Providing for the best interests of the child?: The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997

Applied Developmental Psychology 25 (2004) 523 – 539

Providing for the best interests of the child?: The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 Emily Kernan, Jennifer E. Lansford* Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Box 90545, Durham, NC 27708-0545, United States

Abstract The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) was passed to increase rates of adoptions and other permanent placements for children in foster care. Through acceleration of timelines for terminating the rights of biological parents and for developing permanency plans, ASFA has the potential to reduce the length of time children spend in foster care as well as the number of disruptions in placements they experience there, yet still promotes reunification when this can be accomplished expeditiously and safely. Developmental research suggests that foster care often results in better outcomes for children than does reunification with their biological families but that adoption often leads to better outcomes than does foster care. These findings indicate that the overall goals outlined in ASFA are appropriate and likely serve the best interests of many children; however, a number of problems with the child welfare system remain. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Adoption; ASFA; Child well-being; Foster care; Family reunification

1. Introduction The primary goal of this report is to review scientific research on developmental outcomes associated with foster care. Foster care is compared to adoption and to reunification with biological parents in order to address the questions of whether the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) provides for the best interests of children and if not, what can be done to ensure that the needs of children are adequately met. Each year, approximately 3 million children are referred to local child protective service agencies as

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 919 613 7319; fax: +1 919 681 1533. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.E. Lansford). 0193-3973/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2004.08.003

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possible victims of physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001a, 2001b). For a subset of these children, reports of maltreatment are substantiated upon investigation, and of these, 21% are subsequently placed in foster care (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001a, 2001b). Each year, more than 800,000 children spend time in foster care (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). The foster care population is heterogeneous with respect to a number of characteristics, including the length of time children remain in foster care and the number of different placements they experience while there, as well as their age, ethnicity, and health status (see Barbell & Freundlich, 2001, for a review). Not only is today’s foster care population heterogeneous, this population also differs from the foster care populations of previous decades. In particular, over time, children in foster care have become more problematic as a group in terms of having physical, developmental, and emotional difficulties (Barbell & Freundlich, 2001; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1998). Foster care provides a crucial service to children whose biological families cannot provide safe homes for them. However, despite the necessary refuge that foster care offers, it is designed to be a temporary solution for these children. Unfortunately, children sometimes become inextricably involved in the child welfare system, staying in foster care for years and experiencing numerous placements (see Wulczyn, Hislop, & Goerge, 2000, for a review of placement dynamics). These children often enter foster care with considerable behavioral, emotional, educational, and health problems, and as a result of their histories of maltreatment, poverty, and/or parental psychopathology, many are in danger of suffering further problems (Horwitz, Balestracci, & Simms, 2001). In fact, merely entering foster care and experiencing its concomitant requirements of forming new relationships and attachments and separating from biological parents may lead to additional problems for these vulnerable children (Orme & Buehler, 2001). In a study that highlights the hazards of long-term foster care, Newton, Litrownik, and Landsverk (2000) followed 415 youth in foster care over a 12-month period. They examined whether problem behaviors displayed by the youth predated their entry into foster care and would have persisted regardless of whether the youth were in foster care, or whether early problems were exacerbated or ameliorated by placement and disruptions in foster care. Their study provides evidence that behavior problems are both a cause and consequence of placement disruptions. Initial externalizing problems were the strongest predictor of placement disruptions in foster care (Newton et al., 2000); placement disruptions, in turn, have been associated with negative outcomes for foster children in both the short and long term (Palmer, 1996). Even for children who initially scored within normal ranges on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991), number of placements predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing problems (Newton et al., 2000). Thus, although children who had high levels of behavior problems before entering foster care were the most likely to experience disruptions in their foster care placements, multiple placements themselves contributed to increases in behavior problems regardless of children’s initial levels of behavior problems. Taken together, this body of research suggests that although foster care can be beneficial as a temporary asylum, it may lead to developmental problems if a child is forced to move many times while in foster care. Although we recognize the importance of kinship care and institutional care as alternative placement options for those children who cannot remain with their biological parents, consideration of these types of care is beyond the scope of this report (but see Barth, 2001; Berrick, 1997; Ehrle & Geen, 2002; Shore, Sim, LeProhn, & Keller, 2002). We begin with a brief overview of the history leading up to ASFA, outline its major provisions, evaluate how research on child development can inform our

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understanding of whether these provisions serve the best interests of children, and then suggest policyoriented directions for future research. We present preliminary evidence on the effects of ASFA itself when such evidence is available. However, we primarily draw on studies conducted prior to the enactment of ASFA to inform understanding of whether reunification, adoption, or remaining in foster care is likely to be in the best interests of the child because data collected after the enactment of ASFA are not extensive enough to address these issues adequately. Thus, this paper primarily addresses the issue of whether the provisions outlined in ASFA are a good idea rather than the issue of how well ASFA is working. Although ASFA was enacted several years ago, we believe that this focus is warranted for three main reasons: (a) ASFA continues to be the main legislation related to foster care, reunification, and adoption today; (b) preliminary data on the effects of ASFA are just now becoming available (e.g., U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002); and (c) evaluating ASFA in this manner may provide a useful framework within which to consider future child welfare legislation.

