National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adoption Follow-Up Study: Findings Report

The NSCAW Adoption Study examines the extent to which children who exit foster care to adoption experience instability as well as risk and protective factors for several types of formal (e.g., foster care reentry) and informal (e.g., child runs away or experiences homelessness) instability. This study also seeks to understand those services and supports received by families who have adopted children who exited foster care.

• Prevalence of Post Adoption Instability - Almost 10% of adoptees experienced formal post adoption instability. Approximately 8% experienced foster care reentry after adoption and 2% the termination of the adoptive parents’ parental rights or the child’s emancipation prior to the age of 18 years. Thirty percent of participants experienced informal instability after adoption. The most common informal instability events included a child running away (18% of all adoptees), leaving home prior to the age of 18 years (17%), living with a nonrelative adult instead of the adoptive parent (9%), and a period of homelessness (8%).
• Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Instability - Findings revealed factors associated with both formal and informal post adoption instability, including less nurturing adoptive family relationships during childhood and the presence of child behavior problems early in the adoptive relationship. Findings also showed factors only associated with informal stability, including older child age at the time of adoption, child sex assigned at birth (being female), and less parent-child closeness prior to the adoption. However, when accounting for the influence of all other potential risk/protective factors, only less nurturing adoptive family relationships continued to show a significant association with both formal and informal post adoption instability.
• Current Adoptive Parent-Adoptee Relationships — Most NSCAW Adoption Study adoptees and adoptive parents described close current relationships with each other and a strong sense of the adoptee’s belonging to the family. This was true even for many who experienced formal or informal instability. For example, while 25% of adoptive parents whose child experienced formal post adoption instability described currently feeling “not close at all” to their child, more than half described currently feeling “extremely” or “very” close.
• Services and Supports — NSCAW Adoption Study participants more commonly reported services needed than services received. This is consistent with prior studies. When asked about the types of services needed, participants most often reported needing children’s mental health services. More than 60% of all adoptees or adoptive parents reported having received children’s mental health services. Participants received other services, such as educational supports, less than 50% of the time. When asked about barriers to receiving services, adoptive parents described a general lack of assistance, support, or information received from the child welfare agency. Adoptee participants mostly commonly reported service barriers to be an unsupportive family or a lack of understanding from their family about their needs.

Adoptees and adoptive parents completed online surveys or surveys by telephone to describe their experiences with post adoption instability, the context surrounding post adoption instability events, their current parent-child relationships, and information about needed services and supports. Analyses examined secondary data available through NSCAW I and II along with data from these new NSCAW Adoption Study surveys of adoptees and their adoptive parents.

• Families’ knowledge of, and better access to available post adoption services and supports may help prevent post adoption instability experiences.
• Improvements in the quality of adoptee-adoptive parent relationships, support for nurturing family relationships, and facilitation of an adoptee’s sense of family belonging may help to prevent post adoption instability.
• More pre and post adoption supports appear particularly important for families finalizing adoptions for older children (particularly those adopted over 2 years of age) or those with known emotional or behavioral health problems.
• Post adoption instability may occur many years after a child’s adoption is finalized, when child welfare agencies may no longer be in contact with adoptive families. For this reason, it may be helpful for agencies to stay in touch with families long after adoption finalization.

Ringeisen, H., Domanico, R., Rolock, N., White, K., Tueller, S., & Stambaugh, L. (2022). National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) Adoption Follow-Up Study: Findings Report, OPRE Report # 2022-306. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services