Adoption Steps in Right Direction

The welcome increase in the number of adoptions in Orange County in the past year is a tribute to more aggressive recruiting of adults willing to take children into their homes.

Despite the increase, the number of youngsters under 18 waiting to be adopted remains large. Many have special needs; they are the children who have the most difficulty finding new families.

In the last fiscal year, the number of county-sponsored adoptions rose from 260 to 374. However, that was still nearly 100 adoptions below the target the state set for the county.

The Orange County Grand Jury recently listed three primary stumbling blocks to increasing the number of adoptions: insufficient number of willing adults, the lack of a framework to decide which children should be removed from their parents, and too many delays by court personnel and social service workers.

Although county officials said some of the grand jury’s concerns were overstated, they do bear scrutiny. There are aspects of the process that can be improved and the county should take steps to do so.

To its credit, the county has expanded the staff that handles adoptions and has improved communications with private adoption agencies. The agencies previously had complained of being uncertain about the county’s criteria for placing children in new homes and the number of children available. An official of one private agency said some people went overseas to adopt children because they felt the county’s bureaucracy was too much of a labyrinth. Fortunately, the red tape has lessened.

One improvement has been offering more mental health services and counseling for troubled children. It is important to let prospective adoptive parents know that assistance is available when they experience trouble with children having special needs.

Orange County received $2.6 million in extra state funds in the last fiscal year to help pay for several dozen additional social workers detailed to the adoption program. The extra workers were a key reason for the increase in adoptions over the previous year.

Another reason was success in a county program to let foster parents adopt the children placed in their home if they are not returned to the birth parents. That spares a child a move to another house or to an institution and lessens the uncertainty for those wanting to become adoptive parents.

The county still emphasizes keeping families together as much as possible, which is the right approach. Sometimes men and women need only parenting classes or visits from social workers to learn how to cope with the added stress of having children in the house.

But when maintaining an intact family becomes impossible, caseworkers should make every effort to help find a permanent placement for a child, minimizing the time spent in emergency shelters and other institutions.