2. The 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act Although most people would agree that protecting children from harm is an imperative goal, arguments arise as to the best way to protect and serve children who have experienced unsafe living conditions (Schuerman, 1997). Fein (1991) summarizes the core dilemma: bThe removal of youngsters too readily subjects them and their families to the trauma of separation; hesitation may result in irreparable harmQ (p. 581). Accordingly, policies and practices regarding child welfare have oscillated between family preservation/reunification and child removal/termination of parental rights (O’Laughlin, 1998). During the 1970s, policymakers became concerned that many children were being removed from their homes hastily and without real reason and then were moved in and out of foster care placements, with inadequate effort being made to find permanent and stable homes for them. Congress passed the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act with the goals of reducing both the number of children in foster care and the average amount of time children spend there, while also increasing permanent placements (Taussig, Clyman, & Landsverk, 2001). The new law called attention to the importance of developing permanency plans for children entering foster care (Fein, 1991). Reflecting a concern that children should stay with their biological parents if it is possible and safe for them to do so, the 1980 Act also required that states use breasonable effortsQ to prevent removal of children from their homes and to reunify families experiencing child removal. Goals of biological family preservation characterized this era. The 1980 law led to an initial dramatic decline in the number of children in foster care, the rate at which they were placed in foster care, and the duration of foster care they experienced. However, by the middle of the decade, the number of children in foster care began to rise again (Taussig et al., 2001), reflecting not only changes in child welfare policy but also other societal changes, such as an increasing proportion of nonmarital teenage births (e.g., Coley & Chase-Lansdale, 1998) and an increasing number of mothers using illicit drugs, such as crack cocaine (e.g., Freundlich, 2000). In 1982, 262,000 children were in foster care, and by 1996, this number had risen to 507,000, with 725,000 receiving services from the foster care system during that year (Tatara, 1998). Even with the 1980 Act in place, many children remained in foster care for prolonged periods, often being transferred from one home or institution to another. The 1980 Act allowed states 18 months to implement permanency hearings, and many children in foster care were waiting to be adopted but were not eligible for adoptive placements because termination of parental rights hearings were delayed as states attempted to adhere to the breasonable effortsQ

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requirement. The best interests of the child were sometimes ignored because it was assumed that reunification with the biological family represented the optimal solution. In reality, many children who were reunited with their families returned to foster care shortly thereafter (Children’s Defense Fund, 2002). Mech (1988) reported that almost one-third of children entering foster care in 1985 had previously been in foster care. Additionally, many studies investigated the stability of foster care and found rates of disrupted placements to be between 40% and 60% (Staff & Fein, 1995). Although reunification is still the preferred option, there has been a shift toward placement of children in permanent, adoptive families when reunification cannot be accomplished expeditiously and safely.

3. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 In 1996, President Clinton worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to create a format for future federal actions aimed at increasing permanency planning efforts for children receiving services from the child welfare system. This plan became known as the Adoption 2002 Initiative because of its goal to double the number of adoptions and other permanent placements by 2002 (Administration for Children and Families, 2001). The following year, in an effort to work toward realization of this ambition, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), which was intended to revise and improve the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act. President Clinton hoped that ASFA would enhance the safety and well-being of children by mandating timely placement of foster children into safe, stable, and permanent homes while also facilitating family reunification when appropriate and feasible (Children’s Defense Fund, 2002). The Act sought to achieve these goals through a number of provisions, including (1) adoption incentive payments for states that surpass the average number of adoptions of foster children that had been completed during an established base period; (2) accelerated timelines for both termination of parental rights and permanency planning hearings, restating that the safety of the child must be the dominant concern during case planning; and (3) a clarification of the breasonable effortsQ provision of the 1980 Act to identify especially severe circumstances in which states should not strive to prevent child removal or to reunify the family1 (Child Welfare League of America, 2000; Welte, 1997). The Adoption and Safe Families Act received bipartisan support, which President Clinton (1997) attributed to the desire of everyone involved to bmeet the needs of children at risk. We put our differences aside and put our children first.Q Many endorse the Act and its emphasis on adoption, believing it will lead to more children being adopted and thus experiencing permanent and stable home environments. Others endorse the Act on the grounds that it places children’s needs, rather than the parents’ needs, as the main concern of the juvenile court system (Lederman & Osofsky, 2004). The most obvious expected result of the Act, predicted by numerous child welfare experts, was a significant increase in the number of children in foster care made eligible for adoption through termination of parental rights (Lindsey, 2001). Although little research has examined the effects of 1

If the child has suffered baggravated circumstancesQ according to state law (e.g., torture, chronic abuse, sexual abuse, etc.); if the parent has committed, attempted, or aided murder or manslaughter of another of his/her children or committed a felony that seriously physically harmed the child under consideration or one of his/her other children; or if the parent has had his/her rights to another of his/her children terminated. In any of these cases, the permanency planning hearing must be held within 30 days, and the state must make breasonable effortsQ to place the child permanently.

