Adoption Exchange Association Newsletter August 2009

The current economic climate has caused tremendous uncertainty. Foundation dollars have decreased as investments have lost value. Many corporations have reduced spending on anything considered to be outside of their core business, including philanthropic giving and cause-related marketing. Conference attendance is down. And cuts to state budgets are looming. In New York City alone, child welfare staff at the Administration for Children’s Services was reduced by 600 workers, or about 10%.

Despite this, children and families continue to need the services of Adoption Exchanges.
Permanent families for waiting children save lives. From a purely economic standpoint—which as social workers we do not often discuss—Adoptions Adoption Exchanges reduce costs to the child welfare system by helping to place children in permanent families. In the long run, the families we help to create have enormous cost savings across systems, keeping children out of the juvenile justice system, preventing future homelessness, and on and on.

Now is the time for us to be our most creative, to find new funding sources, convince others of the essential nature of our work, and create innovative partnerships. It is also the time for us to come together and speak out loudly about the importance of Adoption Exchanges and the essential nature of the work we do.

On our new ning.com site and in the next few months of newsletter, I will highlight member efforts and creative ideas about sustaining and funding programs. Please send me an email at rpratt@adoptea.org to let me know what you are doing. Or visit the ning.com site to get the conversation started.

In July, AEA launched its new members-only ning.com site. Premier members have begun using the site, and invitations will go out to every AEA member this week.
Ning.com is a social networking tool, much like Facebook or LinkedIn. AEA and its members can post photos and videos, create discussions and respond to other member posts, see upcoming events, download documents, and renew membership. What makes Ning.com different than other social networking sites—and perfect as an AEA members-only site—is that we can: 1) include a variety of content in many forms (video, photos, blogs and discussion groups); 2) restrict access to members only; and 3) customize the look and feel of the site more easily so it matches AEA’s logo and other branding.

The HRC Foundation’s All Children – All Families initiative has

released the 3rd edition of the Promising Practices Guide, a comprehensive, practical tool aimed to help adoption and foster care agency and adoption exchange organization leaders improve policies and practices that affect their work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prospective adoptive parents.

The 3rd edition includes updated information specific to adoption exchanges with leaders and staff members of three exchanges offering their tips, stories and insights on LGBT inclusive policy and practice. Also new in the 3rd edition: content related to transgender prospective parents, information on the All Children – All Families training curriculum and feedback from directors of three agencies that have earned the All Children – All Families Seal of Recognition.

AEA is proud to be collaborating with HRC to include changes in the guide that better reflect the work of Adoption Exchanges. Stay tuned. If you are interested in joining the group of members aready taking part in this work, email me at rpratt@adoptea.org and I will pass your name onto HRC.

Renew Your Membership in AEA

In this conference year, many new members have joined the Adoption Exchange Association. Join or renew now and you will be in terrific company!

Why should your organization become a member of the Adoption Exchange Association? As a member, YOU are the Adoption Exchange Association and have a voice in shaping the organization and how it serves you. All membership levels include features and assistance to help you run your organizations and get more children adopted.

News From AdoptUsKids - Kathy Ledesma
(re-printed from the Monday Morning Memo, week of July 27, 2009)

AdoptUsKids has some very exciting news to share! On July 20, 2009, our “odometer” turned over 11,000. No, not 11,000 miles, but 11,000 children. These are children (and youth!) who have been photolisted on the AdoptUsKids websites and have been placed into adoptive families.

While AdoptUsKids has the great honor and privilege of publicly announcing this wonderful news, it is the hard work of the dedicated staff of public child welfare agency staff, private agency staff and adoption exchange staff that we recognize and celebrate today. And it is the love and generosity of spirit of the wonderful families who have opened their homes and their hearts to these 11,000 children and youth that sends our hope soaring with this glorious announcement.

