Mediation and Retroactive Payments

Mediation Over An Increase in Adoption Assistance

Adoptive parents engaged in mediation over an increase in adoption assistance, can propose that the agreed upon amount be extended retroactively to the date they requested the increase. I recommend that adoptive parents consider it.

A Parent’s Initiative

A few weeks ago, I sat in on a mediation involving the request for, and negotiation of, an increase in the child’s monthly adoption assistance. After settling on an amount, the parent succeeded in negotiating an agreement specifying the start date of the increased payments would be retroactive to the initial request she submitted several months earlier. In short, instead of the increased assistance beginning in October, 2024, the effective date would be February 13, 2024, the date she first contacted the county agency about negotiating an amendment to her child’s adoption assistance agreement.

I was surprised by this development. The parent accomplished this part of the agreement on her own initiative. The more I thought about, the more it appeared to provide another possible option for adoptive parents who were seeking an increase in their children’s adoption assistance.

County agencies have little incentive to reach a quick agreement when contacted about increasing a child’s adoption assistance. Consequently, the process of negotiating an increase in adoption assistance often drags on for months.

The possibility of retroactive increases in adoption assistance payments applies primarily to finalized adoptions. Since most Ohio foster children are adopted by their foster parents, the parents can rely on the child’s foster care payments while an initial adoption assistance agreement is being negotiated. Foster care payments are almost always higher than the child’s adoption assistance payments. Only adults who are not adopting their foster children could benefit by proposing that the date of the initial adoption assistance agreement correspond to the date of application.

The Effective Date of Any Amended Adoption Assistance Agreement

Federal law specifies that the initial or amended adoption assistance agreement establishes the adoption assistance payment. Therefore, it seems to me that any mediated agreement including retroactive as well as future increases in adoption assistance payments, must have a retroactive effective date as well.

For example, if a mediated agreement includes additional adoption assistance payments back to February 3, the date of the adoptive parents’ initial request for an increase, the effective date of the mediated agreement should be February 3. If the effective date of the amended agreement is the date of the mediation, no retroactive payments would be eligible for federal funding.