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ASFA, one preliminary analysis reported that several states began acting in response to the mandated timelines for filing termination of parental rights petitions almost immediately after ASFA was passed by initiating such proceedings for children who were in foster care at the time of ASFA’s enactment. In over one-third of the cases examined, states had commenced termination of parental rights proceedings (Fagnoni, 1999). Although factors in addition to ASFA may also play a role, it is striking that the number of adoptions from foster care increased from 31,004 in 1997 to 48,680 in 2000, representing a 57% increase since the enactment of ASFA (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). The proportion of children who exited foster care to an adoptive home also increased from approximately 12% between 1990 and 1997 to approximately 16% by 2000 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001a, 2001b; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002); however, the proportion of children who became eligible for adoption increased more than did the proportion of children who were actually adopted (see Smith, 2003). Nevertheless, children leaving foster care are still much more likely to be reunified with their biological parents than to be adopted (e.g., 55% reunified versus 16% adopted in 2000; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). Despite bipartisan support, as well as endorsement by advocates of adoption, not everyone is in favor of ASFA, and many point to serious concerns about the repercussions of the Act. Hollingsworth (2000) offers cautionary comments regarding the move to increase adoptions from foster care. In particular, she is concerned that ASFA may unduly penalize single parents and those in poverty and that the financial incentives favoring adoption may bias placement decisions in that direction, even if reunification with biological parents would be in the best interests of the child. Kemp and Bodonyi (2000) raise concerns that funding services related to both family preservation and adoption from the same pool of money creates dilemmas for service providers because resources devoted to one of these efforts will reduce resources available to devote to the other. Additionally, Fagnoni (1999) found that in 60% of the cases examined, terminating the rights of biological parents to make adoption possible would not be an appropriate solution for the children because they were older and did not want to be adopted, were in the care of relatives, were juvenile delinquents, or had a permanency goal other than adoption. Therefore, Fagnoni concluded that foster children will remain significant in number. If the move to adoption is too fast, this may promote a bias toward adoptions in situations in which that is an inappropriate goal, and adoptive parents may not be prepared adequately. In addition, Orme and Buehler (2001) argue that by hastening reunification or adoption of most children, those who end up in long-term foster care will become progressively more challenging as a group. This change in the foster care population may occur as a result of the success of ASFA. That is, the children who are most likely to be adopted are those who are infants, better adjusted, and have fewer disabilities, leaving those children who are harder to care for in foster care. As a result, foster families may be placed under augmented stress regarding the types of care that they must supply. It is important to plan for serving this changing foster care population, recognizing that some aspects of foster care contribute to difficulties for children (e.g., Newton et al., 2000). These are clearly legitimate concerns about ASFA, and there is a great deal of debate about the extent to which these issues are problematic. For example, in contrast to the concerns outlined above, Wulczyn (2004) argues that there is little evidence that ASFA has unduly set aside the rights of biological parents and that the policy still emphasizes a strong preference for reunifying children with their biological parents. Wulczyn goes on to describe that the limited available research on concurrent planning for adoption and reunification suggests that such concurrent planning has helped expedite children’s permanent placements. Indeed, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office (2002) evaluation of

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ASFA, rates of both reunification and adoption have increased in the post-ASFA era. Wulczyn states that proponents of concurrent planning have suggested training of social workers, careful implementation, and communication among the parties involved as means to alleviate the concern that biological parents would be disadvantaged by concurrent planning. However, a main focus of ASFA is on what is best for the child, not the parent. Perhaps the most important concern is that biological parents’ rights will be terminated without an adoptive placement for the child, leaving the child with no legal ties to biological or adoptive parents (Smith & Young, 2003). Indeed, in one study that followed children who became eligible for adoption in October 1997, 65% of the children were still in foster care one year after the termination of their biological parents’ rights (Smith, 2003). The children who remained in foster care were older, more likely to be ethnic minorities, had more previous placements, and had been in foster care longer than were those children who were discharged from foster care within a year of the termination of their biological parents’ rights (Smith, 2003). The high proportion of children eligible to be adopted who remained in foster care was a function both of the shortage of potential adoptive parents and characteristics of the children that made them more difficult to place in adoptive homes. A future challenge will be to determine ways to make ASFA work better for these children. Three years after the enactment of ASFA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2000) issued a report stating that 547,000 children were in foster care in the United States. This represents an increase of 35% since 1990 and of 125% since 1982. These trends must be considered not only in light of ASFA but also in the context of other policy and social changes occurring over this time period. For example, with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, welfare was reformed in several ways that may affect the foster care system (see Paxson & Waldfogel, 2003, for a review). In particular, Paxson and Waldfogel (2003) concluded that bEvidence strongly indicates that reductions in states’ welfare benefit levels increase the number of children in out-of-home care, and some evidence indicates that strict lifetime welfare limits and tougher sanctions for noncompliance are related to higher levels of substantiated maltreatmentQ (p. 85). In addition, work requirements under the new welfare legislation often conflict with reunification requirements, such as visiting children in foster care and attending court hearings (Geen, 2002). Thus, although we focus on ASFA in this report, it is important to bear in mind the broader policy and social contexts in which this legislation is situated. In summary, ASFA has raised serious questions and apprehensions regarding the antecedents and consequences of foster care, reunification, adoption, and other placements for children. These issues are important in determining the implications of the 1997 Act, but are even more important in discerning the steps that should be taken next by policymakers and practitioners. Although the post-ASFA data available to date are too limited to draw firm conclusions regarding how well ASFA is serving the best interests of children (Wulczyn, 2002), pre-ASFA data are able to suggest whether the provisions outlined in ASFA are good ideas in terms of fostering children’s well-being.

