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II. Study 1: Barriers Study: Methods and Demographics
A. Methods
The goal of the Barriers study was to identify actual and potential barriers to the completion of the adoption process from the perspective of a nationwide sample of 300 families seeking to adopt children from the foster care system. These families were seeking to adopt from public and private agencies. It is important to note that the private agencies contracted with the State (public) agencies to facilitate adoptions of children from foster care. As families entered the study, they were assigned to one of two categories: 1) "Continuing" if they were in the process of adopting a child from the foster care system or 2) "Discontinued" if they had ceased the process of adopting a child from the foster care system. Continuing families may have been at any point in the process, from the initial adoption application to a completed home study and awaiting placement. Some of these families may have applied originally through one agency and then worked with another agency, but were still continuing the process. The majority of prospective adopters were experiencing the process for the first time and had not yet had a child placed in their home when they began participation in the study. There were, however, a few families included in the sample who had adopted previously (and were participating in this study while they were seeking to adopt for the second or third time) or already had received a child, but the adoption was not finalized. "Discontinued" families were either no longer seeking to adopt at all or were no longer seeking to adopt a child from the foster care system. The latter group of families decided to pursue international adoption or the adoption of an infant through a private agency.
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1. Initial Data Collection
Initially, adoption agencies mailed "family packets" to prospective adoptive families qualifying for participation in the study. Families interested in participating were asked to return their packets to the University of Texas Research Team. These packets included consent forms for participation and a demographic form to be completed by families. Participating families then completed an "Adoption Process Questionnaire," which consisted of a series of 21 questions to assess which parts of the adoption process had been completed at the point of enrollment in the study. Upon completion of the process questionnaire, research team members used a structured interview schedule to conduct telephone interviews (usually between one and one half hours) to gather detailed information about the parts of the adoption process completed by the participant at the time of the interview. Discontinued families were given the option of completing an interview or a mailed survey and were asked questions about all parts of the process that they had completed prior to discontinuing their efforts to adopt from foster care. All interviews were transcribed verbatim.
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2. Follow-up Data Collection
Upon completion of the initial interview, continuing prospective adoptive families were sent a follow-up survey every four months until a child was placed in the home and the adoption was finalized, or until the family decided to discontinue trying to adopt a child from the foster care system. This survey included questions about their experiences attempting to adopt since the initial data collection period.
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3. Exit Interviews
Families exited the study in one of three ways: 1) through finalizing the adoption of a child placed in their home; 2) by choosing to discontinue the adoption process of a child from foster care (which moved the family into the discontinued category); or 3) by choosing to withdraw from the study. Exit telephone interviews were conducted with families falling into the first two groups. These interviews contained questions pertaining to their experiences since the last interview and finalization of the adoption, or where appropriate, questions pertaining to the reasons for discontinuing their plan to adopt from foster care. An illustration of the process of data collection in this prospective study is provided below:
Figure 1. Barriers Study Data Flow
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4. Coding Methodology
Codebooks were developed and tested. Transcribed interviews were then coded by the Barriers study coding team, which was comprised of 13 staff members: two experienced coders (doctoral students) who served as team leaders and 11 graduate students trained by the team leaders. Coder training entailed two three-hour classes for each of the three codebooks used, followed by the whole team coding and consensing together one to three cases until the team demonstrated acceptable reliability. After training, adoptive family interviews were assigned to a pair of trained coders. After independent coding by the two team members, the pair met for consensus to resolve any areas of disagreement by choosing the most appropriate code. The codes were then checked by one of the two coding team leaders to ensure group reliability as a whole. Individual coding team members were randomly rotated to ensure that the various pairs of coders were following the same decision-making conventions. The two coding team leaders also coded cases, rotating through working with different team members.
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B. Demographic Characteristics of Family Participants
1. Family Structure: Initial Data Collection
A sample of 300 families was selected to participate in the Barriers study. The majority, 62 percent, were married couples, four percent were unmarried same-sex couples, one percent were unmarried opposite-sex couples, 28 percent were single females, and five percent were single males.