Dr. Ruth McRoy’s terrific staff worked hard last week and over the weekend so that we could share some details about the characteristics of the 11,000 adopted children and youth. During the nearly two years of our current cooperative agreement with the Children’s Bureau to operate AdoptUsKids, we have redoubled our efforts across the project to encourage and support placements of four categories of children: sibling groups, children of color who are over-represented in the child welfare system, teenagers, and interjurisdictional placements. While it may be premature, in order to begin to see if these efforts are having their intended effects, Dr. McRoy’s team did a separate analysis of the children placed since November 2008, when we reported 10,000 placed. Here are highlights:

Race/Ethnicity:

      ▪    Statistically significantly more children of multiple races (8%
          compared to 6%) were placed recently.

Child’s Age at Placement

Significantly more Hispanic children, non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander children, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native children, and non-Hispanic children of multiple races were recently placed. Additionally, significantly more children were placed as teenagers and more children were placed interjurisdictionally.
____

Without a doubt, some gains have been made, and without a doubt, there is still a lot of room to growth. Most notably, with the upcoming soft launch of the AdoptUsKids African-American National Recruitment Campaign at next week’s Children’s Bureau’s Agencies and Courts conference, we hope that we can make an even great impact on assisting States, Territories and Tribes in placing African American children and youth who need and deserve adoptive families.

1 Interjurisdictional placements were identified using a status of “placed out of state”. However because this status is not mutually exclusive with other placement status options and it is unclear whether professional users use the status in a standardized fashion, counts of the status “placed out of state” likely underestimate the true occurrence of interjurisdictional placements.

2 Because the status “placed out of state” is not mutually exclusive with other placement statuses and it is possible professional users fluctuate in their use of this status across time, the observed difference between the previously placed and more recently placed groups may be conflated by change in use of the status rather depicting a true difference in the number of interjurisdictional placements.

AdoptUsKids highlights the great work of caseworkers across the country, from a variety of agencies, backgrounds, and experience levels. Caseworkers are featured on www.adoptuskids.org and www.adopte1.org and a press release is sent to the local media in the caseworker’s own community. AdoptUsKids also provides a framed certificate to the awardee. If you know of caseworkers that are deserving of this award, please send the nomination (including the caseworker’s workers name, email address, agency affiliation) to Kate Kirkpatrick at kkirkpatrick@adoptuskids.org.