4. Developmental research To evaluate whether the provisions of ASFA promote the best interests of the child, there are two central questions to address: (1) How does the adjustment of children in long-term foster care compare to the adjustment of children who are reunified with their biological parents? (2) If children are not reunified with their biological parents, does adoption promote better adjustment than does long-term

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foster care? Several studies help address these questions, but before turning to the studies themselves, we should note several limitations with this body of research. First, addressing the questions outlined above raises the issue of appropriate comparison groups. For example, how similar are the experiences of families adopting children from foster care and those adopting children who have not been in foster care, and how does this relate to the adjustment of children in these types of families? Decisions about comparison groups may determine whether children in foster care fare better, worse, or about the same as children in other types of families (see Ceballo, Lansford, Abbey, & Stewart, 2003). Furthermore, because the population of children in foster care has become more problematic over time, with children in foster care today experiencing more physical, developmental, and emotional difficulties than children in previous decades (Barbell & Freundlich, 2001), comparisons of research findings across time should be interpreted with caution. Second, research on effects of foster care compared to effects of reunification with biological parents or adoption is still in its preliminary stages. Many studies have relied on data from small, nonrepresentative samples, limiting the generalizability of results. Appropriate controls, especially regarding the experiences and problems of children prior to placement in foster care, have not always been included. Furthermore, few longitudinal studies have prospectively tracked the developmental trajectories of children in different family placements over long periods of time. Because research on foster care has often been shaped more by policy than by developmental theory, results have tended to be aggregated across children of all ages and those who have been in foster care for varying lengths of time. Importantly, children are not removed randomly from their homes, are not placed randomly in specific foster homes, and are not selected randomly for reunification or adoption. This lack of randomization leads to interpretive problems when one attempts to compare the outcomes of different groups of children. Furthermore, as with any experience, a child’s individual characteristics (e.g., temperament, special needs) will shape whether reunification with biological parents, long-term foster care, or adoption will ultimately be best for that child. Finally, most research relevant to addressing these questions was conducted prior to the enactment of ASFA. Because ASFA changed the context of foster care, it is unclear to what extent similar results would be found in the post-ASFA era. Because of the limitations posed by small sample sizes, differences in the foster care population over time, selection biases, and changes in the foster care context, conclusions drawn from the research described below must necessarily be tentative. However, converging evidence from the available research provides a framework within which to understand whether the provisions of ASFA are likely to be in the best interests of children. 4.1. Reunification with biological parents and reentry into foster care Several studies conducted prior to the enactment of ASFA reveal equivalent or enhanced developmental outcomes on measures, such as behavioral adjustment, self-esteem, and school achievement, for children who remain in foster care compared to children who leave foster care to be reunified with their biological parents (e.g., Maluccio & Fein, 1985). For example, early work suggested that children who remained in foster care had more gains in intelligence scores (Fanshel & Shinn, 1978) and higher overall well-being (Lahti, 1982) than did children who were reunified with their biological parents, but these studies did not control for children’s adjustment when they entered foster care. In a study of 79,139 children who entered foster care in California at least once after 1988, Jonson-Reid and Barth (2000) found that for African American and Hispanic children (but not European American

