agreed to engage in a detailed conversation about increases in adoption assistance payments that were acceptable to both parties. The good will brought to the negotiation by both parties resulted in a successful resolution, even the the amounts involved were substantial.