Adoption News

Understanding Adoption Subsidies: An Analysis Of AFCARS Data

Adoption subsidies are perhaps the single-most powerful tool by which the child welfare system can encourage adoption and support adoptive families. Yet little is known about the factors associated with the receipt and amount of subsidies. Data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) offer an opportunity to examine how states use adoption subsidies to help achieve goals of permanency and well-being for children.Of particular interest to this study are patterns of subsidy receipt, the role of federal support for adoption subsidies under Title IV-E, and the relationship between adoption subsidies and adoption outcomes, including the rate of adoptions among eligible children and the timeliness of adoption.

Nearly all children adopted from foster care in recent years received an adoption subsidy. Nationally, 88 percent of children adopted in FY 2001 received an adoption subsidy, with subsidy receipt ranging from 13 percent to 100 percent across states. Nearly all adopted children (88 percent) were identified as having special needs, such as age, that would have otherwise precluded adoption.

Federal adoption assistance through Title IV-E is widely used, representing 84 percent of all adoption subsidies nationally. Analysis of aggregate data found that states that identified larger percentages of children as IV-E eligible provided subsidies to more children. Multivariate analyses found associations between IV-E eligibility and both subsidy receipt and amount. States with higher levels of federal matching (FMAP) for IV-E adoption assistance offered lower subsidy amounts, suggesting that even augmented federal support does not offset limited financial resources within these states.

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	Did You Know?
	Adoption assistance is available Monthly or one-time only subsidy payments to help adoptive parents raise children with special needs. These payments were initially made possible by the enactment of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272) which provided Federa Most adoptive parents are two parent families Most adoptive parents are two parent families aged 31 to 40. A growing number of parents are aged 41 to 49. Most parents attended or completed college. Children can be adopted from other countries Adopting children from all over the world has become something U.S. residents and citizens have been doing more and more when starting or expanding their families. Over 20,000 inter-country adoptions are taking place per year in addition to the more than