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children), reunification after their initial placement in foster care more than doubled their risk of later incarceration for the most serious juvenile offenders. The authors speculated that one reason for this negative effect of reunification may be that reunification often involves a return to a highly troubled environment, which may bdramatically reduce the resources available to these children as compared to those who remain in the foster care system outside highly impoverished areasQ (Jonson-Reid & Barth, 2000, p. 508). In a seminal longitudinal study, Taussig et al. (2001) compared long-term outcomes for foster children who had reunified with their biological parents with long-term outcomes for those who had not. The researchers evaluated 214 children who had been removed from their homes due to maltreatment and who subsequently spent at least 5 months in foster care. The caregivers of the children were interviewed 6 months after receiving the children in their homes (Time 1 interview). Six years later, 149 of the children between the ages of 13 and 17 were interviewed (Time 2 interview). Sixty-three children (42.5%) experienced reunification while 86 (57.5%) did not. At Time 1, there were no differences between the reunified and nonreunified groups on age, gender, ethnicity, types of maltreatment, or behavior problems. However, at Time 2, adolescents who had been reunified with their families had higher scores than nonreunified youth on measures of self-destructive behaviors, substance use, total risk behaviors, internalizing behaviors, tickets/arrests, and dropping out of school, and they had lower school grades and total competence scores. Additional measures for reunified youth also indicated a trend toward greater involvement in delinquent behaviors and sexual risk behaviors than nonreunified youth. Regression analyses indicated that reunification significantly predicted self-destructive behaviors, substance abuse, total risk behaviors, lower grades, and arrests/tickets with other variables controlled. Overall, reunified adolescents had higher scores than nonreunified adolescents in 9 of the 14 domains of problem behaviors studied, and reunified status predicted negative outcomes in 8 of the 9 regression models even after age, gender, and Time 1 behavior problems were controlled. Taken together, most research evidence suggests that reunification does not advantage the children, although it is possible that group biases may have been operating. In addition to the negative outcomes described above, not all children who are reunified with their biological parents continue in stable placements there. Although estimates of the percentage of children who reenter foster care after being reunited with their biological parents vary widely, the majority of preASFA studies find reentry rates between 20% and 30% (e.g., Courtney, 1995; Frame, Berrick, & Brodowski, 2000; Goerge, 1990). Several studies have followed children for only a period of months after they reunified with their biological families, but most reentry to foster care occurs 1 to 2 years after reunification (Levy, Markovic, Chandhry, Ahart, & Torres, 1995). When children are followed longer, a higher reentry rate becomes apparent. For example, Terling (1999) found that 37% of children who were reunited with their biological families reentered foster care within 3.5 years. A limitation with these findings is that these studies were conducted with samples that entered foster care and were reunified with their biological families before the enactment of ASFA. Short-term findings on reunification rates following ASFA suggest that reentry rates are around 15% a year or less following reunification, but 33% of children reunified in 1998 had reentered foster care within three years, suggesting that reentry rates pre- and post-ASFA may be similar (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). Several factors are related to the likelihood that a child placed in foster care will be reunified with his or her biological parents. In particular, children who have been neglected by their biological parents are less likely to be reunified than those who have been physically or sexually abused (Berrick, Needell, Barth, & Jonson-Reid, 1998; Rzepnicki, Schuerman, & Johnson, 1997). When abuse has occurred, the

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severity of the abuse is inversely related to the probability of reunification (Barth et al., 1986). The biological parents’ financial situation, mental and emotional state, drug abuse history, homelessness, criminality, social support, and harm of other children are other factors related to the likelihood of reunification (e.g., Rzepnicki et al., 1997; Terling, 1999). The longer children stay in foster care, the less likely their reunification becomes (Courtney, 1994). For example, about 25% of children younger than 5 years of age are reunified with their biological parents within 3 months (Berrick et al., 1998); the steepest decline in the likelihood of reunification occurs in the first few weeks of foster care (Goerge, 1990). Again, because predictors of reunification and reentry may have changed with the enactment of ASFA, it will be important to continue examining these issues using post-ASFA data. Again using pre-ASFA data, Terling (1999) investigated which circumstances are most likely to result in children reentering foster care after being reunified with their biological parents. She found that factors related to the likelihood of reunification were also related to the likelihood of reentering foster care. That is, a history of referrals, neglect (as opposed to physical or sexual abuse), substance abuse by caretakers, criminal history of caretakers, competency problems of caretakers (as defined by either low intellectual functioning, misunderstanding of the expectations they had to meet, or both), social isolation, and negative relationships (e.g., a partner/spouse who abused drugs) distinguished those cases most likely to experience reentry. Substance abuse was implicated in almost half of the cases in which children reentered foster care, as compared to 20% of nonreentry cases. One of the main differences regarding substance abuse in reentry versus nonreentry cases was involvement of the parent with a substanceabusing partner who had not been treated. Although reunification is permitted only if the maltreating individual is substance free, there is generally no requirement that his/her partner or spouse must abide by the treatment criteria. Strikingly, in every case in which a spouse or partner abused substances and did not undergo treatment, the child reentered foster care. Terling’s (1999) results are also consistent with findings of other studies that indicate that prior referrals to child protective services (CPS) often predict reentry. Sixty-seven percent of the children who reentered foster care had had prior referrals compared to only 12% of those who did not reenter foster care. Terling found that many of the cases that reopened had extremely lengthy histories, many with up to 9 earlier referrals. Thus, she concluded that parents’ inability or unwillingness to make alterations after dealing with CPS predicts reentry. Interestingly, Terling (1999) found that CPS risk assessment and postreunification assessments of family functioning did not distinguish reentry from nonreentry cases. She hypothesized that this finding is largely due to the use of surface level indicators, such as the physical appearance of the household and parenting behaviors observed during caseworkers’ visits to homes when judging risk and family functioning. In addition, she found that parents’ compliance with treatment plans did not predict successful reunification and stated that battendance doesn’t necessarily mean that [a neglectful parent in a parenting class] is understanding, accepting, and incorporating the information into his/her parenting practicesQ (p. 1368). To summarize, most of the research evidence to date suggests that reunification with biological parents is related to more rather than fewer adjustment difficulties for children and that reentry to foster care occurs in a substantial minority of reunified families. This suggests that ASFA’s reduced emphasis on reunification (if it is deemed that this cannot be accomplished expeditiously and safely) and increased emphasis on other permanent placements compared to the 1980 Act is in the best interests of children in foster care. However, this conclusion must be qualified by the understanding that the studies described above used data collected prior to the enactment of ASFA and are correlational, limiting our ability to