August 2009
In This Issue: Message from Rachel Pratt Ning.Com Now Available: HRC Foundation’s Promising Practices Guide 3rd Edition Renew Your Membership in AEA New From AdoptUsKids - Kathy Ledesma AdoptUsKids is Looking for Nominations for Caseworker of the Month In This Issue: Member Highlights	Message from Rachel Pratt The current economic climate has caused tremendous uncertainty. Foundation dollars have decreased as investments have lost value. Many corporations have reduced spending on anything considered to be outside of their core business, including philanthropic giving and cause-related marketing. Conference attendance is down. And cuts to state budgets are looming. In New York City alone, child welfare staff at the Administration for Children’s Services was reduced by 600 workers, or about 10%. Despite this, children and families continue to need the services of Adoption Exchanges. Permanent families for waiting children save lives. From a purely economic standpoint—which as social workers we do not often discuss—Adoptions Adoption Exchanges reduce costs to the child welfare system by helping to place children in permanent families. In the long run, the families we help to create have enormous cost savings across systems, keeping children out of the juvenile justice system, preventing future homelessness, and on and on. Now is the time for us to be our most creative, to find new funding sources, convince others of the essential nature of our work, and create innovative partnerships. It is also the time for us to come together and speak out loudly about the importance of Adoption Exchanges and the essential nature of the work we do. On our new ning.com site and in the next few months of newsletter, I will highlight member efforts and creative ideas about sustaining and funding programs. Please send me an email at rpratt@adoptea.org to let me know what you are doing. Or visit the ning.com site to get the conversation started. back to top Ning.Com In July, AEA launched its new members-only ning.com site. Premier members have begun using the site, and invitations will go out to every AEA member this week. Ning.com is a social networking tool, much like Facebook or LinkedIn. AEA and its members can post photos and videos, create discussions and respond to other member posts, see upcoming events, download documents, and renew membership. What makes Ning.com different than other social networking sites—and perfect as an AEA members-only site—is that we can: 1) include a variety of content in many forms (video, photos, blogs and discussion groups); 2) restrict access to members only; and 3) customize the look and feel of the site more easily so it matches AEA’s logo and other branding. When you receive your invitation, please log in. Bookmark the site and visit often—this is your site, a place for you to network with other Adoption Exchange professionals, ask questions, find out about innovative practices, and exchange ideas. back to top Now Available: HRC Foundation’s Promising Practices Guide 3rd Edition The HRC Foundation’s All Children – All Families initiative has released the 3rd edition of the Promising Practices Guide, a comprehensive, practical tool aimed to help adoption and foster care agency and adoption exchange organization leaders improve policies and practices that affect their work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prospective adoptive parents. The 3rd edition includes updated information specific to adoption exchanges with leaders and staff members of three exchanges offering their tips, stories and insights on LGBT inclusive policy and practice. Also new in the 3rd edition: content related to transgender prospective parents, information on the All Children – All Families training curriculum and feedback from directors of three agencies that have earned the All Children – All Families Seal of Recognition. AEA is proud to be collaborating with HRC to include changes in the guide that better reflect the work of Adoption Exchanges. Stay tuned. If you are interested in joining the group of members aready taking part in this work, email me at rpratt@adoptea.org and I will pass your name onto HRC. Download the All Children – All Families guide here: http://www.hrc.org/issues/parenting/adoptions/8941.htm back to top Renew Your Membership in AEA In this conference year, many new members have joined the Adoption Exchange Association. Join or renew now and you will be in terrific company! Why should your organization become a member of the Adoption Exchange Association? As a member, YOU are the Adoption Exchange Association and have a voice in shaping the organization and how it serves you. All membership levels include features and assistance to help you run your organizations and get more children adopted. Individual and Organization Membership Monthly electronic AEA newsletter sent to your home or office (printed version available if preferred) Ten copies per year of all new AEA and AdoptUsKids publications (new members receive copies of past publications as well) Your organization’s link on the membership page of the AEA website Discount registration for all AEA Conferences Opportunities to get out the word about your organizations through articles in the AEA newsletter The chance to participate in the planning of the AEA conference. Premier Membership All of the above plus: Your organization’s link on the home page of the AEA website The opportunity to enroll first in new organizational support features as they are developed, including shared purchasing and discount subscriptions—coming soon a new AEA website and an interactive ning.com site! back to top News From AdoptUsKids - Kathy Ledesma (re-printed from the Monday Morning Memo, week of July 27, 2009) AdoptUsKids has some very exciting news to share! On July 20, 2009, our “odometer” turned over 11,000. No, not 11,000 miles, but 11,000 children. These are children (and youth!) who have been photolisted on the AdoptUsKids websites and have been placed into adoptive families. While AdoptUsKids has the great honor and privilege of publicly announcing this wonderful news, it is the hard work of the dedicated staff of public child welfare agency staff, private agency staff and adoption exchange staff that we recognize and celebrate today. And it is the love and generosity of spirit of the wonderful families who have opened their homes and their