Home Adoption Essay

Securing a permanent and supportive family home has been associated with positive outcomes for foster care children (Barth, Crea, John, Thoburn, & Quinton, 2005; Triseliotis, 2000; Triselitotis, 2002), yet, the elevated occurrence of chronic emotional-behavioral problems among this population of children can alienate family members, destabilize family units, and result in up to 25% of adoptions being legally dissolved, often referred to as disrupted (Dorsey, Conover, & Revillion-Cox, 2014; Purvis, Cross, & Pennings, 2009). Researchers have found that stressors associated with adopting a foster care child and the risk of a damaging disruption can be militated, in part, through access to and participation in adoption services (Barth et al., 2005; Dorsey et al., 2014; Hartinger-Saunders, Trouteaud, Matos-Johnson, 2015; Hussey, Falletta, & Eng, 2012). While, family and individual counseling …show more content…
Research on foster populations has identified a set of pre-adoption risk factors that impair aspects of children’s cognitive, physical, social, and emotional functioning, and can compromise adoptees’ adjustment to permanent homes (Houston & Kramer, 2008). Foster care children have disproportionately high experiences of toxic substances in-utero, limited prenatal care, prematurity, low birth weight, abuse, neglect, trauma, and sexual and physical abuse (Purvis, Cross, & Sunshine, 2007). Secondary risk factors relate to the age of adoption, ethnicity, male gender, and number of prior placements (Hussey et al., 2012). Most notable is the prevalence of mental illness among children exiting the foster system to permanent homes with rates currently estimated at 47 % (Hussey et al.,