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draw firm causal conclusions. It will be important to address this question using data collected since the enactment of ASFA and to devise research designs and analyses that will make it possible to evaluate the effects of reunification, continued foster care, and adoption on children. 4.2. Adjustment of adopted children If children are not reunified with their biological parents, the next relevant question is whether research suggests that adoption, as a permanent placement, confers advantages to children beyond placement in foster care. In any study of adopted children and children in foster care, a crucial consideration is to which group or groups they should be compared to provide the most accurate estimate of how their adjustment compares to the adjustment of other children. For example, although most of the adoption literature focuses on the adjustment of children who were adopted as healthy infants, comparing the adjustment of this group to the adjustment of children who remain in foster care might result in misleading conclusions. Instead, a more appropriate comparison in terms of evaluating the impact of adoption versus remaining in foster care would be between older children who are adopted from foster care after experiencing abuse or neglect in their biological families with children who have had similar experiences in their biological families but remain in foster care instead of being adopted. Even here, caution is warranted, though, because children who are adopted from foster care differ from those who remain in foster care. In particular, although 85% of children who were adopted from foster care in 1998–2000 could be classified as having at least one special need qualifying them for Title IV-E subsidies and thus represent a high-risk group to at least some degree, children adopted from foster care are more likely to be younger than 12 years (approximately 87%) compared to those who remained in foster care (approximately 46% of the foster care population; U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). For children adopted as infants or very young children, several pre-ASFA studies suggest few differences between their adjustment and the adjustment of children who live with their biological parents (e.g., Brodzinsky, 1993; Lansford, Ceballo, Abbey, & Stewart, 2001; Plomin & DeFries, 1985). Indeed, Bohman and Sigvardson’s (1990) longitudinal study of infants either placed in foster care or adopted in comparison to community controls revealed that at age 18 years, children who had been in long-term foster care had levels of maladjustment two to three times higher than both the community controls and the adopted group. The research is less clear on the adjustment of children adopted at older ages. Some evidence suggests that children with special needs and those who are adopted when they are older may show adjustment problems comparable to those of children in foster care and that when age of placement is controlled, placements are equally likely to be disrupted for children in adoptive and longterm foster families (e.g., Holloway, 1997). However, other studies have shown that even later-adopted children show better adaptation than children in long-term foster care (e.g., Triseliotis, 2002). Children’s well-being has been found to be more strongly related to their perceptions of the permanence of their placement than to the legal status of the placement (i.e., foster care, adoption, or birth families; Lahti, 1982). From his review of research comparing child outcomes associated with long-term foster care versus adoption, Triseliotis (2002) concluded that adopted children have higher levels of emotional security, sense of belonging, and well-being than do children in long-term foster care, although children who are older when they are adopted or have special needs also show high levels of adjustment problems. On average, about 43% of foster care placements break down between 2 and 5 years after the placement is made; in contrast, only 19% of adoptive placements of children with special needs break down within 2 to 8 years of placement (Triseliotis, 2002). Although the rates of failure of these

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placements vary somewhat depending on the child’s age at the time of placement, across ages, adoption is less likely to be disrupted than is foster care. Children and parents in these different types of families appear to be well aware of differences in stability between them. For example, children and parents in foster families experience more anxiety about the future of the child’s placement than do adoptive families, and they are also more likely to doubt that the child belongs with the family (Triseliotis, 1983). Furthermore, in the face of difficulties, adoptive parents are more likely to persevere whereas foster parents are more likely to end the relationship (Quinton, Rushton, Dance, & Mayes, 1998). Although Triseliotis (2002) cautioned that long-term foster care may be better for children in certain situations, such as when older children expressly do not want to be adopted, he asserted that the bweight of the evidence examined suggests that adoption confers significant advantages to children who cannot return to their birth families, especially in terms of emotional security and sense of belongingQ (p. 30). Finally, Seltzer and Bloksberg (1987) emphasized that permanency planning is not the goal in and of itself, but rather a method for reaching the goals of ensuring the security and well-being of children; creating reliable and continuing relationships between children and their biological, foster, or adoptive parents; and improving children’s ability to adjust to new situations. They reviewed the literature on permanency planning, defined as bthe absence of disruptions,Q and found that a number of studies conducted during the 1960s through 1980s indicate that permanency planning increases the rate of adoption but not the rate of reunification. Children who were adopted were much less likely to experience disruptions than children in any other form of placement. Reunification was the least stable form of placement. The authors argue that reunification with biological parents is not necessarily a permanent placement and that reunified children are more likely to reenter foster care than are children placed in adoptive homes. Seltzer and Bloksberg’s (1987) conclusions were drawn from studies conducted prior to ASFA, and an important question is to what extent their conclusions apply in the post-ASFA era. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (2002) evaluation of ASFA, the percentage of children who left foster care who were reunified with their biological parents increased from 48% in 1998 to 55% in 1999 and remained at 55% in 2000. During this same period, the percentage of reunified children who reentered foster care within the same year decreased from 18% in 1998 to 15% in 1999 and to 14% in 2000, but approximately 33% of the 1998 cohort had reentered foster care within three years (U.S. General Accounting Office, 2002). It is too early to tell what the long-term reentry rates will be. Nevertheless, these early post-ASFA findings provide some evidence that unlike Seltzer and Bloksberg’s earlier findings, permanency planning may increase rates of both adoption (recall the 57% increase in adoptions since ASFA) and reunification.