hearts to these 11,000 children and youth that sends our hope soaring with this glorious announcement. Dr. Ruth McRoy’s terrific staff worked hard last week and over the weekend so that we could share some details about the characteristics of the 11,000 adopted children and youth. During the nearly two years of our current cooperative agreement with the Children’s Bureau to operate AdoptUsKids, we have redoubled our efforts across the project to encourage and support placements of four categories of children: sibling groups, children of color who are over-represented in the child welfare system, teenagers, and interjurisdictional placements. While it may be premature, in order to begin to see if these efforts are having their intended effects, Dr. McRoy’s team did a separate analysis of the children placed since November 2008, when we reported 10,000 placed. Here are highlights: *Race/Ethnicity:* Ethnicity differed significantly between the two groups. More non-Hispanic children (92% compared to 86%) and fewer Hispanic children (8% compared to 14%) were recently placed. Of the recently placed 92% who are non-Hispanic: ▪ Of all single race children Fewer African American or Black children (38% to 40%) were recently placed, however this proportionate decrease was not statistically significant. More Caucasian or White children (41% to 39%) were recently placed, however this proportionate increase was not statistically significant. Statistically significantly more American Indian or Alaska Native children (4% to 2%) were recently placed. More Asian children (<1% in both groups, but slight increase) were recently placed, however this proportionate increase was not statistically significant Statistically significantly more Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander children (0% to <1%) were recently placed. ▪ Statistically significantly more children of multiple races (8% compared to 6%) were placed recently. *Child’s Age at Placement* Children placed more recently were slightly older (mean of 10.85 years of age compared to 10.67); however, no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups by child’s age at placement. More teenagers (ages 13-17) were recently placed (35% compared to 30%). This difference was statistically significant. *Interjurisdictional Placements* The percentage of interjurisdictional placements1 differed significantly between the two groups2. Six percent of the most recent placed children were placed interjurisdictionally, compared to 3% in the comparison group. *Siblings Placed Together* Fewer children (42% compared to 44%) were recently placed in sibling groups of two or more [where both the record of the sibling group as well as the individual children’s records indicates placed statuses]. Summary of Statistically Significant Differences Significantly more Hispanic children, non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander children, non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native children, and non-Hispanic children of multiple races were recently placed. Additionally, significantly more children were placed as teenagers and more children were placed interjurisdictionally. ____ Without a doubt, some gains have been made, and without a doubt, there is still a lot of room to growth. Most notably, with the upcoming soft launch of the AdoptUsKids African-American National Recruitment Campaign at next week’s Children’s Bureau’s Agencies and Courts conference, we hope that we can make an even great impact on assisting States, Territories and Tribes in placing African American children and youth who need and deserve adoptive families. _________________________________________________________________ 1 Interjurisdictional placements were identified using a status of “placed out of state”. However because this status is not mutually exclusive with other placement status options and it is unclear whether professional users use the status in a standardized fashion, counts of the status “placed out of state” likely underestimate the true occurrence of interjurisdictional placements. 2 Because the status “placed out of state” is not mutually exclusive with other placement statuses and it is possible professional users fluctuate in their use of this status across time, the observed difference between the previously placed and more recently placed groups may be conflated by change in use of the status rather depicting a true difference in the number of interjurisdictional placements. back to top AdoptUsKids is Looking for Nominations for Caseworker of the Month AdoptUsKids highlights the great work of caseworkers across the country, from a variety of agencies, backgrounds, and experience levels. Caseworkers are featured on www.adoptuskids.org and www.adopte1.org and a press release is sent to the local media in the caseworker’s own community. AdoptUsKids also provides a framed certificate to the awardee. If you know of caseworkers that are deserving of this award, please send the nomination (including the caseworker’s workers name, email address, agency affiliation) to Kate Kirkpatrick at kkirkpatrick@adoptuskids.org. back to top
Our Mission
Because all children need families, the Adoption Exchange Association serves its members by stimulating innovative solutions, eliminating barriers, advocating, educating, and sharing excellent practice. Our central goal is to assist and encourage our members nationwide as they find adoptive families for all children and youth who wait in foster care.
	Member News Member Highlights NACAC will hold its 35th Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio from August 13-15, 2009. the theme of this year’s conference is Family Connections: Roots of Success. To find out more, visit the NACA website at www.nacac.org. Three Rivers Adoption Council will hold a two-day conference on diversity, November 5-6 in Monroesville, PA. The conference is intended for professionals from child welfare, juvenile justice, education, medical and mental health fields. For more information, jthye@3riversadopt.org or call 412-471-8722 ext. 214 Make sure AEA is on your mailing list so that all members can hear about your upcoming events, promising practices, and successes. back to top
Adoption Exchange Association \| 8015 Corporate Drive, Suite C \| Baltimore, MD 21236 \| 410.933.5700 \| www.adoptea.org
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