Contact After Adoption or Guardianship: Child Welfare Agency and Family Interactions

The study explores the intentional and unintentional ways public child welfare agencies contact or receive information about the stability and well-being of children and youth who have exited the foster care system through adoption or guardianship.

• Study findings show that many states initiate contact with families after adoption or guardianship. This contact includes sending newsletters and well-being letters to families, providing services and supports to families, surveying families about their needs, or offering training opportunities to help keep families engaged with the child welfare agency. More than 90% of state agency participants also indicate that families initiate contact with agencies after adoption or guardianship. This contact most commonly occurs by phone when a family calls an agency to express a service need. 

• Most state agencies have access to data to help them monitor when children re-enter foster care after adoption or guardianship. However, state agency participants report that their agencies do not typically create reports on the frequency of post adoption or guardianship instability.

• Agency staff are sometimes, but not consistently, notified about children’s instability events beyond foster care re-entry. For example, agencies report that it is not unusual for an adoptive parent or guardian (or sometimes youth) to notify an agency staff member that a child is residing in residential or institutional care, group home care, has run away from home, is homeless, or is living with friends or relatives. However, this information is not often tracked systematically.

• The study’s results highlight the need to develop supportive agency—family relationships that begin before adoption and guardianship are finalized and continue post-finalization. Agency efforts would be enhanced by a data system that helps track families who receive services after adoption or guardianship and those who may be struggling.

This study used a multimode approach, including web surveys and key informant interviews. State adoption program managers completed up to two web-based surveys. One web survey focused on adoption practices whereas one focused on guardianship practices. Representatives from four child welfare state agencies also participated in key informant interviews. These interviews gathered in-depth information about post adoption and guardianship agency practices and procedures.    

Research on post adoption and guardianship instability is critical to building knowledge about the types of instability experienced by children who exit foster care to adoption or guardianship and the strengths, supports, and resources that promote post-permanency stability. To accomplish this, child welfare agencies may consider the development of a systematic way to track foster care re-entries and agency—family interactions after legal custody has shifted from the state to adoptive parents or guardians. The study highlights the need to develop supportive agency—family relationships that begin before adoption and guardianship are finalized and continue post-finalization.

Rolock, N., White, K., Bai, R., Ringeisen, H., Domanico, R., Stambaugh, L., Flanigan, C. (2021). Contact After Adoption or Guardianship:  Child Welfare Agency and Family Interactions, OPRE Report # 2022-135. Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

White, K. R., Rolock, N., Testa, M., Ringeisen, H., Childs, S., Johnson, S., & Diamant-Wilson, R. (2018). Understanding post adoption and guardianship instability for children and youth who enter foster care. Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.