5. The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997: A second look Overall, research findings suggest that foster care can be an effective means of providing a temporary solution to the problem of protecting children from current or imminent harm at home, particularly if children are young when they are placed in foster care, enter foster care with few problems, and experience stable placements while in foster care (Horwitz et al., 2001). However, these circumstances may not be representative of the circumstances of many children in foster care. Similarly, Orme and Buehler’s (2001) review of 34 empirical studies of children in foster care indicates that, in general, foster care can be feasible, minimally disruptive, and possibly beneficial in the short term for children placed at an early age

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and who do not have severe preplacement problems. Several pre-ASFA studies suggest that children in foster care display less problematic adjustment than do children who are reunified with biological parents. Foster children themselves respond in support of foster care as a favorable means of protecting children temporarily from harm within their biological families (Johnson, Yoken, & Voss, 1995). Thus, this research supports the use of foster care as a means to ensure the safety of our nation’s children. However, foster care is designed to be a temporary solution. The evidence on long-term outcomes associated with foster care, as well as stability and changes in placements, indicates that the primary purposes of ASFA, that is, to shorten the length of time children spend in foster care and to minimize the disruptions they experience while there, are important goals. Permanency planning has met with almost unanimous support from individuals involved in child welfare services, including CPS workers, the courts, and legislative and policymaking individuals and entities, and it is supported by the research reviewed above. In addition to agreement among providers, both research outcomes and providers’ experiences have led these professionals to conclude that psychosocial development is impaired by continued reliance on the foster care system. Additionally, the pre-ASFA research indicating that adoption is the most stable form of permanent plan (Seltzer & Bloksberg, 1987; Triseliotis, 2002) also supports the Act’s emphasis on getting foster children adopted more quickly. Thus, by supporting the creation of permanency plans and hastening their development, by shortening the amount of time allowed before holding a termination of parental rights hearing, and by promoting adoptions while still emphasizing the importance of preserving biological families if doing so is feasible, ASFA emphasizes providing the stable and continuous care for children that scientific research shows to be important. It is necessary to distinguish between policy and practice, however. Although as a policy, ASFA may have several strengths, in practice, several weakness of the child welfare system remain. As Allen and Bissell (2004) argue, bCaseloads are overwhelming, procedural timelines are tight, and families’ needs are complexQ (p. 64). Furthermore, ASFA is not applied uniformly across geographic regions, and effects of ASFA may depend on how it is implemented. For example, using data from foster children who became eligible for adoption in October 1997, Smith (2003) found differences across states in the rate at which children left foster care after their parents’ rights had been terminated; these differences remained after controlling for demographic and other caseload differences across states. In addition, changes in philosophies underlying different child welfare legislation over time (e.g., the 1980 versus 1997 Acts) have been subtle; accompanying changes in child well-being may be subtle as well. Despite the commendable goals of ASFA, research points to several problems and concerns that must be addressed if we are to realize fully the goal of ensuring the safety and health of all the nation’s children. Some children, generally the most maladjusted, may require long-term treatment. Foster care is designed to provide them with services that would not be available in a more traditional family setting (Staff & Fein, 1995). In addition, although reunification leads to reentry into foster care about 20–30% of the time, the majority of children who are reunified with their biological families do not reenter foster care. Many children miss their biological families and wish to be reunified (Johnson et al., 1995). Because of the problems associated with long-term foster care (e.g., numerous disruptions in placements) as well as reunification (e.g., high rates of reabuse/neglect and reentry into foster care), ASFA places greater emphasis on adoption. However, long-term foster care and reunification are more likely to work if states are provided with more resources to increase their efficacy. Unfortunately, the current foster care system faces serious problems related to lack of funding and unavailability of services (Courtney, 1998; English, 1998). It is widely recognized that local agencies do not have large enough staffs or enough financial resources to respond adequately to the large number of children and families in