Table 1. Family Structure
Family Structure |
Number |
Percent |
|---|---|---|
Married couples |
185 |
62% |
Unmarried couples-same sex |
11 |
4% |
Unmarried couples-opposite sex |
3 |
1% |
Single females |
85 |
28% |
Single males |
16 |
5% |
Total |
300 |
100% |
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2. Family Status
At the time of initial data collection, 252 (84 percent) families were continuing the process of adopting and 48 (16 percent) families had discontinued the process.
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3. Age, Education, and Family Income
The average age of the prospective adoptive mothers participating in the Barriers study was 41 years and prospective fathers was 43 years. Prospective adoptive mothers had completed an average of 16 years of education and fathers an average of 15 years of education. There were no significant differences in the income level of those who were continuing the adoption process and those who chose to discontinue. The families who were continuing in the adoption process had an average income of $72,399; the families who had discontinued had $71,956.
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4. Family Race/Ethnicity by Family Status
Participants were each asked to identify their ethnic background. In cases in which each parent was racially/ethnically mixed, the couple was considered of "mixed race/ethnicity" (e.g., male is Caucasian and African American as well as the female is Caucasian and African American). Interracial couples were those in which the participants were of different ethnicities. In this sample, there were 23 interracial couples (n = 23; 18 continuing; 5 discontinued). Most prospective adoptive families in the study were Caucasian (n = 195; 163 continuing; 32 discontinued). The second largest group in the study was African American families (n = 59, 48 continuing, 11 discontinued). There were no Native American, Asian, Hispanic, or mixed race/ethnicity families in the sub-sample of families who had already discontinued at study entry.
Table 2. Family Race/Ethnicity by Family Status*
Status |
Native American |
Asian |
African American |
Hispanic |
Inter-racial |
Mixed Race/Ethnicity |
Caucasian (non-Hispanic) |
Total Families |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Continuing |
3 |
1 |
48 |
15 |
18 |
4 |
163 |
252 |
|
Discontinued |
0 |
0 |
11 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
32 |
48 |
Total** |
3 |
1 |
59 |
15 |
23 |
4 |
195 |
300 |
*Percentages are calculated on the total for each row (e.g., n = 252 for continuing families).
**Percentages do not always add to 100% due to rounding.
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5. Family Race/Ethnicity by Type of Agency
Family race/ethnicity is presented in Table 3 according to type of agency used. Almost all families were more likely to use private than public agencies but African American, Hispanic, and interracial families were twice as likely to use private agencies than public agencies: African American (n = 42 private; n = 17 public); Hispanic families (n = 10 private; n = five public); and interracial families (n = 16 private; n = seven public). Of the three Native American families, one used a private agency and two used a public agency.
Table 3. Family Race/Ethnicity by Type of Agency*
Status |
Native American |
Asian |
African American |
Hispanic |
Inter-racial |
Mixed Race/ Ethnicity |
Caucasian (non-Hispanic) |
Total Families |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Private |
1 |
1 |
42 |
10 |
16 |
2 |
103 |
175 |
Public |
2 |
0 |
17 |
5 |
7 |
2 |
92 |
125 |
Total** |
3 |
1 |
59 |
15 |
23 |
4 |
195 |
300 |
*Percentages are calculated on the total for each column (e.g., n = 3 for Native American).
**Percentages do not always add to 100% due to rounding.
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6. Adoptive Parent Sample
Three hundred families who were in the process of adopting from the child welfare system were selected for participation in the Barriers study. Over the four years of the study, these families were interviewed periodically by telephone. At the close of data collection on July 1, 2007, 98 families (33 percent) had completed the process, received children, and finalized their adoptions; 102 families (34 percent) had discontinued the process of adopting a child through the child welfare system; and 16 families (five percent) were still continuing in the process. Among the 16 families who were still in the process of adopting, seven families had been approved to adopt but were waiting for children to be placed in their homes and nine families had children placed with them, but the adoptions had not yet been finalized. The remaining 84 families (28 percent) were re-contacted throughout the four-year period but for various reasons stopped responding to requests for updates, so their final adoption outcome is unknown. In this report, data from the 102 families who discontinued the adoption process and the 98 families who finalized an adoption are highlighted (N = 200). These groups will be referred to as "discontinued" and "finalized."
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