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need of services (e.g., Chalk, Gibbons, & Scarupa, 2002; Malm, Bess, Leos-Urbel, Geen, & Markowitz, 2001). Waldfogel (1998) argues, bPut simply, the number of families involved with the child protection system far exceeds the capacity of the system to serve them responsiblyQ (p. 107). Many problems related to the child welfare system (e.g., high staff turnover, overburdened caseworkers) were not solved by ASFA, and the success of ASFA may be limited in practice by these lingering problems (e.g., Moye & Rinker, 2002). Thus, even as ASFA attempts to provide for the safety and well-being of children experiencing unsafe living conditions in their homes, we must look beyond its provisions and take further steps to ensure that the best interests of all children are being served. There is considerable debate among policymakers and practitioners about what steps are needed and how best to accomplish these goals. Children will benefit when relevant research findings are available to guide these decisions. For example, because substance abuse is implicated in so many of the reentry cases (Terling, 1999), requirements for reunification must include not only that the abusive parent undergo substance abuse treatment (which is already provided in some states), but that spouses and partners of the abusive parent who also have substance abuse problems undergo the same treatment. A separate area of concern involves the recruitment of potential adoptive parents. In March 2000, for example, approximately 64,000 children whose parents’ rights had been terminated were in immediate need of adoptive families (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001a, 2001b). This raises concerns about the bcapacity of the foster care system to recruit, prepare, and support an adequate number of adoptive families for the many children in care who are currently waiting to be adopted and the many children who will be freed for adoption in the future under ASFA time mandatesQ (Barbell & Freundlich, 2001, p. 17). These are especially important concerns given the prediction that over time, children in foster care will become more difficult as a group due to ASFA (Orme & Buehler, 2001).

6. Directions for future research With regard to what specifically deserves more research, the unfortunate answer according to most researchers, practitioners, and policymakers is almost everything, particularly because findings using pre-ASFA data may differ from findings using post-ASFA data. Much more research is needed to examine the salient variables that play a role in the entire continuum of the foster care experience, ranging from the factors that lead to the initial separation of children from their biological parents to those that bear on the ultimate outcomes for these children. More research is needed on the relative benefit of reunification versus adoption or continued foster care because past research has been marked by a bias in the assignment of children to reunify with their parents and now may be characterized as having a bias toward adoption, although reunification is still the preferred outcome under ASFA when this can be accomplished expeditiously and safely. More research is also needed on the particular circumstances in which adoption is the preferred outcome for children as well as on the environments best suited for those children who are confined to foster care because reunification and adoption have been declared impossible. Most importantly, longitudinal research is needed to determine the effects of ASFA, particularly in the area of adoption since the Act and the Adoption 2002 Initiative press for a dramatic increase in adoptions. One important question in this longitudinal work will be whether ASFA is leading to

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unintended consequences, such as reluctance on the part of social service agencies to remove children from their biological homes when such a decision is warranted because of concern that they will not be able to move children quickly out of foster care into permanent placements. Finally, more research should be devoted specifically to understanding the suggestions and feelings of foster children themselves because these children’s voices often go unheard in debates about what is in their best interests (Taussig et al., 2001). These needs will be better served if developmental psychologists become more involved in research on foster and adopted children. 7. Concluding thoughts: The best interests of the child All in all, the most important question that must be answered is whether the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 provides for the best interests of the child. The answer based on the research reviewed here is a tentative yes, at least in theory if not yet in practice. Overall, research suggests that although foster care can be a beneficial short-term solution for children who are not safe with their biological parents, children in foster care are at risk for some long-term developmental difficulties. Furthermore, foster children who are not reunified with their biological parents have fewer adjustment difficulties than those who are reunified, but adoption promotes better adjustment than does long-term foster care. These findings suggest that the provisions of ASFA do provide for the best interests of the child in moving children more quickly out of foster care and into adoptive homes when reunification cannot be accomplished expeditiously and safely, with the important caveat that what may be best for the majority of children is not necessarily what is best for a particular individual child. Another important caveat is that the policy provisions of ASFA may not match the reality of the practices that occur in the child welfare system (e.g., if biological parents’ rights are terminated but an adoptive home cannot be found, leaving the child without a permanent placement). Research to date also suggests areas that should be improved, and limitations in this research necessarily make our conclusions tentative and preliminary. By allowing research to guide changes in practice and policy, we have the greatest chance of ensuring that the most vulnerable children in the nation do in fact receive the support and services they need to thrive in childhood and to grow into healthy and well-adjusted adults. References Achenbach, T. M. (1991). Manual for the child behavior checklist/4-18 and 1991 profile. Burlington, VT7 University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry. Administration for Children and Families. (2001). Adoption 2002 Initiative. Retrieved April 4, 2002, from http://www.acf.dhhs. gov/programs/cb/initiatives/adopt2002. Allen, M., & Bissell, M. (2004). Safety and stability for foster children: The policy context. The Future of Children, 14, 49 – 73. Barbell, K., & Freundlich, M. (2001). Foster care today. Washington DC7 Casey Family Programs. Barth, R. P. (2001). Institutions vs. foster homes: The empirical base for the second century of debate. Chapel Hill, NC7 UNC, School of Social Work, Jordan Institute for Families. Barth, R. P., Snowden, L. R., Broeck, E. T., Clancy, T., Jordan, C., & Barusch, A. S. (1986). Contributors to reunification or permanent out-of-home care for physically abused children. Journal of Social Service Research, 9, 31 – 45. Berrick, J. D. (1997). Assessing quality of care in kinship and foster family care. Family Relations, 46, 273 – 280.

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